Monday, August 30, 2021

Adam: Our Fountainhead of Death

"Adam was on probation. 
 Life and death were set before him. “In the day that thou eats thereof
thou shall surely die,” (Gen. 2:17) said God.  
 
He did disobey, and was driven from the garden. And now, said God, “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever;” (Gen. 3:22) - therefore the cherubim and flaming sword were placed to exclude thereafter his approach to the life giving tree. 

Quite the reverse of an unconditional immortality is certainly brought to view here

Adam could bequeath to his posterity no higher nature than lie himself possessed. The stream that, commencing just outside the garden of Eden, has flowed down through the lapse of six thousand years, has certainly never risen higher than the fountainhead; and we may be sure we possess no superior endowments, in this respect, to those of Adam." Uriah Smith