Inherent Immortality by Mrs. E. H. Adams.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 34.

Inherent Immortality.

By Mrs. E. H. Adams.

SEVERAL times, recently, a cultured Christian woman, in conversation with the writer on the subject of man's immortality, has used the following expressions at the close of our talk:—

“No, I cannot, I do not want to believe that we do not live right on after the death of the body, nor that every human being will not live forever. I believe there is a spark of the divine life in every one of us, and that nothing can extinguish it.”

Ah, that is the trouble. Men do not want to believe the plain, often-repeated statements of the word of God on these points, but prefer to cling to an error whose final outcome for the impenitent is eternal torment, inflicted by a holy Being whose very name and nature are love, who declares himself to be pitiful and long-suffering!

Omitting many passages in the Scriptures which prove conclusively that both the righteous and the wicked sleep in their graves until their respective resurrections, may it not help some to clearer views and wiser action in the case, to let the Bible settle the question whether eternal life is inherent in man?

In John 10 : 10 Christ declared: “I am come that they might have life.” That is very high authority. This was the Redeemer of the world, the Son of God, telling living men that he had come that they might have life. What a paradox! Did he mean physical life? They possessed that already. The Saviour's life and death upon the earth seems to have effected little change for mankind in reference to their mortal existence, except that the lofty principles he taught have lifted many to a higher plane of sympathy, self-denial, and effort for the race. Generally speaking, the period of human life is not materially prolonged by his advent. He must therefore have spoken of some other life than that of the body, and, moreover, of a life which men did not have but which it was very important they should possess.

The Scriptures speak of but two stages of life for men,—the present, and that to come, or life eternal. We conclude, therefore, that Christ came that we might have the latter,—life after physical death. If that be so, eternal life cannot be inborn in us, indestructible, and of which “no power can deprive us;” else Christ died to no purpose, to secure us that which we already had. This is irrational. The word of God abounds in passages which show that without Christ, we were without hope of a life after death, and were in a condition “most miserable.” Hear some of the “words.”

“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Then but for the sending of Christ, man's prospect for the future must have been to “perish.” When a thing is perished, it exists no longer, if words have any meaning. It is dead, “gone to destruction.” Certainly, eternal life is not inherent in it. Has any being in the universe “life in himself”? Just two. “The Father hath life in himself,” and “hath given to the Son to have life in himself.” And now, to all those who “by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for . . . immortality,” God will “render” “eternal life.” Then it is because we seek it, and continue in well-doing, that God restores to men what they have lost—eternal life—and not because they have it naturally.

“This is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.” Immortality is ours, then, by promise, and not by natural birth.

But this is not all. Turning back to Deut. 30 : 19, we read: “I call Heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” That the great Lawgiver here made no reference to physical life and death, is evident, because he makes these results matters of choice, and dependent on moral conduct, as appears still more plainly from the fifteenth verse: “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.” Since both the righteous and the wicked alike live their mortal lives, and alike succumb to physical decay, the latter can hardly be the death that the Lord through Moses presses them to shun; nor the former the life he urges them to choose. It must therefore be the life forevermore. If men may then accept or reject it, as they please, it can scarcely be inbred in them. How sore, consequently, in the final day will be the disappointment of those who, depending for future life upon their inherent immortality, fail to make this choice!

I know it may be said that in this noble charge to the Hebrew people, Moses had reference simply to their disruption as a nation and banishment from Palestine, or to their perpetuity therein as God's people. That these important results were in his mind, there is no doubt; but this does not make void the ground taken, that life and death eternal were to them individually, and are to every soul of man now, matters of choice. This is a truth so well understood, and so generally accepted, albeit too often forgotten, that further effort to prove it need not be made. How amazing that man is unwilling to take life on God's terms! He so much prefers to climb up some other way. Instead of possessing this boasted “spark of immortality,” his life is “alienated from the life of God,” a condition in which our first parents were not before the commandment was broken. Eternal life is now the gift of God. “This life is in his Son.” “He that hath not the Son, hath not life.” MRS. E. H. ADAMS.