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and related features. These matters we have dealt with elsewhere. Meanwhile
we know enough of this 'Man' to emulate the belated worship of Thomas, and
bowing at His feet, exclaim in adoring worship, 'My Lord and my God'.
Death. Three words are employed in the New Testament and one in the Old
Testament for death. The Hebrew word muth and its variants, maveth, moth and
temuthah, and the Greek thanatos, anairesis and teleute. Let us consider the
words that are used but once or twice and so clear the way for a fuller
examination of the remainder. Anairesis, literally means a taking away, as
of bodies for burial or as of taking life, 'And Saul was consenting unto his
death' (Acts 8:1); teleute, a derivative of telos, 'end', meaning the end of
life 'the death of Herod' (Matt. 2:15). This leaves us with the Hebrew muth
and the Greek thanatos. In one passage, the Hebrew, muth, is used
figuratively, but with some measure of illumination:
'But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of
Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart Died
within him, and he became as a stone' (1 Sam. 25:37).
The LXX here uses the word ekleipo*, to fail or to faint. Nabal's
heart so failed or fainted that he 'became a stone'. Death as interpreted in
Genesis 3:19 is simple:
*
See:
To The Reader, on page (ix).
'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto
the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art and unto
dust shalt thou return'.
This aspect, this dissolution and return is acknowledged by Job (Job 7:21;
10:9; 17:16; 20:11; 21:26; 34:14,15):
'If He set His heart upon man, if He gather unto Himself His spirit and
His breath; all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again
unto dust' (Job 34:14,15).
This testimony of Job is confirmed by other Scriptures:
'They die, and return to their dust' (Psa. 104:29).
'All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again' (Eccles. 3:20).
'Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit
shall return unto God Who gave it' (Eccles. 12:7).
'Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust' (Isa. 26:19).
'Many ... that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake' (Dan. 12:2).
It is not possible, without imperiling the inspiration
of Scripture, to set these passages aside. It may be interposed, that the
death of Adam was a spiritual death, a death that took place long before the
mere death of his body. To this we reply, 'can a being who is not spiritual,
die a spiritual death?' The answer must be 'no'. Now it is the categorical
teaching of Scripture that Adam as created, was 'not spiritual'; he was
created 'natural' or 'soul -ical' (1 Cor. 15:45 -49).
'By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death
passed upon all men ...' (Rom. 5:12).