Was Adam Created Mortal?
Definitely NO! That is, of course, understanding ‘mortal’ to mean what it usually means — ‘subject to death’ or ‘that which must inevitably die’.
But the matter cannot be disposed of so easily. ‘Mortal’ and ‘mortality’ happen to be terms to which various shades of meaning are attachable (or, at least have been attached), and this difference in value to different minds makes, or should make, ‘all the difference’ to rational disputants.
Since ‘A’ has built his entire case on the fact that the word ‘sin’ bears two altogether different signification, and vehemently insists on the distinction being recognised, he cannot rightly or reasonably refuse the possibility of the same thing obtaining in the case of the words ‘mortal’ and ‘mortality’. We must therefore examine the matter more minutely.
It has long been a vexed question whether man, at creation, was made just ‘a little lower than the angels’ or just a little higher than the animals. Since between the beasts and the Elohim there is, and was, ‘a great gulf fixed’, it can readily be seen what a wide field for wordy warfare is here presented to those who relish that occupation.
Surveying the result of the conflict, one has to concur with the dictum of our late Bro. C. C. Walker (`Christadelphian’, 1921, p. 258): “The estate of Adam before he sinned provides a first-class theological battle-ground on which great wars of words have been fought, with singularly little resultant illumination of mind and comfort of soul. Brother Roberts became much more conservative on this matter in after years, and so does everyone who, like him, has a great respect for the Word of God.”
Then why set foot again upon such barren ground? Only to pick out the threads of truth from the bewildering and knotted maze of argumental confusion; to show how, by the application of that charity which covers a multitude of sins’, forty years of division could have been avoided; and so, perhaps, contribute to the avoidance of another forty.
The Extremes
I know one senior brother of the A group who sincerely avers that the Psalmist’s declaration, `Thou (God) hast made him (man) a little lower than the angels’ (Ps. 8:5) was not applicable to the newly-created Adam, and that it applies only to Adam’s posterity. That is one extreme, which is perhaps quite as heretical as anything ever propounded by B. I admit it is not shared by many of the ‘A’ brethren.
The other extreme (held by a minority in the B group) is that man in his pristine state was precisely the same physically as we are today.
As ever, the middle course between two extremes is the wise and right one; which, in this case, is to believe (I) that Adam was not made physically ‘equal to the angels’ (though, as with them, there was no prospect of death — whilst obedience continued); (2) that yet he was physically superior to ourselves — the same sub-angelic nature, the same ‘flesh and blood’ nature, but unencumbered by any destructive emotion within or adverse condition without, to which all have been subjected since sin and death began their evil reign. Most, if not all, will agree with Dr. Thomas: “In form and capacity he was made like to the angels, though in nature inferior to them” (‘Elpis Israel’, p. 38).
The Middle Course
In Gen. 2:7 we have the concise record of Adam’s creation. The following items of information are supplied:
- Designer and Builder – ‘The Lord God’;
- materials . . ‘the dust of the ground’;
- result . . . `man’;
- life-imparting agent . . . ‘the breath of life’;
- final result . . . ‘a living soul’, afterwards called ‘Adam’.
Dr. Thomas asked: “What do the Scriptures define ‘a living soul’ to be? The answer is, a living natural, or animal, body, whether of birds, beasts, fish, or men” (Elpis Israel’, p. 31). Again: “A man, then, is ‘a body of life’ in the sense of his being an animal, or living creature `nephesh chayiah adam’. As a natural man he has no other pre-eminence over the creatures
God made than what his peculiar organisation confers upon him. Moses makes no distinction between him and them, for he styles them all ‘living souls’, breathing the breath of lives” (ibid, p.32).
Thus far I feel that A and B can readily agree. The relevant scriptural instruction in ‘Catechesis’ should also be mutually acceptable:
Q: What was `the first man Adam’, and where did he come from?
A: He was dust ‘formed into a living soul’ and came ‘out of the ground’. (Gen. 2:7; 3:19).
Q: What does Paul term ‘a living soul’?
A: ‘A natural body’. (1 Cor. 15:44, 45).
Q: What does Paul term a body, or nature, that comes out of the earth?
A: His words, in 1 Cor. 15:47 are ‘out of the earth, EARTHY.’
