THE PENALTY—WHAT WAS IT?
By Geo. D. Ballou
Much misunderstanding has arisen among those who hold the orthodox view of man's nature in regard to the true signification of the penalty threatened Adam in case he partook of the forbidden fruit. This penalty is found recorded in Gen. 2:17, in these words: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” It has been commonly thought that the death thus pronounced must come upon Adam in full the very day he ate of the fruit; and since he did not die, in the physical sense of the term as now used, the opinion has obtained that the term death must in this case be taken to mean a spiritual or moral fall or alienation from God, as expressed by the term “spiritual death.” A good rule of interpretation is, never to spiritualize a Scripture expression unless the subject on which it treats, viewed in all its bearings, forbids its being used in its natural and literal sense. By carefully examining the marginal reading, it will be seen that the death threatened was not to be fully carried into effect in the very day he might eat of the forbidden fruit. The expression “thou shalt surely die,” when literally rendered, “dying thou shalt die,” gives the true sense of the original. This would indicate a continuation of the act of dying; that he would begin to die that very day, and the process of decay and death would go on indefinitely until it became complete and final. By his sin the man sowed the seeds of decay in his nature, the sure harvest of which would be death, complete and final. It is an unvarying rule in criminal cases that the sentence is always in accordance with the penalty; and applying this rule, we know that we are right in our interpretation. Turn to Gen. 3:19. There we find the sentence pronounced on man at the close of the curse which God said would affect the earth for his sin, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.” This sentence certainly means physical death; and not simply physical death as commonly understood, but the death and dissolution of all that was alive about the creature whom God repeatedly addresses with the pronoun thou. This position is further sustained by John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Here the doom of man as a ‘sinner without a Saviour, which was Adam’s condition as soon as he disobeyed, is expressed by the word, perish; and this can be nothing less than total loss of life, extinction of being, death. But there are certain fatal objections to the idea that the penalty was spiritual death. The first is that Adam was spiritually dead before he partook of the fruit. For was he not spiritually dead as soon as he felt a desire in his heart to taste the forbidden fruit? Most assuredly. Then the penalty fell on the man before the act for which it was threatened. But that would scarcely do. Again, all will admit that the real crime of Adam lay in his conceiving sin in his heart; and this conceiving sin in the heart is spiritual death itself. Now, if we make spiritual death the penalty, we have the nameless absurdity of spiritual death being the penalty for spiritual death. This is a legitimate conclusion, if we allow the orthodox faith to be correct as to the penalty. No wonder people talk about the Bible being a mysterious book, when they hold notions which lead to such absurdities. One more objection arises from the statement of Paul in 1 Cor. 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” The Universalist can easily draw comfort from this passage, when upheld by the common view; for surely, if all die spiritually in Adam, all will be made spiritually alive in Christ. But let the death threatened Adam be just what we have shown it to be, death in the literal acceptation of the term, and this text fails to soothe the troubled minds which hope for spiritual life and immortality outside of repentance and righteousness. Why will not men see the crooked paths of error, and cease to walk by her side? GEO. D. BALLOU.