THE LAW AND ITS PENALTY.
By Editor
I WISH to ask a few questions for instruction: 1. Was Adam at his creation placed under law? 2. Was temporal death the penalty for his transgression? 3. Was temporal death the only penalty for breaking the ten commandments? If so, will those who suffered it ever have a resurrection? 4. What is it to be under law? 5. In what condition is it to be without law? Any answers to these questions, through the Review or otherwise, would be gratefully received. From your friend in hope of eternal life.
J. D. MERIAM. ANSWERS. To the first question, we reply, Yes. To the second, Yes. To the third (its first clause,) Yes. But here a word of explanation is necessary. We have spoken thus far of Adam only. Death was the penalty affixed to Adam's transgression. And after he had transgressed, and forfeited life, had nothing more been done, death, absolute, final and eternal, would have been the inevitable doom both of himself and his posterity. But when he had sinned and closed against him, apparently forever, the gates of beautiful paradise, the plan of salvation was immediately devised—an avenue laid open whereby he might again return. The Son of God gave himself to die for man. What was the effect of this act? It could not reverse the sentence which God pronounced upon Adam, that in the day that he ate of the forbidden fruit he should surely die. It could not alter the fact that he had by disobedience entailed upon himself a corruptible, dying nature. But it could, and it will ultimately, undo for the whole human race the bonds with which they are bound by the first transgression of Adam, namely, the death which we call temporal. For "in Christ shall all be made alive." We have then the race dead in Adam, and made alive in Christ. Now what shall determine their eternal destiny? We answer, Their personal acts, independent of that act in the garden of Eden by which we have entailed upon us mortality and death. Adam paid the penalty of his first act of rebellion. Through a like change to a like condition, pass all his offspring. A compensation for this, however, we find in that we are to be again restored to conscious life through Christ. But death is still the penalty for sin; and we have a personal account of our own to settle. Hence we see that the plan of salvation supposes of necessity a new probation for man. Upon that second probation Adam entered when he had fallen from his first condition, and the plan of salvation was devised; and he is answerable, if we rightly view the subject, for all his acts subsequent to that time, upon the same ground and in the same way that we are now responsible for our personal sins. Death having passed upon the whole human race through Adam, and it being decreed that from this death the race shall be brought back again through Christ, we see that the first death cannot be inflicted upon any individual as a penalty for his sins in a moral point of view. And this consideration serves to clear the cases of the Antediluvians, Sodomites, &c., of the questions that have been raised concerning them. It has been asked, Did not God in bringing a flood upon the world, punish the Antediluvians for their sins? and if he did, will they ever be raised to be punished again? We answer, he did not punish them, by that judgment, for their sins. Death was their portion in the natural order of things. Had no flood come upon them, they would, all of them, have eventually fallen in death. God, then, by bringing a flood upon them, only reduced them a little sooner to that state to which they were hastening. So flagrant had their crimes become, that he could not suffer them longer in their sinful career, and he simply arrested them in their course. That is all. Death, which they were ultimately to suffer, came upon them, on account of their corruptions, sooner than it otherwise would have done. But they expiated no crime, they paid no satisfaction for their guilt, as they went down into a watery grave. The account of their personal sins still stands against them, waiting the time when they shall again be made alive. So with the Sodomites, the Egyptians, &c. Different somewhat from this was the case of the Israelites after the giving of the law. Then, whoever broke any of the commandments was stoned to death on the spot; and he was stoned because he had broken the commandments. The same question has arisen here as in case of the Antediluvians, and seemingly upon better ground; namely, if the individual who was stoned, paid thereby the penalty due to his sin, will he ever be raised to suffer more? or if he is ever raised, will it not be to eternal life? And if, as we have said, the infliction of temporal death, could not, since the plan of salvation was devised, be the penalty for any man's transgressions in a moral point of view, why was this penalty ever inflicted upon a person, for the express reason that he had broken the commandments? In considering these queries we must not lose sight of the peculiar relation which the Jewish people had entered into with their Maker. This is well set forth in some remarks by W. H. O'Hanlon, of England, concerning the Sabbath commandment. He says: "It may tend, however, to clear our path and to facilitate our object, if we now advert to the important distinction which subsisted between the Sabbath law as a constituent part of the ethical code of the Jews, and the same law as introduced into their civil code. It should never be forgotten, in the discussion of this question, that the peculiar government established among this people, gave a special air to the whole of their national polity, forming, as it did, the basis of many regulations which could have had no existence apart from the theocracy. Thus it was that temporal rewards were annexed to obedience, and temporal punishments to disobedience, in cases where, otherwise, only the natural moral results would have followed the practice of virtue or of vice. "Accordingly, disobedience to the fourth commandment, under the Mosaic economy, was not only an act of gross impiety against God as the supreme moral Governor, but likewise an act of daring rebellion against him as their theocratic King. It is on this principle we are to explain the form in which it is presented, and the penalties by which it is enforced in Ex. xxxi, 13–15; xxxv, 2, 3. And such being the righteous penalties enacted and promulgated by the sovereign law-giver, the infliction of them as revealed in Num. xv, 32–35, must not, as it need not, excite our wonder. Thus to despise the word of the Lord, and to break his commandments, was a crime, a public, open violation of the social and civil law, and one which was no more to pass with impunity under the theocratic rule established among the ancient Israelites, than the daring transgression of the law of the land is to be exempt from retribution, in any well-ordered state or commonwealth of the present day." These remarks, though made with reference to the Sabbath commandment, are applicable equally to all the rest. They show us that, under the Mosaic economy, those who transgressed the commandments, and were stoned in consequence, suffered as violators of the civil code of the Jews under their theocratic form of government. Their responsibilities as moral agents, and the penalty due to their violations of the law as an ethical code, were in no wise affected by their civil polity. A remark may here be proper concerning the distinctions of temporal and eternal, the first and the second, death. These distinctions did not exist when God made known to Adam what would be the result of his disobedience. Death is death; and thus he was, in case of transgression, to suffer. But when it was arranged, through the plan of salvation, to bring the whole race back to life again, that those who should be found righteous through faith in Christ, might live forever, and those who should be found uncleansed from personal transgression, might die again, and thereby suffer the penalty due to their personal sins, then arose the distinctions we have named. Thus the death which we now die in this world, since it is to be limited in its duration, and will be undone by the resurrection, we call temporal. The death which follows the resurrection, since from it there is to be no release, we call eternal. So in the order of time, the death which we suffer here is the first death; that which follows the resurrection, the second death. But death, be it first, second, temporal or eternal, we believe to be ever the same in its nature. In answer to the fourth question, "What is it to be under law?" we reply that the phrase seems to be used in various senses. Thus, when, in reply to the first question of this series, we say that Adam was placed under law, we mean to be understood to say simply that he was subject to law. In this sense it seems to be used in Rom. iii, 19. It sometimes signifies to be under the curse of the law, or under its condemnation; as in Rom. vi, 14, and Gal. v, 18. Again, it seems to refer to the ceremonial requirements of the former dispensation, as in Gal. iv, 21. Lastly, to be without law, we conceive to be in a state of ignorance of God and his revealed commandments. Instances of this condition we find among the heathen; and all we can say in regard to them, is that those who have sinned without law, shall also perish without law: the light of conscience, implanted in every human breast, being sufficient, unless willfully quenched, to indicate though feebly the right and wrong of things, and bring the gross transgressor under condemnation. Such we apprehend to be Paul's reasoning in Rom. ii, 12–15.