of a previous absence. According to circumstances, then, the noun parousia may import simply "presence," or it may mean "arrival," or it may signify "coming." In 1 Cor. xv. 23, and in 1 Thes. iv. 15, I translate this word "arrival." To me, the Scriptures teach two distinct comings of Christ over and above his introduction into this mortal state. See chap. xvi. of this work. When applied to the latter of these, I translate parousia "arrival." See last chapter of this work. CHAPTER VIII. MORTALIZATION IN ADAM. THE doctrine prevails, rather generally, that Adam, the first of the human race, was created immortal, and that he lost his immortality by sinning; also, that not merely himself, but all his posterity, to the latest generation, became mortalized, so to speak,- by his sin. I object to this dogma as being grossly unreasonable as well as wholly unsupported by the Scriptures. Suppose that previous to his transgression, while yet he was as truly immortal as he had ever been, our venerable common Progenitor had by some means happened to fall into the "river" of Eden, in flood-time. Such an event is surely supposable. Let it be supposed also, that he sank beneath the surface, and remained submerged for a day or two, and that then, by the subsidence of the freshet, he was left upon dry land. Is it to be believed that—no miracle occurring-he would, at the end of that time, have found himself undrowned? If the summit of a perpendicular cliff several hundred feet in height had been attained by him, and while standing on its brink his footing had given way, and no angelic hand had borne him up, and so he had been precipitated upon the granite pavement at its base, would not the fall and collision have killed him? Suppose, however, that, from some cause, the descension and collision above described, had altogether failed of injuring him; yet that a ponderous rock, the first movement of which had occasioned his fall, should have tumbled down immediately after him, and struck directly upon his person; no spiritual intervention being present; could it have happened otherwise than that he would have been crushed to death? The foregoing, and many similar questions, admit, respectively, of but one rational answer; and by it is shown the absurdity of the supposition that the bodily structure of Adam was ever properly immortal, any more than are those of his descendants. It is true that death was the penalty affixed to the first prohibitory law given by the Creator to man; and it is also true that Adam and Eve violated that law, and of course incurred the penalty. Yet it is further true, that, by the positive enactment of the Lawgiver, the penalty, whatever might have been its precise nature, was to be certainly inflicted in the very day of transgression. After forbidding "the man" to eat the fruit of a certain tree, so runs the allegory, the Lord God said expressly, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." It is hence entirely obvious, that If He who can not lie declared the truth,** Nor doubts that as to bodily demise, Adam did not die that day, but survived Day after day, on, on, through many years. 1 Gen. ii. 17. It follows hence that when Jehovah said Perhaps the sense intended in the text, "The wages [— daily pay *— ] of sin is death." We read, indeed, that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." But this text obviously yields no support to the notion that Adam and all his posterity, to the latest generation, became mortal by his first transgression. The context shows conclusively, that death is here used in a metaphorical or secondary sense, it being actually contrasted with "justification of life." Besides, the text does by no means affirm that death, in any sense, is the doom of all merely because one man sinned; but it expressly says, "and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." It occurs in the same connection with the text which assures us that "the wages of sin is death"; and it perfectly coincides with the one which says, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." 1 The passages wherein it is said that "since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead," will be commented upon at some length near the close of this work. (See Chap. XXXV.) In this place, I remark merely that the first man who was known to have died, revealed death as the destiny of the living, in like manner as the 66 * Dr. A. Clarke, in his Commentary, lets us know that the word rendered "wages" in Rom. vi. 23, originally signified the daily pay of a Roman soldier." In the marginal rendering of Luke iii. 14, Common Version, the word is translated "allowance," (importing what we now call "rations, ") which, if not always dealt out daily, was issued from time to time, and at not long in tervals. 1 1 Rom. v. 12, 18; vi. 23; Ezek. xviii. 4, 20. first who was known to have arisen to an other life, revealed the resurrection as the destiny of the dead. To adopt the phraseology of the text in hand, death "came" or, more properly, "was shown" by the one; and the resurrection "came" or "has been shown "- by the other.1 We are informed by the sacred historian that "God created man in his own image "; and we have been informed by sage divines that Adam lost that image, and that hence all his posterity come into the world without it. Granting the truth of this latter information, it might be very plausibly argued that what Adam lost was his spiritual nature, rendering him altogether animalic, hence in all respects mortal; and therefore that we are in that condition. The facts of the case, however, are, that, in the first place, the Scriptures no where teach that Adam by his transgression lost the Divine_image; and, secondly, it is stated in the New Testament, as a constant and universal fact, that " men are made after the simili tude of God."2 11 Cor. xv. 21. * Gen. i. 27; v. i; James iii. 9. |