The same writer who says Christ died because He was mortal, also says He died to get rid of His flesh, and show us the way into the holiest and that He went through as the First and our Forerunner, the last of which is true; but if as the same writer assumes Christ and the Saints are all raised in the flesh and changed afterward, then how much does dying help them to get rid of the flesh?

Are such inconsistencies the marks of a “clean theology?”

Why do men continue to die if Christ is the Substitute?

He died to make men alive. He found them counted dead. Practically the work of Christ converts death into a sleep, for all who die. Sleep implies waking. Absolute death knows no waking. We have the word of Jesus that “The maid is not dead but sleeps,” and “Lazarus sleeps.” They were to wake. In the statement “Man does not die,” the word die is used in the same sense as Jesus used it, and those who cavil at the statement know what is meant, and believe the same themselves. Let them settle it with the Master. He gained the power to deliver from death when he died. Heb 2:14,15. But he does not use that power (only in a few special cases) until the “Times of Restitution.”

The plan is to save men first, and bring them to the knowledge of the truth afterward. So, in “due time” the fact that Christ gave himself a Ransom for all will be testified. 1 Tim 2:4-6. Men born in that age (the Millennial age) will not even “fall asleep” for Adam’s sin, and it will not be so difficult for them to believe in Substitution. They will realize that the Ransom paid is what prevents the original sentence passed upon all, from being executed upon them. Now, because we are exceptions to the rule, i.e. get the light or the knowledge of the truth before the “due time,” it seems more difficult to catch the idea of the Ransom.

As we are now counted dead in Adam before we die, so we are counted redeemed in Christ, and we are dealt with in regard to the truth as if we had actually been dead and raised again. This is why those who now become partakers of the Divine nature (those begotten to the new nature) are not raised in the flesh, like the rest of mankind, who have not heard the Gospel, but having here, like their Head, voluntarily crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts, are raised a spiritual body, and to a share in His work of restoring and enlightening the world.

The world of mankind will be raised in the same kind of life that Adam lost, and by the knowledge of the truth be begotten to a higher life. If they obey the law of that higher life, they will never die, but will be changed into the immortal state.

Once again, we must interject here in regards to the last statement. No where in the scriptures is mankind promised immortality. This is a reward given only now during the Gospel age and only to the faithful overcomers who have made their calling and election sure and are found faithful until death. The reward of those living in the next age is the promise of the restitution of all things, the restoring of that which was lost. Adam never had nor was ever promised anything more than human life, and that perfected. We might say that in theory mankind, that is those who pass the final test are immortal in that they are promised everlasting life, but this life is not immortality. It is a life dependent upon an outside source for its continuance, whereas inherit life, immortality is self-sustaining, not dependent on an outside source.

So then in what way might we imagine that mankind is immortal, that they shall never die?

It is because we understand the source from which their lives are to be sustained is endless, and having past the final test they have been promised everlasting life by Him who changes not. Thus, they shall live forever.

If they disobey (that is if they are found incorrigible during the millennial reign, the reign of Christ or having been found to merely fringed obedience during that time, still desiring the sins of the past they will take their share with the rest of the “goat” class who will made manifest to all in the final testing. All such will die – the second death). Some talk of the necessity of death as if a change from mortality to immortality were death. An egg is not lost that develops into a chicken; a grub does not die that changes into a butterfly; “Enoch was translated that he should not see death.”

Enoch was not translated in the sense that he was changed from the human to the spiritual, but simply translated, hidden and preserved somewhere known only to God that he should not see death. He could not have been begotten of a new nature due to two things, 1) the spirit was not given until Pentecost, and 2) it is written that in all things Christ is to have preeminence, thus the first to be translated in the spiritual sense from the human nature to the spirit nature, in this case the highest form of that nature, the divine nature.

Those who die in the future age will be as an egg with a germ of life implanted and begun to hatch, and then removed from proper heat and moisture. No man will die eternally for Adam’s sin. Christ hath redeemed us once for all. And he has redeemed all. This salvation by Christ’s death does not secure spiritual life for any, but it makes it possible for all (Now during the acceptable time, the Gospel age). The knowledge of the truth, which is the begetting power, is the gift of God to all. But when the new life by the Spirit of Truth is begun, man is held responsible to obey. The salvation by Christ’s death is the “foundation for repentance,” because it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance. Hence to ignore the value of Christ’s death, is to belittle God’s love and saving power. For God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Rom 5:6.

We are glad now this subject is agitated, as it is to us additional evidence that the “due time” is dawning in which God’s love in giving Christ as a Ransom for all, is to be made known. Oh, that those who oppose it may not be of those who have known and then rejected.” R47