Life and Death Are Offered
By M. H. Brown
We May Take Our Choice—Whichever We Choose, It Will Be Eternal GOD is the author of life. “He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.” Acts 17:25. He has life in Himself. He is the origin of life. It inheres in Him by nature. He “only hath immortality.” 1 Tim. 6:16. He imparts life because He has it in abundance—an inexhaustible quantity. “As the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” John 5:26. Christ is said to be “the brightness of His [the Father’s] glory, and the express image of His person.” Heb. 1:3. In all things He has the preeminence, and in Him all fullness dwells. Col. 1:18, 19. Christ is called the Word of God, because God speaks through Him. This is true both in creation and in redemption. John 1:1-3; Col. 1:13-18; Heb. 1:1-3. He is Creator and Redeemer, our Example, our Sacrifice, our Mediator, our Advocate, our High Priest; and He declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:6. Again He says, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” John 11:25. John says, “In Him was life.” John 1:4. He had it in Himself; because the Father gave Him life in Himself. From these plain declarations of Scripture, we know that Christ has life that He can impart to others. He is the “Life-giver.” So He says of His sheep, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10. He said to the Jews who sought His life, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” John 5:40. The life to which He referred was not their natural life, for this they already had. It was the life He would give to His people in the resurrection. They will have a “resurrection unto life.” Verse 29. Adam sinned, and fell under the penalty of death; for “the wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23. His life was forfeited. The sentence of death is recorded in Gen. 3:19. The Lord said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” We all inherit a mortal nature from Adam, therefore all men are subject to death. This death may be called the first death. It came to Adam as the result of his sin. It comes to his posterity as a consequence of sin,—as an inheritance from parents who were mortal under the divine sentence. Hence we all die “in Adam,” but “in Christ” all are made alive. 1 Cor. 15:22. SAVES ALL FROM ADAMIC DEATH
Christ is said to be “the Saviour of all men.” This is true, but He does not save all men from sin. He saves them all from the Adamic death, the first death, by a resurrection. There will be “a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.” Acts 24:15. Christ “is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.” 1 Tim. 4:10. He saves all men from the first death by a resurrection. He saves believers from sin, and gives them eternal life. They “shall not be hurt of the second death.” Rev. 2:11. “On such the second death hath no power.” Rev. 20:6. They come up in the “first resurrection,” “the resurrection unto life,” “the resurrection of the just.” Verse 5; John 5:29; Luke 14:14; Acts 24:15. The human race is now on probation. We have an opportunity to choose between life and death. We may have the life so graciously and so freely offered by the Saviour; but if we refuse the gift of life by neglecting the great salvation, we will be counted among the unjust, and come up in the resurrection of that class, and suffer the second death in the lake of fire. Rev. 20:14; 21:8. There is no salvation from the second death. There will be no resurrection from it. “The wages of sin is death.” Death is the penalty, or punishment, of sin; and Christ died for our sins. 1 Cor. 15:3. He bore “our sins in His own body on the tree.” 1 Peter 2:24. He died in our room and stead. He suffered the penalty for sin, not something substituted for the penalty. Hence we know that endless misery, or eternal torment, is not the penalty. If eternal torment were the penalty, it would preclude the possibility of man’s salvation, for it would require all eternity for the penalty to be inflicted, and the Saviour Himself would be eternally lost, as well as man. The wisdom and love of God would not permit such a catastrophe. In what the second death consists, and how it is accomplished, we are not left to conjecture or doubt. The Lord has given us an object lesson that settles the question positively, and leaves no room for argument. The figurative expressions used in connection with the punishment of the wicked, to denote great and prolonged suffering, must be understood and explained in harmony with the object lesson which the Lord has given us with such clearness as to preclude any ground for controversy. Sodom and Gomorrha were destroyed, burned up with fire and brimstone rained down from heaven. Gen. 19:24. They “are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Jude 7. What did eternal fire do for those cities? Are they still burning?—No. Let Peter answer: “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.” 2 Peter 2:6. Malachi foretells a time when the wicked will be burned up (Mal. 4:1-3); and John, in holy vision, saw the wicked powers of earth, and all the wicked, meet their fate—the second death, in the lake of fire and brimstone. Rev. 19:20; 20:7-9, 14, 15; 21:8. ETERNAL FIRE—EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT
“Eternal” and “everlasting” are identical in meaning. They are translated from the same Greek word. When used to describe fire and punishment, in the Scriptures, they refer to the results or effect, and not to duration. We find them so used in Heb. 6:2; 9:12; Rev. 14:6. The term “eternal judgment” does not mean that the judgment will be eternal in its duration, but that it will be eternal in its results. It will be irrevocable. Its decisions will not be changed. Surely the judgment will not last eternally, else the work would never be completed, and the wicked would never be punished. The same is true concerning the terms “eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12) and “everlasting gospel” (Rev. 14:6). The results of “redemption” and of the “gospel” will be eternal, not the duration of the work. Just so with “everlasting fire” and “everlasting punishment” in Matt. 25:41, 46. The results are everlasting, as was the case with the “eternal fire” that turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes. “The wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23. Death is the cessation of life, and that is the punishment for sin. It is called “everlasting” punishment because its results are everlasting. The condition of death will always continue. There will be no resurrection from it. The second death is not “the death that never dies,” for that is no death at all. It is a contradiction of terms. The righteous will have eternal life, and the wicked will have the opposite, eternal death, called in the Scriptures the “second death.”