Q: What does experience teach are the characteristics of a body, or nature, created out of the dust of the earth?
A: That the earthy body is corruptible, without honour, or ‘vile’, weak and natural.
Q: Was the earthy body of the first man before he sinned like what experience teaches us our bodies are?
A: Paul, speaking of Adam at the epoch of his creation (italics, Dr. T.’s) says, ‘As the earthy, such are they also that are earthy’, or earth-born (1 Cor. 15:48) : hence his earth-born body was capable of corruption, weak and natural, soulish or sensual; yet, as an earthy body, ‘very good’ (Gen. 1:31).” `Capable of and ‘very good’ are expressions warranting separate and closer attention later.
Principles And Details
Now how was Adam, the newly-created ‘earth-born’, maintained in being? We can well leave our Bro. R. Roberts to answer that question. In his commendable endeavour to sift the wheat of fact from the chaff of conjecture, he separated them this way:
“GENERAL PRINCIPLE: He (man after creation) was a living soul, or natural body of life, maintained in being by the action of the air through the lungs like us, but, unlike us, a ‘very good’ form of that mode of being, and un-subjected to death.
UNCERTAIN DETAIL: Would he have died if left alone, unchanged, in that state, if he had not sinned? Who can tell? The testimony is that death came by sin: but the fact also is that, not being a spiritual body, he was presumably not immortal. Are we going to insist upon an opinion on a point like this, about which no man can be certain. We shall act unwarrantably if we do. It is sufficient if a man believe that Adam after creation was a very good form of flesh and blood, untainted by curse. The uncertain facts must be left to private judgment.”
Bro. Roberts penned those words in 1898 (towards the end of his life) in the excellent article “True Principles and Uncertain Details”, reprinted in ‘The Christadelphian’, 1923, pp. 248-256, and previously quoted in this series.
Let us now look briefly at the ‘true principle’ above enunciated. Adam was ‘maintained in being by the action of the air through the lungs like us’. Do brethren really comprehend all that is implied in such a statement? Dr. Thomas likewise wrote: “That the spiritual body is independent of atmospheric air for its support is clear from the ascension of the Lord Jesus. An animal body can only exist in water, or in atmospheric air, and at a comparatively low altitude above the surface of the earth. Now, the air does not extend beyond 45 miles; consequently, beyond that limit, if they could even attain to it, creatures supported by breath in the nostrils could no more live than fish in the air” EI p. 43).
One could surely be excused, therefore, for believing that Adam could only live in that aerial medium in which his all-wise Creator placed him. (We do not, of course, overlook the power of that Creator to perform miracles and so enable His creature to live in any other medium He chose, but we are here considering the nature of Adam, and not the nature, or power, of his Creator).
Limitations Of A Natural Body
The life of the ‘weak, natural, soulish, sensual, earthy, very good’ body which God placed in Eden was obviously, then, maintained in the same way and by the same processes as the life of all ‘weak, natural’ bodies. Of these processes Bro. Roberts has written in ‘Christendom Astray’ (p. 39): “It is the answer of literal truth to say that it (life) is the aggregate result of the organic processes transpiring within the human structure — in respiration, circulation of the blood, digestion, etc. The lungs, the heart and the stomach conspire to generate and maintain vitality, and to impart activity to the various faculties of which we are composed. Apart from this busy organism, life is unmanifested, whether as regards man or beast. Shock the brain, and insensibility ensues; take away the air, and you produce suffocation; cut off the supply of food, and starvation ensues with fatal effect. These facts, which everybody knows, prove that life depends on the organism” (italics, R.R.’s).
Again, Dr. Thomas, in that section of ‘Elpis Israel’ entitled ‘The formation of man’, writes: “Besides the ‘ruach’ (spirit) and ‘neshemeh’ (breath) there are certain elementary principles, in a state of combination, within all living souls, which are related to them by fixed and appropriate laws, for the manifestation of living actions. These, acting and reacting upon each other in the lungs of all breathing frames, cause that motion throughout their structure which is termed life.”
