THE TRANSGRESSOR'S FATE:
By M. Hull
OR A SHORT ARGUMENT ON THE FIRST AND SECOND DEATHS.
Evidences of mortality—Death and effect—An inconsistent position—Cause of death—Transgression in the garden—Trial—Penalty—Nature of the penalty—Death of Adam not spiritual—Man a unit, and as such dies. WE do not need Bibles to teach us that we are dying creatures. The lesson of mortality is taught everywhere. Our ears are daily saluted with the bells of death. Almost every day we are called upon to follow some of our fellow-mortals to the cemetery; to see them entombed in the silent walls of the grave. The green turf which grows over our sleeping friends, teaches us that they are “but dust and ashes.” In every countenance we read the sad tale of mortality. Every fading leaf that falls from the bower, teaches us that we must wither and fall. Every rivulet that courses its way towards the boundless deep, speaks to us in thunder tones, and says “Return, ye children of men;” “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Every fever that searches this frame, every pain that racks this constitution, teaches me that I, too, must die. Death has “reigned from Adam to Moses,” and from Moses until now, irrespective of person, or character. The “infant of days” shares the same fate of the one who has lived his three-score years and ten. The saint and sinner, servant of God and servant of the Devil, fall under the same stroke and lie side by side in the same grave-yard. Why is this? Death is an effect. Is it possible to have such an effect without a cause? I think not. Vain and speculative notions have been adduced upon this as well as other points. To show one out of the many inconsistent positions on this subject, let us suppose that you, dear reader, have a lovely infant whose smiles and prattlings absorb your attention and interest; but disease begins to prey upon it; you send for a physician, who does all he can to save your child; but finding that no remedy can reach its case, he informs you that his skill is baffled; your child must die. You watch it as it lies upon its couch from night till morning, and from morning till night again. As it shrieks with pain, you feel as though your own heartstrings would break. Thus you watch it from day to day, and week to week, until its voice is hushed in death. After its sufferings are over, and you hear its voice no more, you ask, Why is this? I loved my child, and fain would have kept it with me. Why did it suffer so? Why was it taken from me? You at once resolve to send for a minister and have him preach a funeral discourse; perhaps he will make all plain. The minister comes and commences his discourse by saying,
“God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.” He will then tell you that you are a great sinner (which perhaps is true) and God in his providence has caused your child to suffer and die on account of your sins. Perhaps one-half of the congregation, not being Bible readers, will think he has quoted it from the Bible. And you, not knowing that the Bible says, [Eze. xviii, 20], “The soul that sinneth it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him,” are prepared to believe what your minister has told you. Although you may acknowledge that you are a great sinner, you are led to ask, “Is it just for God to punish my innocent child for my personal offences? Why not let me suffer for my sins, and let my child, who never has sinned, escape?” You again ask, “Does the Bible teach that doctrine? Does the God of the Bible punish the innocent for the guilty? If so, the Bible is priestcraft, and the God of the Bible is a tyrant.” Thus, step by step, you are driven into infidelity by the absurdities preached in almost every pulpit in the land for Bible truth. Death has been pronounced upon all, we all therefore have a personal interest in investigating its cause.198A proper exposition of the cause of death, will vindicate the character of God, especially from such charges as the position referred to in our illustration would involve. Paul says, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Cor. xv, 21, 22. Man—ADAM has done some things which has brought death upon all. Death is an effect which as really follows its cause as light comes from the sun, rain from the clouds, or a stream from its fountain. Sin is the cause. Man has sinned and thus brought death upon himself and posterity. A mortal man cannot transmit immortality to his posterity. But we get our physical organization from Adam, and Adam was mortal, therefore we can but be mortal. In Rom. v, 12-21 Paul makes this matter plain: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned [in whom all have sinned see margin]: for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift: for if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is Adam's sin that has entailed mortality upon us. That which is mortal must die, or pass through a change equivalent thereto. We are mortal, therefore we must die or be changed. Sin is the transgression of the law. 1 John iii, 4. The wages of sin is death. Rom. vi, 23. In Gen. ii, 16, 17, God gives man a law, the transgression of which must result in death. The law says, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The law was very plain, and the penalty positive; yet man transgresses. Gen. iii, 6. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her: and he did eat.” The man and woman have both transgressed, notwithstanding the commandment was so positive that they could not misunderstand it. The trial must ensue. The Judge summons no witnesses but the guilty pair. Their own confession is enough to develop their guilt. “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. . . . And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” Gen. iii, 12, 13. The Judge proceeds to pronounce the penalty which terminates with the sentence, “to dust thou shalt return.” Verse 19. According to the testimony presented, man, by his transgression, involved his posterity in death. This debt must be paid. There is no if, and, or proviso in the matter. The fiat has gone forth from the one who is God and changeth not, “To dust shalt thou return.” But every inquiring mind asks, What is the nature of the death we die in consequence of Adam's transgression? I know of but three positions that can be taken upon this subject, which are as follows:- A spiritual death only. This is the position advocated by Universalists.
