III. Consequences of the Fall, so far as respects Adam.
1. Death.
This death was twofold. It was partly:
A. Physical death, or the separation of the soul from the body.—The seeds of death, naturally implanted in man's constitution, began to develop themselves the moment that access to the tree of life was denied him. Man from that moment was a dying creature.
In a true sense death began at once. To it belonged the pains which both man and woman should suffer in their appointed callings. The fact that man's earthly existence did not at once end, was due to God's counsel of redemption. “The law of the Spirit of life”(Rom. 8:2) began to work even then, and grace began to counteract the effects of the Fall. Christ has now “abolished death” (2 Tim. 1:10) by taking its terrors away, and by turning it into the portal of heaven. He will destroy it utterly (1 Cor. 15:26) when by resurrection from the dead, the bodies of the saints shall be made immortal. Dr. William A. Hammond, following a French scientist, declares that there is no reason in a normal physical system why man should not live forever.
That death is not a physical necessity is evident if we once remember that life is, not fuel, but fire. Weismann, Heredity, 8, 24, 72, 159—“The organism must not be looked upon as a heap of combustible material, which is completely reduced to ashes in a certain time, the length of which is determined by its size and by the rate at which it burns; but it should be compared to a fire, to which fresh fuel can be continually added, and which, whether it burns quickly or slowly, can be kept burning as long as necessity demands.... Death is not a primary necessity, but it has been acquired secondarily, as an adaptation.... Unicellular organisms, increasing by means of fission, in a certain sense possess immortality. No Amœba has ever lost an ancestor by death.... Each individual now living is far older than mankind, and is almost as old as life itself.... Death is not an essential attribute of living matter.”
If we regard man as primarily spirit, the possibility of life without death is plain. God lives on eternally, and the future physical organism of the righteous will have in it no seed of death. Man might have been created without being mortal. That he is mortal is due to anticipated sin. Regard body as simply the constant energizing of God, and we see that there is no inherent necessity of death. Denney, Studies in Theology, 98—“Man, it is said, must die because he is a natural being, and what belongs to nature belongs to him. But we assert, on the contrary, that he was created a supernatural being, with a primacy over nature, so related to God as to be immortal. Death is an intrusion, and it is finally to be abolished.” Chandler, The Spirit of Man, 45-47—“The [pg 591]first stage in the fall was the disintegration of spirit into body and mind; and the second was the enslavement of mind to body.”
Some recent writers, however, deny that death is a consequence of the Fall, except in the sense that man's fear of death results from his sin. Newman Smyth, Place of Death in Evolution, 19-22, indeed, asserts the value and propriety of death as an element of the normal universe. He would oppose to the doctrine of Weismann the conclusions of Maupas, the French biologist, who has followed infusoria through 600 generations. Fission, says Maupas, reproduces for many generations, but the unicellular germ ultimately weakens and dies out. The asexual reproduction must be supplemented by a higher conjugation, the meeting and partial blending of the contents of two cells. This is only occasional, but it is necessary to the permanence of the species. Isolation is ultimate death. Newman Smyth adds that death and sex appear together. When sex enters to enrich and diversify life, all that will not take advantage of it dies out. Survival of the fittest is accompanied by death of that which will not improve. Death is a secondary thing—a consequence of life. A living form acquired the power of giving up its life for another. It died in order that its offspring might survive in a higher form. Death helps life on and up. It does not put a stop to life. It became an advantage to life as a whole that certain primitive forms should be left by the way to perish. We owe our human birth to death in nature. The earth before us has died that we might live. We are the living children of a world that has died for us. Death is a means of life, of increasing specialization of function. Some cells are born to give up their life sacrificially for the organism to which they belong.