| DEATH, DYING
and SIN, and RESURRECTION
Section
Two
The
Penalty on Mankind because of Adam
In Genesis we read of the
beginning of the human race in the creation of Adam.
Gen.2:7
And forming is Yahweh Elohim the human of soil from the ground,
and He is blowing into his
nostrils the breath of the living,
and becoming is the
human a living soul.
When God created Adam, He formed
him out of the soil of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the breath
of the living, and he became a living soul. Scripture records that
when Adam was created, he became alive when his inert body
of soil was infused with life-imparting spirit from God. He was
not a living soul until that precise moment!
A good analogy for this relationship
between body, spirit, and soul is an electric light bulb.
The filament itself, of tangible material, represents
the body;
the electric current, of non-material, represents the spirit
(called the breath of the living);
the light that comes on when the circuit is completed and the current
flows,
coming out of no knowable source, represents
the living soul
- the sentient being.
When the current is cut off,
however, the filament ceases to function, and the light disappears to the
imperceptible place from which it came! It is the current that causes
light to emanate from the bulb; without the current there is no light.
It is not the light that causes the circuit to function; the light is the
result of the current flowing through the filament!
Similarly, it is the spirit,
not
the soul, that gives life to the body; that makes it alive; that brings
into
being a living soul! The soul is the result of spirit flowing
through the body. This is Scriptural teaching!
Job.34:14,15
....He can gather back His spirit and His breath to Himself;
All flesh would breathe
its last together, And humanity would return to the soil.
Psa.104:29,30
....
You gather away their
spirit; they breathe their last and return to their soil.
You send forth Your spirit;
they are created, And You renew the face of the ground.
When he was created, death was
not
in
Adam. It was not a part of his constitution. And at that time he
must have been aglow with life. He must have been
radiant
with energy. [Modern techniques have detected vestiges of this
aura
in all living organisms, the intensities of which vary according
to the 'life-force' of each, stronger in healthy specimens and diminishing
accordingly until it is undetectable in the dead.]
While Adam was in the garden
in Eden, he was made responsible for certain tasks. While tending to these
responsibilities he was allowed to eat freely of the fruit of the trees
in the garden.
Gen.2:15-17
And taking is Yahweh Elohim the human that he had formed
and is leaving him in the
garden of Eden to serve it and to keep it.
And instructing is Yahweh
Elohim the human, saying,
"From every tree of the
garden, you are to eat, yea, eat.
Yet from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, you are not to be eating from it,
for in the day you eat from
it, to die shall you be dying."
Our attention is drawn to two
particular trees - one, the Tree of Life; the other, the Tree of the Knowledge
of
Good and Evil. No restrictions were given to Adam concerning the Tree
of Life. But, concerning the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil, he was specifically directed NOT to eat of it for, ‘in the day
you eat from it, to die shall you be dying.’! This was the only
stipulated restriction.
A specific instruction
was given, and a specific penalty was attached to it for non-compliance.
‘In the day’ that that command was broken, that accompanying
penalty would take effect. The penalty was a dying condition which
would culminate in DEATH!
The record shows Adam's 'choice'.
Adam offended God by preferring to obey the serpent. He sinned
by missing the mark set for him! He transgressed in breaking God’s
command and and he incurred the stipulated penalty.
Adam's disobedience
in the eating of the fruit was sin. When Adam committed the act
it was the first time that SIN occurred in the newly-emerged world. The
penalty
that was attached for non-compliance, to become dying, took
effect.
Adam did not fall dead the
moment he ate the fruit. He had been warned that ‘to die
shall you be dying’! He was to be a dying creature. A ‘dying-factor’
became incorporated into his being. A dying process was initiated
that would inexorably eventuate in his actual death.
It is either that
some energizing factor in his spirit had been reduced, or
some added impetus had been given to his flesh, to the point that
the flesh became dominant. It became the natural propensity of the flesh
to revert to its original state, to decompose into soil. Dying became the
order of the day. And, though Adam did not fall dead at the time he ate
of the fruit, death had become a certainty!
Scripture declares that because
of Adam's act of disobedience, which was his sin, death became a
reality. Death, which was the penalty incurred, passed through into
all mankind! Not sin, the act of disobedience, but DEATH, the
penalty, is passed through! This deserves repeated emphasis. Failure
to recognise this distinction has caused utter confusion to our understanding
of the reason we sin! And the spurious doctrine has arisen concerning the
transmission of the 'original sin' - when no such transfer is ever mentioned
in Scripture!
As it concerns all of humanity,
let us look at the consequence, .
Rom.5:12
Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world,
and through sin death,
and thus death
passed through into all mankind,
on which all sinned—
At this point, it would be helpful
to define a few related terms of Scripture that must be distinguished from
one another if we want to get a proper understanding of what goes on..
