All of us die. Adam and Eve were given the opportunity to never die, to be immortal. As the first of mankind they were given a lot of responsibility. When the tempter, Satan deceived them by saying the words, 'Ye shall not surely die.' He lied. Did Adam and Eve jump up and down in joy upon sinning and not being struck instantly dead? No. They didn't have time to celebrate their escape of instant death, they were too busy trying to comprehend their life without God. They were instantly stripped of His glorious covering of light and realizing a life without their protector. They wanted to know evil, and they were instantly feeling its affects. Fear. They'd never known fear, they'd never known wrong doing. The awfulness of what they'd done was apparent to them and their regret, their sorrow was very real. No, they didn't have time to celebrate living when living was filled with terror, shame, and regret. The life they were still being allowed to live wasn't going to be the life filled with the glory of God, it was going to be a life of horror and hardship. They'd done wrong. They made the wrong choice and they knew it. It's almost safe to imagine they were never truly happy again having known a perfect love and lost it by their own doing. They also knew that they were going to die, and dying wasn't going to be an easy thing. They were going to live through their bodies degrading over time, it was going to be a very slow dying, ultimately they breathed no more, their heart beats stopped and their corruptible bodies began to know corruption, rapid corruption. The first death they knew was the death of beloved animals they'd named. Those animals were suddenly lifeless, their skins stripped from their bodies, and those skins given to Adam and Eve to wear in place of the glorious light of God's covering. They saw death. Those animals that were killed didn't get up and start living again without their skins. Those animals lay there decaying. This they knew would eventually be their own end. They were going to be gone. Before that, they had to experience the death of their son, Abel. Murdered by his own brother. The very first son born to mankind was a murderer. Seeing the lifeless body of their son, Abel, Adam and Eve did not celebrate his transition to another life, they knew that wasn't what was happening. They knew their son's life was completely and utterly over. This was the death that Satan lied about telling them they would not die. The tragedy was beyond anything they'd known, death. The end. God did NOT tell them if they sinned they would struggle for a while then die only to be given a glorious life after death. No. Death was an end. Their hope was in the future, in a Savior who would destroy Satan and along with Satan all the evil in existence. We all die. Our lives truly come to an end. All that makes us who we are is reserved in death's sleep. And what we are will not be awakened from death's sleep individually but all at once when our Savior returns and calls us to Him in His miraculous way. This is BIBLICAL, this is TRUTH. If we believe Satan's lie that we won't die- we do not accept the truth that we do. And by death I mean death, not death and instant new life- that is a lie. Some people console themselves and others with the lie that they are going to a better place as soon as they die, in effect they are telling others and themselves that they aren't really dead, just moving on to another plane of existence. Lies. Delusions. Deception. And none of that is of God, none. How many millions of people are going to be lost to eternal life because they cherish lies and refuse truth? Don't pat yourself on the back right now and say that I'm the deluded one and I'll understand in time, I'm just a little confused, no harm no foul. The truth is, if I'm believing lies, I'm not following God's truth, and if I'm not following God's truth then I will not be God's. I have to seek truth and nothing else. I have had to give up MANY of my cherished beliefs in the face of truth, I wasn't raised with the things I believe now. I was shown truth in the word of God, the Holy Spirit opened my heart to truth and I was given a choice to either believe the truth, or believe lies. I praise God, I am eternally grateful to my Lord and Savior, for truth!
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A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Unjust (continued)
By J.H. Waggoner
DISTINCTION OF "BLOOD-LIFE" A FALLACY
Both Mr. Storrs and Mr. Curry make a point and lay much stress on the supposed distinction between the "blood-life" and "spirit-life;" their position being that the blood-life is forfeited to the law, and that the law, as a matter of justice, holds it forever; that the life that is laid down in death is not taken up again in the resurrection, but another or spirit-life is conferred in its stead. The fallacy of this has already been shown in that it makes the justified pay the same forfeit as the condemned, which is unjust. To further show its erroneousness, I will compare their statements with those of the Scriptures.
Said Mr. Curry:
"How was it with Christ? He laid down his blood-life, made an atonement, but he never took it up again. That was the purchase, the forfeit." Debate with Grant, p. 91.
And Mr. Storrs says: "It was the price paid; his blood-life is laid down forever, and is never taken again." Life from the Dead, p. 92.
But the words of the Saviour stand directly opposed to these assumptions. He says: "I lay down my life that I might take it again. . . I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." John 10:17, 18. This expression-"take it again"-shows that no such distinction obtains in the Scriptures. If he laid down one life and never took it again, but took another in its stead, as they assert, then this language of the Saviour is most unhappily chosen. And as the Saviour's statement is as plain and explicit as theirs, and directly contradicts theirs, I must conclude that their view was never drawn from the Bible, but was gotten up to meet the necessity of their theory.
