We continue with our subject: “The wages of sin is death”

But the query comes – would not Adam have died anyhow, whether he had sinned or not? – if not, how could he ever go to heaven?

We reply, no; if Adam had not sinned, he would not have died, but would have lived on, on the earth. God never promised anywhere in his Word to take Adam to heaven. Adam had no such hope or desire. His desire was in harmony with his earthly or human nature – to live on the earth and to enjoy it. And this, as we have shown, was God’s will also – to make an earth to be inhabited, and to make a creature to inhabit and use and rule it in harmony with God’s will.

It should be clearly held in mind, that while God does purpose and is to accomplish the lifting of a “little flock” of humanity from the human nature to a spiritual nature – the Divine nature, – as new creatures – yet this is not a change of God’s original plan, when he said let us make MAN. God’s plan relative to having the earth peopled with a race of perfect MEN, still continues, and will, ere long, be accomplished. It is only during this Gospel Age since Jesus was (at resurrection) highly exalted to the DIVINE PLANE of being, that God is calling out from among men, some to become partakers of the Divine nature, and sharers of glory as spiritual beings – joint heirs with Jesus Christ their Lord. The condition upon which we may claim those promises as ours, is, that becoming dead to earthly aims, hopes, motives, and pleasures, we render the human nature (not its sins, but all these same things just mentioned) a living sacrifice.

But another inquires – if Adam would not have died had he not sinned; does it not prove that he possessed immortality?

Not at all, (You will see the distinction between immortality and everlasting or continuous life by reading “Food,” pp. 11 and 134,) his life would have been continued by allowing him to continue to feed on the trees of life in the Garden of Eden. There was nourishment in their fruit which sustained human life. (An immortal being does not require any outside subsidence to sustain life, an immortal being possesses inherent life, life in itself.) God executed the penalty, death, by separating man from those nourishing trees; Adam’s life forces were exhausted in labor, and the products of the cursed earth were insufficient to supply the waste. The earth was cursed for man’s sake – that it might not sustain his life.

But now the previous question. If physical death is the penalty or wages of sin, why is it that all – saints and sinners alike – die?

We answer in the words of the apostle, death is passed upon all men in that all have sinned. The reason you die is because you are a sinner – you were born a sinner. It was not your fault that you were thus born, but it resulted from a law which God established in the creation of the race to which we belong. It was a part of his law or plan that this race should propagate its species.

Thus, Adam was to multiply and fill the earth with beings perfect and sinless like himself – in God’s sight “very good” men. But when Adam began to decay and to lose his grand perfections as a part of the penalty of disobedience – dying – he began to lose the ability to produce sinless and perfect offspring. A pure, perfect and sinless race could not come from a sinful and decaying head, and thus when Adam sinned, all his unborn posterity partook of the evils or wages of sin – death.

At first glance it seems unjust and harsh that we should be condemned and punished for an act in which individually we had no share. But when we take God’s explanation of it, all is clear and satisfactory: He condemned all through, or on account of one man’s sin, in order that he might have mercy upon all and redeem all by one sacrifice, which he had purposed in himself, before the foundation of the world. (Rom 5:18, 19; and 11:32).

As we have before shown, had each man been given a trial, such as Adam had, the probabilities are, that more than half of the billions of his children would have done just as he did. And each one who did so, would have been condemned to death, and to redeem them all, would have made necessary the death of just as many substitutes or ransoms; causing pain and death to as many sinless (willing) redeemers. All of these redeemers must have first come down to earthly conditions, and become men, that they might taste death for the sinner and pay his penalty.

But how much wiser and better was the plan which God took. He condemned all through one representative, that he might justify through another – a representative redeemer. “Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the knowledge and wisdom of God.”

The reason, then, that all die, is, that by nature all are sinners. And, though the ransom of believers has been paid by the death of Jesus, yet those believers are not yet saved from the penalty of sin (death), but are merely assured by God’s promises that their ransom has been paid, and in His due time, they will be saved out of death by a resurrection.

The advantages which now accrue to believers are not actual for they share the miseries of the curse with the world, but they are by faith, “For we are saved by hope” only, and not in fact. (Rom 8:23, 24). We have a basis of hope for future life, in God’s promise of a resurrection, which none but believers in those promises can have. Thus, we have hope as an anchor which keeps us from the drifting doubts of the world.

This does not imply in any since that those who are not presently believers are not saved (nor any in the past), merely that because they lack faith, lack belief they lack any assurance, any hope of a future life. Our Lord died a ransom for all, all have been purchased, and in due time all shall be raised and given the opportunity to believe and obey. “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Tim 2:3, 4

We have more also as believers in the efficacy of Jesus’ ransom. We realize that while before as sinners, God could not recognize us at all, now as those whose sins have been paid and canceled by Jesus’ death, we can come to God as sinless – “justified from all things.” (Acts 13:39). We can again, as Adam did before sin, call God Father, and be recognized by him as human sons. (Luke 3:38).

But, as we have seen, the penalty of sin – death – is allowed to continue until the full close of this Gospel or Sacrificing Age. During this age so many of the believers as desire may join themselves to Christ in sacrificing their humanity, and become thereby sharers with him of Divinity (Prospective members of the body of Christ, should we make our calling and election sure.) When this work shall be accomplished – which pays in full the ransom price of the world – then comes the time for SALVATION in the actual sense. The church – the new creatures – will be the first to be saved from death. Theirs is called the first (chief) resurrection, because they are raised to the divine – spiritual plane. Blessed and holy are all they that have part in the first (chief) resurrection. This first (chief resurrection) began with our head, Jesus, and will be completed in raising to the same condition the church, which is his body. As Paul aimed, so we also aim to have a part in that chief resurrection, for only the “little flock” – his body – are of it. (Phil 3:8-11).

Then will follow the actual SALVATION of the world from death, by a resurrection. (See our previous post on “Resurrection.”) So, we see that death is not complex but a simple thing. The man died, and God’s plan is to save him from death by paying his ransom, and then giving him back his life, in hope, that being better able to appreciate its value, he will “choose life and live” in harmony with God’s laws.” R362