SIN comes
from the Greek (h)armart(an)ö, a verb, and means 'to miss
the mark', 'to make a mistake', or 'to fall short of the
ideal'. Its scope is wide enough to cover failure of any sort, whether
unintentional or intentional. Though to sin is to fall short of a standard
set by God, Scripture adds an essential criterion that '...sin is not
being taken into account when there is no law.' (Rom.5:13)
TRANSGRESSION, however,
comes from the Greek parabasis, and indicates a breaking of law
or regulation. Law, of necessity, incurs a penalty for the breaking of
it. Scripture defines an essential parameter: ‘Now where no law is,
neither is there transgression’ (Rom.4:15). Hence, where there is no
transgression, there is no penalty to be incurred.
OFFENCE, on the other
hand, comes from the Greek paraptöma and has to do with that
which wounds feelings. In spite of all the offences we have perpetrated
against our Father, He is ‘conciliating the world to Himself, not reckoning
their offences to them’ (2Cor.5:19).
Resuming our consideration -
when the penalty was applied to Adam, every one of his descendants
inherited that debilitating factor automatically, without any volition
on their part. Man became a dying creature. The life-force in
his spirit which could have kept on functioning at optimum energising level
was, from then, set to diminish with time so that the man, whether or not
he sins through his inherited weakness, must eventually die!
It is because of this
passed-on
penalty incurred by Adam that they sin!
Reviewing verse 12, we see
an issue that requires to be emphasised since, for the most part, it has
been mistranslated and has thrown most of us into confusion.
Rom.5:12
Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world,
and through sin death,
and thus death
passed through into all mankind,
on which all
sinned— [Gk: eph hö pantes hêmarton ]
The verse ends with 'on which
all sinned'. The passage insists that this is the ‘why’, ‘on
which’ (Gk: eph hö), every one of his progeny has sinned in
his own turn. According to this scripture, for every one of Adam’s progeny,
the death that was passed on to him is the cause of, the basis
for, all his sins! A vicious cycle was put into operation for mankind.
The judicial sentence of death on Adam was to be borne by Adam together
with every one of those who were
in him.
It is evident from Scripture
that sin had become a way of life with humanity.
Gen.6:5
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Rom.3:9-11
...we previously charge both Jews and Greeks to be all under sin,
according as it is written,
that "Not one is just"--not even one.
Not one is understanding.
Not one is seeking out God.
This dying condition which culminates
in death, which every one now bears within himself, is a weakness which
prevents him from avoiding sin - in fact, he
now has a tendency
to, a propensity for, wrongdoing. Scripture declares that they cannot help
being sinners because death resides in them - even a new
born babe is declared a sinner! The reason for this is that:
Rom.5:19a
‘through the disobedience of the one man,
the many were constituted
sinners,’
Scripture goes on to present
the argument on which verse 12 is based.
Rom.5:13 for
until law sin was in the world,
yet sin is not being
taken into account when there is no law;
Rom.4:15
Now where no law is, neither is there transgression.'
From Adam’s transgression until
the giving of the law through Moses, people sinned. But, as there was no
given law for them to break, their sins, their failure to attain God's
standards and criteria (of which they were unaware), were not being
taken into account. As such, there could be NO penalty for their sins.
They could not, therefore, be put to death for their sins.
To emphasise this important
point: it is obvious that no penalty could have been judicially exacted
for the sinning that was going on among humanity and that, therefore, death
could
not, and should not, have resulted! Their sins did not bring
down a penalty - for there was no attached penalty to bring down
on themselves!
Yet, they all DIED! Death
had been taking place
throughout this 'no-penalty' phase! People
still died even though they did NOT transgress any God-given law
or command in the way Adam did!
Rom.5:14 neverthelessdeath
reigns from Adam unto Moses,
over those also who do not
sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam,
who is a type of Him Who
is about to be.
Therefore, these people must
have been dying, not because of their own wrongdoing, but because
it was already inside of them TO die! It had to do with something
now
intrinsic! They just died because of the penalty incurred
on humanity by ADAM’s disobedience! We are well aware that babies can die
at their very first breath even though they cannot possibly think
or do any wrong! Even if we do not commit a single sin, we
would still die because we were IN Adam our ultimate forefather
in flesh!
1Cor.15:22a
... in Adam, all are dying, ...
Rom5:18a,19a
..it was through one
offense
for all mankind for condemnation,..
through the disobedience
of the one man, the many were constituted sinners,...
Through the one act of Adam,
all mankind has come under the penalty he incurred - Death! Through
Adam's disobedience, all of mankind has come under condemnation of death;
‘the many’ have been constituted sinners! And because this dying-factor
is inherent within us, we all 'miss the mark', we all offend
our God.
All our endeavours to be
good and to do good, no matter how sincere they may be, CANNOT remove
this
condemnation. It is totally beyond our power! There is NO way WE
can excise this God-decreed penalty! We cannot lift ourselves by
our bootstraps. Humanity is unable and incapable of overcoming the impasse.
Rom.11:32a
For God locks up all together in stubbornness,…
Gal.3:22
...the scripture locks up all together under sin,...
February 2002
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