This is the language of God, addressed to Adam, in the garden of Eden. Never had the word death fallen upon human ear before. There was the tree and its fruit. These he saw. He must not eat or touch either of them. This, Adam might easily understand. But what did God mean by the word die? I must think that Adam knew its meaning, else upon him it would have failed to exert the restraining influence intended, and that through no fault of his.
1. Separation is supposed by some to be the true idea. Does the Bible so define the word? It does not expressly. Does it by implication? I deny it. Adam and Ever were separated from the garden and also from the personal presence of God. In which separation consisted the death? In both? Then Adam died two deaths, or the one death which he died consisted of two specific separations.
But if either or both of these separations must be accepted as the exact equivalent of the word death, what is the meaning of the sentence: “Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever?” Is not the life, in this quotation, in exact antithesis with the death contemplated as the penalty of the violated law? How, them, after the penalty had been inflicted, after the separations had taken place, could it be said: “lest he * * * live forever.” Should any one attempt, in the Quarterly, to defend this hypothesis, his effort shall receive consideration.
2. Spiritual death was meant, say some. Indeed! What is spiritual death? Let the phrase, spiritual death, be well defined before any proofs are offered in support of this hypothesis. This having been done, we will ask, as before, are not the words life and death in direct antithesis? Of course they are, and were meant to be. If, now, the word death signifies spiritual death, the word life must signify spiritual life. It follows, then, that the Lord, after the separation of man from the garden, and from [53] his own personal presence, was careful lest the being whom he had already punished according to the letter and spirit of the law should live an endless spiritual life. Is not the very opposite of this true in fact? Did not God immediately make every provision possible for man’s living spiritually forever?
Was not the death the penalty or sanction of the law? It certainly was. Can God inflict spiritual death upon his creatures? Impossible! Is not sin the only means of spiritual death? Can the end be reached without the means? The means God can not use, and, of course, he could not bring to pass the end. Some have supposed that spiritual death was the result of the transgression, and that God only warned man of it, but that he did not threaten him with it.
Is not this a mere childish view of the subject? True, man brought death upon himself, but just as the murderer brings himself to the gallows. The connection was established so between transgression and death that the transgressor must die. This God did as a terror against evil doing. Now does not that just complement our notion of a penalty? God did as certainly kill Adam, in the sense in which he said he should die, as he made him.
3. After man had sinned, God called him up, and reckoned with him, adjudicated his case. What are the facts in the case? God found him guilty, and proceeded to pronounce the sentence of condemnation upon him. The language of this sentence is significant: “Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.” Must not this be held to be the best commentary upon and explanation of the sentence: “Thou shalt surely die?”
Moses wrote an account of the transgression two thousand five hundred years after the event. He wrote at a time when the word death was well understood to mean what we now mean by physical death. This was certainly its plain ordinary meaning. In this sense he would necessarily be understood by those for whom he wrote, when he used the word death to express his thought. If he used the term in any other than the usual sense, he was bound to give notice of the sense in which he did use it; for if he did not, he would necessarily be misunderstood. But [54] he gives no such notice. In a few sentences after Moses had written the language at the head of this, doubtless, at the same sitting, and within a few moments of the same time, he uses the same word without note or comment, in such a connection as to leave no doubt but that he meant simply and literally death, as we ordinarily use and understand the word. Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.
L.
The Foregoing.—L.’s piece is quite too brief for the subject of which he speaks. A score of pages would not be too many. The subject is important. It hence deserves a thorough and lengthy handling. Whole bundles of popular and delusive divinity lie wrapped up in the theories respecting Adam’s death. The very roots of these should be dug up and allowed to wither. Few men know to what extent these theories are shaping the preaching of the day. This should all be pointed out. But then, L.’s piece was designed to be merely suggestive, not exhaustive.
That the death first named by God to Adam was simple natural or ordinary death is to mind simply certain. It was neither spiritual death, as distinguished from physical, nor physical as distinguished from spiritual. It was simply death, not a qualified death.
God said to Adam, “thou shalt not eat of it.” This was the law. This law Adam violated. This violation was an act, and this act a sin. This sin affected Adam in two respects. 1. It unconditionally induced his death. This effect was chiefly physical. 2. But it also affected his spirit. If unforgiven before death, it lead to his being finally damned. This effect followed after death and was distinct from it. And herein lies the chief distinction between Adam’s sin and our sins. For his sin he both died and, if the sin was not forgiven, was condemned. For our sins we do not die, but, if not forgiven, are simply condemned. For Adam’s sin we die; for our own we are condemned. That other effects followed Adam’s sin besides those here named is not denied. But these constituted no part of the meaning of the word death. [55]
[Volume V: January, 1868.]
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