An Essay on the Scriptural Doctrine of Immortality

by James Challis

The apostle sums up his argument by saying (v. 19), "For as by the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also by the obedience {16} of one shall the many be made righteous" (dikaioi katastatêsontai oi polloi). It is evident that "the many" here includes all that are born in the world, in contradistinction to "the one," Adam, who was created, and from whom all have descended by natural generation. Now, considering that righteousness and life, as necessarily as their opposites sin and death, are related to each other by law as antecedent and consequent, the above revelation that "all will be made righteous" is as direct an assertion of the immortality of all men as could possibly be made. It is, therefore, of the greatest moment, as regards our argument, to ascertain on what grounds we are told that all will eventually be "made righteous" through the obedience of Jesus Christ, and what is the exact meaning of this doctrine. The purpose of this essay will be completely fulfilled if it should be shown that these questions admit of being satisfactorily answered. But before attempting to do this, it is necessary to have a precise understanding of the previous assertion that through Adam's disobedience "the many were made sinners." This preliminary inquiry I now proceed to enter upon.

If we adopt the view expressed in a passage already quoted (2 Esdras iii. 21), we shall, in effect, admit that the transgression of Adam was the consequence of his "bearing a wicked heart," and that all who are born of him sin because by natural generation they {17} have received from him the same wicked heart. According to this view it must be supposed that "the wicked heart" is in respect to goodness a tabula rasa, and that till goodness be formed in it, it is led by natural desires to do evil. Certainly the moral phenomena exhibited by very young children accord with this supposition; and it may reasonably be presumed that St. Paul, in giving to the Romans, to whom he had not personally preached, a synoptical statement of the doctrines he was accustomed to teach, did not set before them the Scriptural account of the introduction and prevalence of sin in any manner not intelligible to ordinary minds from common experience.

What then are we to understand by the assertion that "through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners"? In answer to this question it is to be said that the word parakoê may be taken in this passage to signify "disobedience" abstractedly, and not a special act of disobedience, because upakoê in the next clause does not require to be taken in a specific sense, but rather as referring to that holy spirit which was in Jesus Christ, in virtue of which his will was always in subjection to the will of his heavenly Father, and he became "obedient unto death." According to this interpretation, "disobedience" is here put for that wickedness of heart the antecedent existence of which the sin of Adam gave {18} evidence of, and which, by being transmitted from father to son through natural generation, has made all men sinners, to the end that all may be eventually made righteous by spiritual generation.

It is true that the sin of Adam, being the first violation of a command received from God, first made disobedience an objective reality, and that thus sin entered into the world. But although actual transgression had this beginning, it does not follow that the proneness of the heart of man to transgress was contingent on Adam's sin, or thereby came into existence. On the other hand, it will probably be urged that to ascribe its existence to any other cause is "to make God the author of sin." In answer to this objection it may be said that if it were valid as regards God's moral essence, one might with as good reason urge that it was inconsistent with His power and intelligence that the natural creation should have its beginning in darkness and chaos. However, whether or not this view be accepted, I shall assume that the reality of the natural wickedness of the human heart is admitted, and consequently the remainder of the argument, inasmuch as it has reference to the means by which the wicked heart is subdued and made righteous, will in either case be the same.

The relation of "one" to "many," considered only as a natural fact, is so peculiar and essential an {19} element in the past history and progressive development of the human race, that it might well be supposed to be specially significant with respect to their future destiny; and, in fact, St. Paul has taught us to draw the reasonable inference that whereas through the first Adam the many, by a law from which they cannot rid themselves, have been made sinners, à fortiori through a "second Adam" the many will be made righteous. The course of our argument, consequently, now demands an inquiry as to the means by which the many will be made (katastathêsontai) righteous through the obedience of Jesus Christ. The future tense is particularly to be noticed.

As soon as it was shown by the sin of Adam that the natural man is incapable of obedience to the will of God, a preordained dispensation was begun, whereby the natural man is converted into the spiritual man and made fit for immortality. This dispensation was introduced by a promise, the terms of which could be understood by Adam and Eve after they had learned that the spirit of evil (in whom is "the power of death") through their disobedience brought death into the world. The promise was given in the words "he (autos, Sept.) shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. iii. 15). Hebrew commentators have, I think, rightly taken this passage in the sense—he ("the seed of the woman") shall bruise thee at thy ending, and thou shalt bruise him at his {20} beginning. The promise, accordingly, signifies that the power of Satan would prevail at first, and for a time, even to putting to death the Son of God (Luke xxii. 53), but that in the end that power would by the Son of God be overcome (Luke x. 18). And since with the victory over the spirit of evil an end is put to evil itself, the promise is, in effect, that Adam and his race shall eventually be exempt from death and evil, and partake of a happy immortality.

