Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/165

 ment that death extinction of being is the wages of sin. Those who think of death as life in torment not only dis- regard the meaning of the words death and life, which are opposites, but involve themselves in two absurdities. It is absurd to suppose that God would perpetuate Adam's ex- istence forever in torment for any kind of a sin which he could commit, but especially for the comparatively small offence of eating forbidden fruit. Then, again, if our Lord Jesus redeemed mankind, died in our stead, became our ransom, went into death that we might be set free from it, is it not evident that the death which he suffered for the unjust was of exactly the same kind as that to which all mankind were condemned? Is he, then, suffering eternal torture for our sins? If not, then so surely as he died for our sins, the punishment for cur sins was death, and not life in any sense or condition.

But, strange to say, finding that the theory of eternal tor- ture is inconsistent with the statements that "the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all," and that Christ "died for our sins," and seeing that one or the other must be dropped as inconsistent, some are so wedded to the idea of eternal torture, and so prize it as a sweet morsel, that they hold to it regardless of the Scriptures, and deliberately deny that Jesus paid the world's ransom price, though this truth is taught on every leaf of the Bible.

IS RESTITUTION PRACTICABLE?

Some have supposed that if the biuious of the dead were resurrected, there would not be room for them on the earth; and that if there should be room for them, the earth would uot be capable of sustaining so large a population. It is even claimed by some that the earth is one vast graveyard, and that if all the dead were awakened they would trample one upon another for want of room*

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