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What Lies Beyond the Grave?
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The tree of life had the power of perpetuating life. Adam would
have continued to enjoy free access to this tree and have lived forever,
but when he sinned he was cut off from the tree of life and became
subject to death. Immortality had been forfeited by transgression.
There could have been no hope for the fallen race had not God,
by the sacrifice of His Son, brought immortality within their reach.
While “death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,” Christ
“hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” Only
through Christ can immortality be obtained. “He that believeth on
the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life.”
Romans 5:12
;
2 Timothy 1:10
;
John 3:36
.
The Great Lie
The one who promised life in disobedience was the great de-
ceiver. And the declaration of the serpent in Eden—“Ye shall not
surely die”—was the first sermon ever preached on the immortality
of the soul. Yet this declaration, resting solely upon the authority
of Satan, is echoed from pulpits and received by the majority of
mankind as readily as by our first parents. The divine sentence, “The
soul that sinneth, it shall die” (
Ezekiel 18:20
), is made to mean, The
soul that sinneth, it shall not die, but live eternally. Had man after
his fall been allowed free access to the tree of life, sin would have
been immortalized. But not one of the family of Adam has been
permitted to partake of the life-giving fruit. Therefore there is no
immortal sinner.
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After the Fall, Satan bade his angels to inculcate the belief in
man’s natural immortality. Having induced the people to receive this
error, they were to lead them to conclude that the sinner would live
in eternal misery. Now the prince of darkness represents God as a
revengeful tyrant, declaring that He plunges into hell all who do not
please Him, that while they writhe in eternal flames, their Creator
looks down on them with satisfaction. Thus the archfiend clothes
with his attributes the Benefactor of mankind. Cruelty is satanic.
God is love. Satan is the enemy who tempts man to sin and then
destroys him if he can. How repugnant to love, mercy, and justice,
is the doctrine that the wicked dead are tormented in an eternally