We shall now proceed to show that the teaching of the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul has from the very beginning been accompanied by sin, and that it is the cause of all the sin that has ever cursed this earth.
When God placed our first parents in Eden, everything was perfect and pure. Adam and Eve were sinless. They had full liberty to enjoy the fruit of every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food, with the exception of one tree in the midst of the garden, which was a test of their loyalty to God. Into this garden of delight the tempter came. “Now the serpent [“which is the devil, and Satan,” Rev. 20:2] was more subtle than any beast of the field, the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Genesis 3:1. In this question we find a covert insinuation against the justice of God. The idea is this: “Is it so, that God has said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Has God been so arbitrary as to thus curtail your happiness?” There was an attempt to make Eve feel that she was being wronged, in being deprived of the fruit of that tree, and that she was not treated with the consideration due to so noble a creature. She replied that God had said that they should not eat of the tree, nor touch it, lest they die. Satan then replied: —
“Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4, 5).
It is unfortunate for the advocates of the natural immortality of the soul that the very first announcement of it that was ever made was made by the father of lies. We have already demonstrated from the Scriptures that the teaching that man can have immortality without Christ is the spirit of antichrist, and here we find that the doctrine was introduced into the world by antichrist himself. If we study Satan’s words a little more closely we shall find that they were identical with the teachings of modern Spiritualism, and that the first Spiritualist lecture ever delivered was given by the devil in the garden of Eden, with only Eve for an audience.
When Satan affirmed that Adam and Eve were by nature immortal, by saying, “Ye shall not surely die,” he added, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” This was as much of a lie as the other, and was a companion to it, and a necessary consequence of it. Our common version does not give the full force of the original. We know not why the translators rendered it, “Ye shall be as gods,” for the Hebrew plainly reads, “Ye shall be like God, knowing good and evil.” This lets in new light on the subject. Satan recognized the fact that immortality is an attribute of Deity, and that the possessor of it must necessarily be his own judge of right and wrong. It was by this lie that Satan deceived Eve, and caused her to sin. Notice that (A) the assertion of immortality and of (B) the power of judging for themselves of right and wrong, constitutes the one deception; and bear in mind that it was this claim of natural immortality for man which “brought death into the world, and all our woe, with loss of Eden.” Therefore we have proved the proposition that the doctrine of the natural immortality of man is the cause of all the wickedness that has ever cursed our earth.
We may go back even further than this, to the time when sin first entered the universe, and we shall find that the cause of it was pride, and the claiming of attributes that belong to God alone. In Isa. 14:12-14 we read the following description of the fall of Satan: —
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”
This gives in plain language the sin of Satan. He aspired to be equal with God; he coveted the position that belonged only to the divine Word, the Son of God; and there the spirit of antichrist first sprung into existence. Turn now to Ezek. 28:11-19, and read a description of Satan’s former position in Heaven, and the cause of his fall. Satan here appears with the title, “King of Tyrus.” He is so called because he is “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), and the one who actually holds the reins of power in all wicked governments, such as that of Tyre. The man who held the position of the king of Tyre is in the prophecy called “the prince of Tyrus” (Ezek. 28:1-10), because he was secondary to Satan, who controlled him. Moreover it is certain that verses 13-15 could refer to no one but one who had been in Heaven. Now read the description: —
“Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold; the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so; thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned; therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness; I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.”
Thus we learn that pride, undue regard for self, forgetfulness of the fact that no one can have anything except from God, and a desire to be equal to God, led to Satan’s fall. And this cause of his fall was exactly the same in nature as that by which he fell; and it is the identical principle by which Satan has perpetuated sin in the world until the present time.
From the fall of our first parents, every great system of error has been based upon that first great falsehood uttered by Satan. How natural that it should be so! Error is a departure from God, a failure or refusal to acknowledge Him as of Supreme Authority. But just in proportion as men fail to recognize the claims of God, they usurp the place which he should occupy. That is, to the extent that they neglect God, they follow their own ways, and thus to that extent they make themselves gods, and worship themselves. But, as we have already seen, the claim that man is immortal is also a claim that he is a god. Thus the two things go together. The doctrine of natural immortality, being a gross error, leads to the commission of the sins, which are natural to man. It was the first cause of sin. But if there should be a people who had no belief of any kind concerning man’s nature and his future condition, but who were following their own inclinations, they would soon develop the idea that they were immortal. And this would be because pride, which is always present in the natural heart, would lead man to feel there could be no being in the universe greater than himself. As Gibbon aptly expresses it (“Decline and Fall,” chap. 1.), “it must be confessed that in the sublime inquiry [concerning the nature of man], their reason had often been guided by their imagination, and their imagination had been prompted by their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental powers, when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the most important labors, and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave, they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the field, or to suppose that a being for whose dignity they entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of duration.” And so dead man would be deified.