THEIR THEORY OF THE TWO RESURRECTIONS
The fact that there are two "orders" of the resurrection, or two resurrections in point of time, seems to stand out so prominently in the Scriptures that they are constrained to admit it; but they will not admit that the last, or second, is of "the unjust;" of them "that have done evil;" of the "rest" in distinction from the "blessed and holy." But admitting the fact of a second resurrection, they have had to contradict themselves and deny their own invulnerable principles to maintain their denial that this resurrection is of the wicked. See the following statements.
Says Mr. Storrs:
"Apart from Christ, when a man dies, he dies in his sins, and has lost his life never to find it again." Life from the Dead, p. 33.
"Thus the resurrection of the dead to life belongs to Christ and his body, the church-all true believers, under whatever dispensation they may have lived; and from this revival into life all others, it seems to us, are absolutely excluded." Id., p. 35.
"Life from the dead is a peculiarity of the gospel-a gospel benefit-and believers only live again." Id., p. 27.
But in commenting on Rev. 20:5, he says:
"If the text were a genuine one, it would be easy to show that it may not embrace the unholy at all. It might refer to the living again of the virtuous heathen, who had never heard of Christ, and therefore had not suffered for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God; hence, were not embraced in the 'first resurrection,' but are to have life afterwards; for surely, 'in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness'-according to the light he has-'is accepted with him,' and will have life through Jesus, though he had never heard of him." Id., pp. 70, 71.
Dropping the paradoxical idea of the heathen who fear God and work righteousness! we notice that, according to Eld. Storrs, (1) A resurrection is a peculiarity of the gospel, and of course is inadmissible outside the gospel. (2) It belongs to the church-to believers in Christ, only, and all others are absolutely excluded. But (3), The second resurrection "may embrace" a class who were not believers in Christ, who never heard of him. Peter's testimony in Acts 10, clearly proves that the faithfully obedient in all nations-Jews and Gentiles-are accepted with God; but Cornelius had the gospel message sent to him to teach him what he ought to do. To refer to these facts and circumstances to prove the salvation of those who have no faith, is a manifest perversion of the Scriptures. That any one of Mr. Storrs' ability and power of discrimination should put forth sentiments so unscriptural and self-contradictory, is strong evidence of the weakness of the theory he advocates. And Mr. Curry, who seemed to closely follow Mr. Storrs, is equally unfortunate in his expressions on this subject. He laid down the following as an "unanswerable principle:"
"There is no future life without justification, and justification comes by faith alone." Debate, p. 106.
And again he said:
"That is the true, Christian, orthodox, Protestant doctrine-justification by faith; and I contend that there is no other justification in the Bible, and without justification there can be no future life." Id., p. 77.
After thus emphatically confining a future life to those who are justified by faith in Christ, he says:
"May it not be that he will save a great many righteous heathen, though they are not saved at his coming? That there will be a second resurrection of the righteous? Is it not possible? It has no difficulty with me. And I believe the resurrection will be one of the virtuous heathen, but not of the wicked dead. And so I preach it." Id., p. 75.
But of the heathen he says, in another place:
"The gospel does not address itself to the heathen. They come under a law peculiar to themselves." Id., p. 89.
Here again we notice that, (1) There is no justification in the Bible, except by faith. (2) There is no future life without justification. But (3), There is a future life to those who have no faith. And it is no relief from the contradiction to say the gospel does not address itself to them; for then I inquire, Where does he get his knowledge of a resurrection unto life outside the gospel? His declaration admits that it is not "in the Bible." Then by what authority does he "preach it?" It is certainly no recommendation to the non-resurrection theory that its advocates have to invent "another gospel" to accommodate it!
I read that "all the world" stand condemned-"guilty before God;" and that God "now commandeth all men everywhere to repent;" and that "without faith it is impossible to please God." Jesus also said, "No man cometh to the Father but by me." But in the above quotations there is a system of salvation taught which ignores these truths; and, this being the case, it is comparatively a small matter that they have contradicted their much-cherished "principles" to sustain it. The same facts which led them to make the above statements, we have also discovered in the Scriptures. We see that the conclusion is unavoidable that there is more than one "order," or class, in the resurrection. But we never thought necessary to refer a righteous resurrection, or resurrection to eternal life, to "them that know not God," nor to devise a justification or system of salvation not taught in the Bible. We find a more easy, because a more scriptural, solution in referring it to the "resurrection of the unjust"-of "them that have done evil." We learn that all now die in Adam without regard to character; but they are on probation, the result of which is life or death. And as they do not now die in view of that probation, as is proved by the fact that they die without any regard to the character formed under that probation, they must be raised to die "the second death," which is the only death to which their probation relates. This only meets the demands of justice. And this is the teaching of the Bible.
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