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THE CONFLICT

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 21, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 51, No. 12.

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THE CONFLICT.

By S. H. Lane

Eden is an emblem of life and its destiny, and the lesson of the fall is the lesson of our experience.
The tree of life represents immortality; the forbidden fruit, sin; the serpent, Satan; God's word, the truth of all ages; Satan's denial, the false teaching of all ages. Let us learn the lesson of Eden.
To the tree of life man had free access, and to all the fruits of the garden, except the tree of practical evil. Its fruit was moral poison, and God said: “Ye shall not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest of it” dying, “thou shalt die,” or “thou shalt surely die.” The serpent said, “Thou shalt not surely die.” Man believed the serpent and disobeyed God, and sinned and fell, and was deprived of the tree of life, with the sentence of death pronounced against him. God said, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Whose word was truth, God's, who said, “Thou shalt surely die,” or his who said, “Ye shall not surely die”?
As it was then it is now. God says, “Ye shall surely die.” Men say, You are immortal, and shall not surely die.
But sin entered into the world, and death by sin; for the wages of sin is death. Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
But, as Satan said, “Ye shall not surely die,” so men now say, “Man is immortal; he shall not die.”
From Adam to Moses, Moses to the prophets, the prophets to the Son of God, and the Son of God to the Judgment, God's law has been, and is, for the penalty of sin, death.
When the law was given, God said, “I have set before you life and death.” Life and good, death and evil.
When the prophets spake they said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
God said, “Why will ye die?”
When Jesus came it was to bring life and immortality to light. His religion is characterized as life-giving. It is the water of life, and the bread of life, and the word of life; Christ who is our life, the tree of life, the river of life, life eternal and eternal life. It is a narrow way which leadeth to life.
John 3: “So must the Son of man be lifted up that those who believe might have eternal life.” Verse 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.” “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,” and “I will give unto him everlasting life.”
“This is the record that God hath given unto us eternal life,” and this life is in his Son, and “he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life.” “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” “To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, honor, immortality, eternal life.”
This is the common form of the promises of salvation. It is from sin and death . . . that he should not perish, but have eternal life. He that converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins. The great object of the advent of the Saviour, when he came into the world, was to save us from sin and death, not the death of the body merely, but the death of the soul. St. Paul says he came to destroy death, and him that hath power over death, that is, the devil. . . . The last enemy to be destroyed is death, then there shall be no more death, neither sorrow. So that the truth of Eden is the truth for the sinner forever, “Thou shalt surely die;” and the falsehood of Satan in Eden to the sinner is Satan's falsehood still—that he shall not surely die, but is immortal; and though God says a thousand times, and in a thousand different ways, that he shall die, he shall live forever. On this false view, which has contradicted God from the beginning, men still teach that the sinning soul shall never die, but live on and on in ever-increasing sin, and eternally-increasing torture, without intermission, forever and ever. The popular doctrine knows no end of sin or evil, no end of Satan or suffering. To all the wicked it says, “Ye shall not surely die.”
Another thought in the Eden experience was the promise of the destruction of the serpent, Satan: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” That is, as the serpent is slain by crushing its head, so Satan shall be slain by Christ; or, as St. Paul says, “God shall bruise Satan under your feet;” or, again, Christ will destroy death and him that hath power over death, that is, the devil.
The Scriptures contemplate the end of all evil, the destruction of every enemy of God, and the reconciliation of the universe, that God may be all in all. The Bible says, “Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.” Christ came to make an end of sins, to destroy the devil, to destroy hell, to destroy death, to reconcile all things unto himself, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.
The mistake of men is in not believing God's word. As it was in the garden, so it is now. They tell the sinner that he shall not die, even if lost, but God says he “shall surely die.” Christ is the life. His salvation means deliverance from sin, and eternal life. His religion redeems from sin and death, and in it we have eternity added to time, immortality added to life, and all the riches and joys of Heaven forever.
Though the arguments are not new to the readers of the REVIEW, yet they contain the truth, and we read them with renewed interest when we consider that the source from whence they came will give them weight, and that published as they were in one of the leading newspapers of the United States, they have been read by thousands who have never before had their minds called to the truth in regard to this important subject. Surely, the truth is progressing. S. H. LANE.