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Chosen no: R-649 a, from: 1884 Year. |
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Not Hurt Of The Second Death.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the
death of the saints as a sacrifice with Christ, as members of his body
sharing his death, is their second death. It was reckoned that
our death as sinners in Adam was accomplished in the crucifixion of Jesus, and
our resurrection as justified men, as accomplished in Jesus' resurrection, as
shown above. One death was therefore in the past, hence when we, as
justified persons, presented ourselves as living sacrifices, to be baptized
with Jesus' baptism of death and to fill up that which is behind of the
afflictions of Christ, we then and there were covenanting a second death, and day by day, if obedient to our covenant, we are dying, and soon the
second death shall have swallowed up this justified human nature.
But will it be a great loss? It would be a sad
and irreparable loss of our existence forever, were it not that the
Father, who highly exalted Jesus, our Head, to the divine nature, has
covenanted similarly to exalt all the members of his body--"So many of us
as were baptised into Christ," "baptised into his death."
These, who during this age follow in the
footsteps of the Forerunner, are the overcomers of the world mentioned in our
Lord's promise--"He that conquers, in no wise shall be injured IN
CONSEQUENCE of the second death." (Rev. 2:11 --Rotherham's
translation.)
Shall we conclude then that the second death
would injure no one? Nay; death is everywhere presented as the destruction of whatever it is applied to. It is the wages of sin always; the first
or Adamic death which passed upon all men was the penalty of one man's
disobedience entailed upon all whom he represented in trial, and it is because
Adamic death is to be removed through Christ, that any could die again. But
[R649 : page 4] the second death shall not be a
continuance of the first, a dying on account of Adam's sin, but it will be the
result of an individual and deliberate act of each one who suffers it. It shall
no more be a proverb, "The fathers ate a sour grape [sin] and the
children's teeth are set on edge"; but then, every man that dieth the
second death will die only for his own wilful sin, against full light and power
to do otherwise. "The soul that sinneth, IT shall die." (Ezek. 18:2-4; Jer.
31:29,30.) And not a single reference of Scripture, in which the second
death is mentioned, ever refers it to any but a class of wilful sinners, who,
in spite of knowledge and ability, love sin and hate righteousness, except this one, which hastens to assure us that though this class will suffer death
aside from the Adamic, and, therefore, the second, they will not be injured
in consequence. The unavoidable inference is, that all others than this
class--the overcomers of the Gospel church--will be greatly
injured by the second death.
Since each one who dies the second death will
have had a full individual trial, it follows, that to recover them from
death would require the death of a Redeemer for each. And not
only are we told that Jesus dies only once for sin, and will die
"no more," but we can see that a ransom from the second death would
be useless, since there could be no more favorable opportunity presented than
that which they shall have experienced under the Millennial reign,
before being condemned to the second death.
As the first death, or wages of Adam's sin, was
not torture, but a destruction of being, (Psa. 90:3,)
so also the second death, the wages of wilful, individual sin, is a destruction or blotting out of being forever, but is not torture. As Adamic death would
have been everlasting in duration without a ransom and resurrection, so the second death will be everlasting because of no ransom and no resurrection
from it. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is ETERNAL LIFE through
Jesus Christ our Lord."
W.T. R-649a : page 3 - 1884r.