One can surely believe, therefore, that any interference with these vital physical processes (such as taking away the supply of air) would have interfered seriously with Adam’s being. Of course, God would not allow any such interference in the absence of sin. Brethren may contend that ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ are not permissible, but if David could say ‘If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquity . . . ‘ (Ps. 130:3); if Elihu could say ‘If He gather unto Himself His Spirit . . . ‘ (Job 34:14); if Dr. Thomas could say ‘If they (Adam and Eve) had not sinned …’ p. 72), then surely Dr. Thomas’ brethren likewise can exercise the liberty of ruminating upon the things of God’s revelation in this way without their right to fellowship being called in question.
Let Us Be Reasonable
Now I submit that whenever ‘B’ has applied the terms ‘mortal’ and ‘mortality’ to Adam in his novitiate, it has been solely because he recognised the foregoing physiological facts relating to `all breathing frames.’
Concerning such, the author of ‘Christendom Astray’ declared (p. 82): “Natural or animal bodies are sustained in life by the blood, as saith the Scriptures in Lev. 17:14, ‘The life of all flesh is in the blood thereof.’ The blood is the medium of animal vitality, with which it becomes charged by the action of the air in the lungs. The life principle or ‘spirit’ is thus applied only in an indirect manner. The blood is proximately the life-giving agent; bodies sustained by it are simply blood bodies. Their life is not inherent; it is dependent on a complex function which is easily interfered with.”
Still writing of ‘the formation of man’, Dr. Thomas declared p. 36): “Blood is the ‘nephesh’, or life, of the flesh.’ This fact he elaborated. His next paragraph proceeded:
“There are three kinds of living manifestations, which are characterised by the nature of the organisation, or being, through which they occur. Hence we have vegetable life, animal life, and incorruptible life. The last is immortality, because the body through which the life is manifested, being incorruptible, never wears out; so that, being once put into motion by the Spirit of God, it lives forever. Vegetable and animal life, on the contrary, is terminable and mortal; because the materials through which it is revealed are perishably organised. Mortality, then, is life manifested through a corruptible body; and immortality life manifested through an incorruptible body”. (Italics, Dr. T.’s).
Would any man in his senses deny that the `very good’ Adam’s life was ‘terminable’, or that the materials through which that life was revealed were ‘perishably organised’? Was it not ‘manifested through a corruptible body’? If we were to accept the bald definition, ‘A mortal is a creature of terminable existence’ (`C.A.’, p. 79), I fail to see how any man could truthfully deny that ‘the first man Adam’ was ‘a Mortal’.
Our controversy on this point, then, is largely a matter of word values, definitions, ambiguities, misapprehensions. This will become yet more apparent, we feel, in the following section, as we look briefly at differing connotations of the same terms.
One of Dr. Thomas’ questions in ‘Catechesis’ (0. No. 9) is
What Is Mortality?
Here is his answer: ‘An earthy body in living action; or, life manifested through an earthy body, and therefore, from the constitution of the body, terminable life.’ On the other hand, here is a definition by Bro. Roberts: “The word ‘mortality’ comes from the Latin root ‘mors’, death, and signifies deathfulness”.
Therefore it is true that (1) Adam when created was in a state of mortality; and it is also true that (2) Adam when created was not in a state of mortality, depending on whether you choose to employ Dr. Thomas’ or Bro. Roberts’ definition of mortality. The basic idea in the former’s statement is life — with limitations, or qualifications; in the latter’s the basic idea is death. Since life and death are strictly antithetical terms (Bro. Roberts has rightly said in ‘Christendom Astray’ that ‘death is the opposite of life’), then it must at once be obvious that when one brother claims that Adam’s pre-sin state was mortality and another brother stoutly denies it, it does not necessarily follow that the two are at variance as to what Adam’s state actually was.
So where are we? The essential thing is that, in trying to resolve our ‘differences’, with a view to reconciliation, we must go behind the actual terms used by brethren, and endeavour to grasp the ideas which the words are intended to represent.
God complained through His prophet against the tyranny in ancient Israel, wherein were those who ‘watched for iniquity’, made a man ‘an offender for a word’, and turned aside the just for ‘a thing of nought’ (Isa. 29:21). Now ‘these things happened unto them for ensamples and were written for our admonition.’ If, therefore, a man hears his brother apply the term ‘mortal’ or ‘mortality’ to the sinless Adam, whilst knowing that the terms are capable of more than one construction, and accuses and refuses his brother (in the familiar, satisfied, ‘I-told-you-so’ attitude), without taking the trouble to enquire what his brother’s language really means, then ‘sin lieth at the door’ — i.e. the door of the accuser.
