DISCOURSE XVI.

THE RELATION OF ADAM AND CHRIST TO THE HUMAN RACE.

FOR AS IN ADAM ALL DIE, EVEN SO IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE

ALIVE. 1 Cor. xv. 22.

THIS passage of Scripture brings up a most interesting inquiry, the relation of Christ to human nature, and to the human race. It seems to assert, that mankind owe their mortality to Adam, and their immortality to Christ, but it has been interpreted in a great variety of ways. What was it intended to assert ?

In the first place, it is said that it was intended to assert that Adam, by the first sin, had the power to change human nature itself. He was created immortal, and had he not sinned, he would never have died. Is it probable that this was the meaning? There are strong objections to this. It does not correspond to the second part of the sentence. "Even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Human nature was not restored by what Christ did to a constitutional immortality. There is not a correspondence, in this respect, in what Adam did against mankind, with what Christ did for them. It is not probable that

Adam's sin made him mortal. Man was created an animal, and subjected to animal laws. All animal life is subjected to the law of gradual growth and gradual decay or sudden death. Birth is a law of animal life, and death is another corresponding law. The first makes the second inevitable. The power of reproduction would soon fill this world so full, that mankind would be destroyed by famine, did not one generation die as another comes upon the stage. The human body requires food for its support. The power of production in the earth is limited. And even if this difficulty could be overcome, mankind in the course of ages could not even stand upon the earth which is given them to inhabit. This world, then, is not constituted a place for an immortal existence. Flesh and blood cannot inherit immortality, neither can corruption inherit incorruption. And this is the real reason, which is given in Genesis by God himself, why man is mortal: “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.' "" The penalty, then, represented as being inflicted on man for disobedience, is not death, but expulsion from Paradise, where every thing grew spontaneous, to that part of the earth which required cultivation. The curse was pronounced, not on Adam, but on the ground. "Cursed be the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken."

The sin of Adam did not cause his mortality, even according to the representation in Genesis. If it were so, there was not a correspondence between what Adam did against mankind with what Christ did for them, for he did not restore man to an earthly immortality.

It has been represented that it was spiritual death to which Adam and his posterity were condemned in consequence of the Fall, a state of incapacity for good and an irresistible proclivity to evil. "All mankind by the Fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, and the pains of hell for ever."

But if in this sense there is a correspondence between what Adam did against mankind with what Christ did for them, then the doctrine of Universalism must be true, and with equal justice. "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." All mankind, in consequence of what Christ has done, must be delivered from the wrath and curse of God, and restored to the condition in which Adam was before he sinned. Is it the doctrine of the Scriptures that Christ will thus deliver all mankind? In the representation of the future judgment, in which Christ himself is represented as presiding, the Judge pronounces sentence :-" Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels."

Christ, then, does not sustain the relation to all mankind of the restorer of earthly immortality, nor of the innocence of Adam before the Fall, nor does he deliver all mankind from the sinfulness and guilt in which they were involved by Adam's sin.

Those who hold the doctrine of the Trinity, and the corresponding doctrine of the Atonement, refer this passage to what they call "the covenant of redemption." According to the theology which prevailed a hundred years ago, immediately on the fall of Adam and his having made himself liable to the punishment of death, temporal and eternal, involving all his posterity in his ruin, the Son, the second person of the Trinity, interposed

to rescue man from the consequences of his guilt; he undertook to bear in his own person the punishment due to Adam and all his posterity. In due process of time, he descended and became incarnate, suffered death upon the cross, underwent the penalty of the law, and thus made it possible for God to maintain the honor of his law, and still extend mercy to mankind. In this sense it is said that," as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive."

But this whole hypothesis is dependent on the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. That is itself a disputed and a doubtful doctrine. And even if it were true, it ought to save all men, and not a part. Otherwise there is no correspondence between the sin of Adam and the merits of Christ. It is expressly said in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, "Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." This again leads inevitably to the doctrine of universal salvation, if it is interpreted to mean a reversal of the effects of Adam's sin. But such is not the doctrine of Paul, nor of the New Testament.

What, then, does this celebrated passage mean? It finds its explanation, as I conceive, in the preceding verse. The two verses are parallel to each other, and are intended to express the same thing. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." Not as to its cause, but as to its proof. The death of Adam made certain the death of all his posterity, for they partake of his nature; so the resurrection of Christ proved the resurrection and immortality of all mankind, for they partake of his nature. This is agreeable to the

e scope of the reasoning of Paul in which it occurs. does not make the resurrection of Christ the cause of the resurrection of the rest of mankind, but only an example and a proof. "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ risen. . . . . . But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept." The first fruits are not the cause of the harvest, but only the evidence that it is coming.

In this respect, then, Christ does sustain a relation to the whole human race, as the evidence of their immortality. As Adam, by being a mortal himself, has entailed an assured mortality to all his posterity, so Christ, being the first to rise from the dead, after having asserted the doctrine of immortality, has made immortality sure to all mankind.

The Hebrew language was poor in particles. Paul, who had a Hebrew education, used the Greek after Hebrew idioms. The Hebrew particle, answering to the Greek preposition év, has a great variety of significations. Sometimes it nearly corresponds to our English particle like. I think it does here, and the sense might be given thus: "As, like Adam, all die; so, like Christ, shall all be made alive." Mankind share mortality with Adam. They share immortality with Christ.

So much for the physical relations of Christ to the human race. He has also moral relations to a part of mankind, which are likewise illustrated by a comparison with Adam. "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." On this text mainly is founded the famous doctrine of imputation, that the sins of Adam were imputed to all his posterity, and, previous to any action of their own, they were liable to suffer the punish