A Few Thoughts on the Penalty of the Original Law.
By WM. S. INGRAHAM
The penalty of the original law is not spiritual or moral death. 1. Spiritual death is a state of sin and no punishment. 2. It would confound the crime with the penalty, and would be virtually saying to man, because you have sinned, I pronounce you a sinner. 3. If spiritual death is the penalty, and Christ suffered the full penalty of the law, it follows that Christ died a spiritual death, which is to be dead in trespasses and sins; which would prove that he was a sinner and give the word of God the lie; for it says, In him was no sin. 4. If spiritual death is the penalty of the law, and is never to be changed, but there is to be a continuation of the same in hell, it contradicts the Bible; for that teaches that the sinner must suffer the second death. The penalty of the original law was physical or corporeal death. Proof, (1) Gen. iii, 17-24. Verse 19 reads as follows: "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." That the penalty might be inflicted upon Adam, God drives him from the garden, cuts him off from having access to the tree of life, deprives him of the means of perpetuating his existence; and the result is, Adam goes back into the dust. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. The penalty God pronounced upon Adam has never been revoked. Immediately after man's transgression, the elements of nature were placed in opposition to him that he might lead a life of toil, become subject to the ills incident to his natural life, until his career is ended and he sleeps in the dust. The same dying nature that Adam possessed he has entailed upon his posterity. The seeds of mortality are ripening fast, and our friends are continually going to the hills of the dead. If it had not been for the scheme of salvation through Jesus Christ, the sleep of Adam and his posterity must have been an eternal, unconscious night in the dust of the earth. Proof, (2) Rom. v, 12: "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." Proof, (3) 1. Cor. xv, 21: For since by man came death, by man (or Christ) came also the resurrection of the dead." If it had not been for the transgression of man, the boon of eternal life would have been his. Notwithstanding man by transgression involved the world in ruin, yet God's love was not exhausted. A remedy is provided, a scheme devised for man's recovery. Eternal life is promised through a crucified and risen Saviour to all the faithful ones. The blessing of eternal life is placed before us as an object of hope and pursuit. Shall we make an effort to secure the treasure? Reader, let us try to be loyal to the government of Heaven. The promise is to them who by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality. Eternal life is the reward. The blessed and holy will have a part in the first resurrection at the coming of Christ. But the sinner comes up in the second resurrection, and will be doomed to the second death as the reward of his own personal sins. Monroe, Wis. WM. S. INGRAHAM.