But in the very next sentence conditions are annexed (Gen. iii. 16-19). Because of the imperfection of the natural man, and his opposition, through the subtlety of Satan and the desires of the flesh, to the will of his Maker, labour and sorrow, pain and death, were ordained to be his lot, in order that he may thereby be made meet to partake of the promise. It is by reason of these conditions that the promise becomes, in effect, a covenant, in which of necessity two parties are concerned: God on His part promises happiness and immortality, but to be received only on the above-stated conditions; and man's part is to submit to the conditions, as being ordered by a "faithful Creator," and to look in faith for the fulfilment of the promise. Here, then, are all the essentials of a covenant, excepting surety for its fulfilment, which on acknowledged principles of justice might be asked for by man, seeing that he has to satisfy the conditions before he enjoys the benefit. Such security is amply {21} given by God, as will be shown in the sequel of the argument. In short, this covenant admits of being described in terms exactly suited to human covenants, because the providence of God has so ordered these, that, together with other purposes, they answer this, the principal one, of making intelligible the divine covenant. This same covenant might with more exactness be called a will, or testament, because from its very conditions the benefit it confers cannot be received till after death (see Heb. ix. 16, 17). Also, because this covenanted promise runs through the whole of the Scriptures, they have been appropriately named the Scriptures of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, not, however, as signifying that the Old Testament is superseded by the New, but that it reveals an earlier stage of development of the same covenant.

The character and purpose of this covenant began to be unfolded at the threshold of the world's history, on the occasion of offerings being brought to God by Cain and Abel. Abel's offering consisted of "the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof," and was, therefore, proper for expressing, by visible tokens, the character of the covenant in three essential particulars: first, that it is a covenant of life, the animals chosen affording food, and that of the choicest kind, for supporting life; secondly, that the covenanted life is entered upon after death, the animals being slain {22} for food; thirdly, that pain and death, although, according to law, consequent upon sin, were ordained, not alone for the judicial punishment of sin, the animals that were slain being "harmless," but for rendering the spirit of man meet to partake of the future life. Abel was himself in his death the first witness (martus) to this truth, and by the same means many chosen servants of God have been "purified and made white" (Dan. xii. 10). The offering of Cain was also proper for food, but as consisting of "fruits of the ground," it was not, like Abel's, susceptible of any meaning relative to the covenant. Grace was given to Abel to select an offering which, as being significant of the covenant, was accepted by God; but the same grace was not given to Cain. "The Lord had respect to Abel and to his offering: but to Cain and to his offering He had not respect."

The narrative goes on to say that because the Lord had not the same respect to Cain's offering as to Abel's, Cain was "very wroth, and his countenance fell," and that on this account he was rebuked. It should be noticed that the terms of the rebuke have no reference to the choice of offering, but to "doing well," implying that Cain's conduct was not "righteous" like that of Abel. To quiet his troubled spirit, he is told that it is God's pleasure that he should stand towards his brother in the relation of protector and ruler. Cain repudiated this relation {23} and slew his brother, acting thus as the unrighteous world, of whom he may be regarded as the representative, have always acted towards God's elect, whom Abel typified. These remarks will afterwards be seen to bear on the general argument.

The distinction which God made between the offerings of Cain and Abel, and His express approval of Abel's offering, might serve to make known, at the time and in succeeding generations, the purport of the promise made originally to Adam, and the ordained conditions of its fulfilment. In fact, the special acceptance by God of Abel's offering may be looked upon as the primary institution of sacrifice. The researches of men of learning have abundantly shown that the sacrificing of animals was a very ancient and wide-spread religious practice, but have left altogether unexplained how it originated, and whence arose the custom of ratifying a covenant between man and man by killing animals; for what reason also the slaying of innocuous and helpless victims came to be the principal act of religious worship among the Jews, and why it was thought among the Gentiles that such sacrifices pleased the gods. These questions do not appear to admit of answers apart from information derived from Scripture. The answers will, I think, be found to be given by what, in reliance on such aid, has been already said, and by what remains to be said, {24} respecting the covenant of immortality. It is quite possible that, as has happened with respect to other practices, that of sacrificing animals was continued long after its original signification ceased to be understood. This may be affirmed of the ratifying of covenants by killing victims (which no sane person nowadays would think of doing), and generally of the sacrifices offered by Gentile nations in honour of their gods, which eventually became mere matters of custom, without any distinct appreciation of their intrinsic meaning. In such cases all clue from tradition or history fails, and the explanation of the sources of the practices can be looked for only in the records of Scripture.