Mankind’s Hope for Everlasting Life

The boldest and ablest scientists and evolutionists have attempted to show that man’s life was not a gift from the Creator. Theoretically they have brought man and all the lower animals up, by evolution process, from a microscopic germ; yea, from protoplasm, which Prof. Huxley called “the physical basis of life“; and they fain would in some way ignore the Creator and Life-giver entirely: but, as a matter of fact, they have been unable to suggest any way that even protoplasm could get life from inert matter. To this extent, therefore, they are obliged to recognize a first great cause of life. But the reverent Bible student should not have the slightest difficulty in accepting the statement of the Scriptures that God himself alone is the First Great Cause, the fountain of life, from whom has proceeded all life on every plane; as says the Apostle, all things are of the Father, and all things are by the Son, and we by him. (1 Cor 8:6) The Christian not only finds the evidences of a Creator in the book of Nature, but he finds in the Bible the express and particular revelation of that Creator, and of that creation. He accepts as a fact the statement that God created our first parents, and bestowed life upon them, and provided for their propagation of a race of sentient beings, souls, of their own kind, just as he provided for a similar process in the brute creation.

Looking back to Eden we see Adam and Eve in their perfection, possessed of moral and intellectual powers, in the likeness of their Creator, and therefore far superior to their subjects, the brute creation – souls of a higher order, the result of a higher and finer organism; and we inquire,

What was the purpose of God respecting man in his creation?

We see that so far as the brute creation is concerned, the Lord’s evident design was that they should live a few years and then die, giving place to others of the species; and that thus they should minister as servants to the pleasure and convenience of man, their master, who in his perfection was a gracious master.

But how about man? Was man born to die like the beasts?

We have just seen that he had no undying quality bestowed upon him, but we find abundant testimony of God’s provision for the everlasting life of all who attain to approved conditions: that provision consisted not in the bestowment of immortal powers and qualities, but in the good will and purpose of his Creator, under which alone he “lives, moves and has his being.”

Occasionally a shallow thinker will argue that man is immortal, indestructible, because science has determined that “matter is indestructible.” But, as already pointed out, matter is not man, nor is the soul, or being, matter. The body is matter, but to be the body of a man matter must have a special peculiar organization, and then the spirit of life must be added before it becomes man or soul. No one will argue that an organism is indestructible, and hence any one of reasoning ability can see that the being or soul based upon and dependent on organism can be destroyed. Besides, this absurd reasoning or rather failure to reason would be forced by analogy to claim that all insects and creeping things have immortality, are indestructible. There is an immense difference between destroying inert matter and destroying being.

God declared to our father Adam, according to the record, that his life was secure, and would be continuous so long as he continued an obedient son of God; that only disobedience would expose him (the being, the soul) to death. The same Scriptures tell us of the disobedience of our first parents, and of the divine pronouncement of the sentence of death, as the penalty for sin. And we should notice carefully the language of our Lord, in respect to this sentence. God did not address his language to the senseless body, before it had been vitalized; neither did God address himself to the breath or spirit of life, which is an unintelligent vitalizing power merely. He addressed Adam, the soul, the intelligent or sentient being, after he had been fully created. And we all agree that this was the reasonable and only proper course – that the soul or being alone should be addressed. Now mark the Lord’s words: “In the day that thou eat thereof, thou shalt surely die.”

This contradicts the idea that some maintain that the “sprit of life” is the soul, that at death the body returns to the dust of the earth while the “spirit of life”, what they term as the soul returns to its maker. It was only after the sprit or breath of life (the power of God) was combined with the organism that it was vitalized and became a living sentient being, a living soul.   

When Adam transgressed the divine law and came under the sentence thereof, that his soul should die, the Lord might have executed his penalty in an instantaneous death; but instead, he merely withdrew his special provision for his continuance of life, and thus let Adam die gradually. The conditions of life are explained to us as having been a special grove of life-giving trees, by the eating of which man’s life would have continued, making good daily its wastes, and suffering no decay. As soon as man became a transgressor, he was restrained from access to these trees of life, or orchard of life, and thus, like the lower animals of his dominion, became subject to death. In man’s case, however, death is said to be a “curse,” because it came as a result of the violation of the divine regulations, and incidentally, through the curse upon earth’s king, a curse rests upon his dominion and upon all his subjects, the lower animals; for the king having lost his perfection, the entire dominion fell into disorder.

Moreover, the children of Adam could not obtain from him, as their progenitor, rights or privileges or physical perfections, which he had forfeited and was losing; hence, as the Scriptures show, the entire race of Adam fell with him under the curse – into death, and hence, as creatures in the image of God, possessed of powers of intelligence appreciative of everlasting life, we look up to God to see whether or not infinite wisdom, infinite love, infinite justice and infinite power can unitedly produce a plan of salvation for man, under which God can be just, and yet be the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. Rom 3:26

Nor is the hope a vain one. God’s provision, through Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures, is for a resurrection of the dead, a restitution of man TO HIS FORMER ESTATE. True, there are limitations and conditions, and not all shall return to the divine favor (immortality), but an opportunity to return shall be granted to all, with the strong probability, we believe, that the majority of Adam’s posterity shall, when they know the truth, gratefully accept of God’s grace through Christ, and conform their lives to the law of the New Covenant, through faith in the Redeemer.

Continued with next post.