The Breath of Lives by John H. Waggoner

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 16, 1876

The Breath of Lives.

By John H. Waggoner

Not long since, I heard a funeral sermon preached by a minister of the M. E. church, who mentioned that in Gen. 2 : 7, “the breath of lives” (plural) is said to have been given to man, and he affirmed that a two-fold life was given to him, or, rather, two lives, one of the body and one of the soul or spirit. And then he challenged the world to prove that it did not mean that man was possessed of immortality or an immortal soul! But “the world” probably thought it was unbecoming to accept a challenge at a funeral, as it certainly was to give one, and therefore it very properly held its peace.

It may be worth while to look at this point to see if any conclusion can be rightfully drawn from this text in favor of natural immortality.

1. The man who became a living soul, not to whom an immortal soul was imparted, was made of the dust of the ground. It was into this man, made of dust, that the breath of lives was breathed.

2. That nothing can be claimed on the term “living soul” is proved in that the same term is applied to the creeping things of the earth, in the first chapter of Genesis.

3. That the plural—lives—is not decisive of man’s immortality is shown in Gen. 6 : 17, and 7 : 21, 22, wherein the same form of expression is used in reference to the lower animals. The last cited text is very strong—“the breath of the spirit of lives,” applied both to man and to other animals.

4. It must be admitted that man was deprived of access to the tree of life in order to the execution of the sentence that he should die; that is, he was deprived of the means of perpetuating his life. Said the Lord, “Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden.”

5. It is clearly shown by this that if man had been permitted to eat of the tree of life, he would have lived forever, or have been immortal; and that he could not continue to live because not permitted to eat of that tree.

6. But the word life in the phrase, “tree of life,” is always in the Hebrew in the plural; literally, tree of lives; and therefore if the plural in the breath of lives proves that two lives were given to man, the plural in the tree of lives proves that the continuance of these lives was suspended on his partaking of the tree. If he had a plurality of lives, yet when he was shut out from the tree of lives lest he should live forever, evidently both or all his lives were involved in the loss.

7. Therefore it is seen that it is not enough for the advocates of natural immortality to merely show that lives, plural, is found in Gen. 2 : 7, nor to assert that immortal life was imparted; but it must be proved that one of his lives was immortal or eternal, and that it could not be affected by his being deprived of the tree of lives, which is contrary to the obvious meaning of Gen. 3 : 22–24.

8. To fairly prove a point from the Hebrew it is necessary to understand somewhat the idioms of the language and to recognize its peculiarities of construction. Thus Psa. 66 : 9 reads, literally, He “holdeth our soul in lives;” and Prov. 14 : 30, “A sound heart is the lives of the flesh.” These surely do not indicate that the soul has a mortal life with its immortal life, nor that the flesh has an immortal with its mortal life. We think no one would be bold enough to assume a plurality of beings from the words of the Lord to Cain, “The voice of thy brother’s bloods crieth unto me from the ground.” Or, if it is claimed, it must then be admitted that both these lives were in his blood. Com. Lev. 17 : 11, 14. These are mere peculiarities of the Hebrew from which no proof can be drawn either for or against any doctrine. The translators, aware of this, have wisely given the correct idea of the original without trying to transfer the idioms of that language into the English which would confuse without profit.

9. It is neither frank nor honorable to draw a conclusion from an expression or a word in the original which a harmony of the original plainly contradicts. But if they who put forth the claim referred to, do not know what the harmony of the original is, it does not increase our respect for their frankness or ability to hear them “challenge the world” to meet them on a point on which they are so evidently ignorant.

10. The more this subject is examined the more evident it appears that man is a weak, perishing mortal, entirely dependent on Jesus Christ for eternal life, which will be given to the righteous in the first resurrection, over which “the second death hath no power;” and that men, instead of exalting themselves and boasting of their strength and glory, would do well to acknowledge that they are vanity, and of the dust, and pray as one of old, “Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am.” May a sense of our frailty lead us to seek “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” J. H. WAGGONER.