At the same time, the words in question are quite unsatisfactory as applied to Adam before sin — because of their very ambiguity in that connection — and it would be well for all brethren, in the interests of peace and mutual understanding, to rigorously avoid them.
We Can Profit From The Past
In his speech of 31st August, 1904, the late Bro. John Bell asked, “What was the condition of Adam before he fell? I say he was mortal. I do not think, nor would I be so foolish to admit that Adam at the time of his creation was subject to death. But the word mortal means capable of dying. Adam was made capable of dying. He was therefore mortal, but he was not subject to death. After transgression, after the fiat of his Creator had gone forth, he was doomed to die, to go back to the ground from whence he was taken. When I say that Adam was mortal, I mean he was capable of dying.” (Italics mine, H.W.W.)
It must be admitted, I feel, that our late brother quite overstepped the mark in the contention (or, at least, apparent contention) that sin did not change Adam’s body in any respect whatsoever. As Bro. Barnard has rightly pointed out, if sin does not affect a man physically, it does not affect him at all. However, as far as Bro. Bell’s use of the term ‘mortal’ is concerned, I feel that true Christian charity would have said, “Well, brother, seeing that you believe that mortal means capable of dying and not subject to death, then to my satisfaction you do not believe Adam was created mortal, because to me mortal means subject to death.”
But no, the opposite procedure has been the one almost invariably followed, viz.: “Since you say ‘Adam was created mortal’, then you must believe he was subject to death from the beginning, because that is what ‘mortal’ means”!
How a just and righteous God will judge these very impure tactics I dare not presume to know, but one finds comfort in the awareness of His mercy.
The Double Meaning
Any brother who is familiar with ‘Elpis Israel’, and who cares to be honest with himself and with his brethren, will readily admit that Dr. Thomas used the word ‘mortality’ with two entirely different meanings in one single paragraph (pp. 72, 73). Writing of Adam and Eve ‘while in the state of good unmixed with evil’, he declared: “We may admit, therefore, the corruptibility and consequent mortality of their nature, without saying that they were mortal.” Then, at the end of the paragraph: “Mortality was in disobedience as the wages of sin, and was not a necessity.” (Italics, H.W.W.).
In the former use of the term ‘mortality’ the writer gives it its ‘Catechesis’ value, i.e. ‘Life manifested through an earthy body, and therefore from the constitution of the body, terminable life’, whereas in the latter case he means simply ‘death’.
Regarding the first of the above two quotations, Bro. L. G. Sargent in his excellent article `Adam in Innocence’, which appeared in ‘The Christadelphian’, 1941, pp. 13 & 14, was prompted to remark: “That sentence, which amounts to saying that they were in the nature of mortality, but not mortal, would be easy game for a captious critic.”
I would point out that in these articles I am not quoting our pioneers with a view to having their statements estimated as strictly authoritative. The line I am taking is that no man can charge his brother with heresy for teaching certain things, ignore those same things in the writings of the pioneers, and still hope to be guiltless before his God.
A very reasonable objection is raised to the applicability of the term ‘mortality’ to Adam before sin on the grounds that it derives — as already seen — from ‘mom’, meaning ‘death’; and, as sin alone brought death (this is the essential fact we all must, and, I believe, do recognise), then Adam bore no relationship to death, whatsoever, before sin entered.
‘Man Became … Living … ‘
As Adam, the ‘living soul’, he was unrelated to death. However, as regards ‘man’, there was this relationship retrospectively, that the first state of ‘the first man’ was the death state. This first man was a dead man before he was anything else. Both Dr. Thomas and Bro. Roberts stressed this point in ‘Elpis Israel’ and ‘Christendom Astray’ respectively, in their efforts to combat `the serpent’s lie’. They point out that the organised dust was ‘man’ before it became ‘a living soul’ (Gen. 2:7). Therefore, if ‘mortal’ means, as many contend, ‘full of death’ (which is ‘the absence of life’ — ‘Christendom Astray’), then that is precisely what man was before he became a living soul. Hair-splitting, you may say, but worth bearing in mind, nevertheless.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One