- A three-fold death. This is denominated the orthodox position.
- A temporal, or corporeal, death. This, I think, is the Bible view.
To one or the other of the above positions all must come. Those who take the position that spiritual death is the penalty of the Adamic transgression, urge that man must die within twenty-four hours of the time he transgresses. He did not die a literal death in that day; therefore the death threatened must be spiritual. Very well. If it is spiritual it is not literal. But we die a literal or physical death. Why is this? Will those who deny that a literal death is the penalty of the Adamic law, undertake to account for it outside of Adam's transgression? Let us now follow Adam to the garden after he has transgressed, and hear him congratulate the position which is the result of his transgression according to the spiritual-death theory. I apprehend that I see him stepping around with his arms folded upon his breast, and soliloquizing with himself thus: “Well, I have transgressed the law, and paid the penalty. I am a dead man—spiritually dead. I am in a better condition than I was before I died. My eyes are now open so that I know good and evil. Before I transgressed I only knew good. My position is certainly incomparably better than it was before I transgressed.” But while he is congratulating his present position, God calls to him and says, “Where art thou?” Now they proceed to trial. God does not proceed as with one who had broken the law and paid the penalty (as would have been the case if Adam had died a spiritual death previous to that time), but as with a living, guilty criminal. “Because thou hast done this, . . . to dust shalt thou return.” If Adam died a spiritual death he lost a spiritual life (as death is the loss of life); but it cannot be proved that he had a spiritual life to lose. Therefore it cannot be proved that he died a spiritual death. Those who say that a spiritual death is the penalty inflicted for Adam's transgression, define it to be loss of all desire to do good, under the dominion of sin, &c. Buck says, “Spiritual death is that awful state of ignorance, insensibility and disobedience, which mankind are in by nature; and which excludes them from the favor and enjoyment of God.” Theological Dictionary. If spiritual death is a loss of all desire to do good, it follows that Adam died a spiritual death before he transgressed; for he certainly lost the desire to obey God before he gave the consent of his mind to disobey him. This being true, eating of the forbidden fruit is the result of his having died a spiritual death. This reverses the order and makes a cause of the effect. But if spiritual death is disobedience, as Buck says, then Adam transgressed while in the act of dying. But if it is being under the dominion of sin, then the crime and penalty are amalgamated. The above are not the worst inconsistencies in the theory which we are examining. To be spiritually dead is to be unconverted. To be spiritually alive is to be converted. According to the spiritual-death theory God made use of means to keep Adam from becoming spiritually alive after he had died a spiritual death. Gen. iii, 22-24: “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, 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 of Eden, to till the ground, from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” But, says the objector, the text says, In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. That is true; but still there is no difficulty in understanding the text. At least the difficulty is not sufficient to justify us in inventing a spiritual-death theory. The margin says, “In the day thou eatest thereof, DYING thou shalt die.” Dr. Clarke says, “Thou shalt become mortal, and shalt continue in a dying state till thou die. This we find literally accomplished. Every moment of man's life may be considered as an act of dying until soul and body are separated. Other meanings have been given to this passage, but they are in general either fanciful or incorrect.” Com. on Gen. ii, 16. The ostensible meaning of the passage is this: In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt become mortal, subject to death, a dying creature; shalt enter upon a state which shall terminate in death.