Was Adam ever Immortal by John Norton Loughborough

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 24, 1865

Was Adam ever Immortal.

By John Norton Loughborough

ON page 147, Chap. vi, under the head of future punishment, in Bro. Loughborough's excellent work "Hope of the gospel," we read: "By transgression Adam became mortal and has transmitted mortality to his posterity," &c. Is this the doctrine of the church? Can immortality become mortal? Was Adam created Immortal?

JACOB HARE.

RESPONSE. Bro. Hare: In response to your question whether immortality can become mortal, I should give it as my view that we have no record of any absolutely immortal being becoming mortal unless it be in the case of Christ. He was in glory with the Father before the world was; was made in the likeness of sinful flesh; took hold not of the nature of angels, but of the seed of Abraham. His prayer at last was to the Father, "Glorify me with the glory I had with thee before the world was." He has ascended up where he was before. All this would seem to show that a change had been wrought by which an immortal being became subject to death, even the death of the cross. But this even the Scriptures claim was a great mystery, too deep for us to fathom, especially as God has not been pleased to reveal to us the process by which such an act was accomplished. He has only revealed the facts.

But the above would not prove that there was any liability or likelihood that any overcomer, made immortal, would lose that high estate. Neither does my work, if rightly understood, convey the idea that Adam was created immortal and then made mortal. You quote the expression "Adam became mortal," and ask, Was Adam created immortal? I have not claimed that he was created immortal, but on the contrary I state on page 63, as follows: "Says the objector your testimony from Scripture seems to show that Adam was not created immortal, yet I believe that we are immortal. We inquire, from what source do we derive our immortality? It must be inherent, derived from Adam or else it comes to us directly from God. We reply, we did not get it from Adam; for he did not have it himself." Neither should I claim that Adam was created mortal, but he certainly occupied a different position before his transgression from what he did after. Before his transgression he had a right to the tree of life. By obedience and partaking of that tree his existence would have been perpetuated eternally. He chose to take of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He was shut away from the tree of life, and became absolutely mortal. He was not absolutely immortal

before, but his immortality was inherent in the tree of life. By obedience and partaking of that tree he would have lived forever. This is what I mean by saying on page 147, "Adam became mortal," &c.

Yours hoping for eternal life.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

Dartmouth, Jan. 6, 1865.