Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-17
NWORT4LfTT.

IMMORTILITT.
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift OF
God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our
Lord-Romans vi. %.
Orthodox churches of good standing
hold, as one of their fundamental doc
trines, that God created man an immortal
being, and that being such he will live on
forever in state of happiness or misery.
This they believe is established by
the Mosaic account of the
creation which is briefly told in Genesis,
God made man in his own image and
breathed into him the breath of life and he
became living soul. He gave him the
garden Of Eden to tend with the injunction
that he should not eat of the tree of knowl-
edge ''for on the day thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die" Adam and Eve dis
obeyed and from their judge came the
sentence SIN the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the
ground; out of it vast thou taken; for dust
thou art and unto dust shalt thou return"
To prevent them from eating of the tree
of life and living forever the Lord placed
cherubims to guard the way.
Taking this, the Bible account of the
creation and fall of man, what intelligent
thinker, unbiased by theologies or creeds
would for one moment find in 1t proof of
mans inherent Immortality? The being
which awoke into existence
by the breath of God was
living soul without knowledge of good or
i'll. The penalty of disobedience was
death, that from the day the sin was COM
mitted corruption should commence and
death should follow, of dust they were Gre
ated, to dust they should return. And to
prevent their becoming immortal in their
sinful state, cherubims were placed to
guard the way to the tree of life. Thus
did death enter the world. Paul wrote,
'For as in Adam all die.'
The old patriarchs died, and the Bible
says ''they slept with their fathers" No
word was written of conscious existence
after death. Of Enoch, Moses and Elijah
no definite account is given. sEnoch was
not, for God took him." Moses
died and God buried him, and
Elijah was caught up into heaven, but all
through the Bible death is spoken of as
sleep. Job voiced the feeling of doubt
and uncertainty about the future which
filled the minds of men, as we'll as of the
trust and confidence they had in Gods
word. "Ff man die shall he live again ?"
II know that my Redeemer liveth and that
he shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth; and though after my skin worms
destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I
see God" He does not say shall see him
after die, but in my flesh, after the resur-
rection.
David sang, 81 shall be satisfied when I
awake with his likeness" Awake from
what sleep? The sleep of death, f1om
which Paul says ':they that sleep in Christ
shall rise first" Solomon urged men ''to
do with the might whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do; for there is no work, nor de-
vice, nor knowledge nor wisdom in the
grave, whittier thou goest." If man was
immortal and had conscious existence
after death, would he have spoken. thus
Are not wisdom and knowledge the posses
sions of the soul? But, the theologian
urges, Solomon also said, s'then shall the
dust return to the earth as it was, and the
spirit shall return to the God who gave it.
The spirit was the breath of life
which God breathed into man, at his crea-
ton AMI death was the yielding mp of that
breath.
Hezekiah, the king of Israel, being about
to die, thus prayed, after God had added to
his days fifteen years: s'Thou hast in mercy
to my soul delivered it from the pit of cor.
ruption. For the grave cannot praise thee
death cannot celebrate thee, they that 60
down into the pit cannot hope in thy truth
The living, the living praise thee as dc
this day" If ''death were the gate to end
less joy,' at meaning have these
wordss If Ian pad them in any othe,
book but the Bible3 you'd he not think thai
Hezekiah believed that death was oblivion
or sleep in which he would be unable to
learn of God or praise him?
Orthodox churches sing:
ssWhen this poor feeble faltering tongue,
Lies silent in the grave,
Then in nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing thy power to save"
The Bible says: "For in death there ii
no remembrance of thee; in the grave wht
shall give thee thanks" When Daniel, thu
man greatly beloved, had finished his work
God said: $50 thy way, for thou shalt res
ord sford in fhv lot at the end of thu