Before prosecuting our studies further we might pause to ask, Is immortality

predicated of any one in the Bible? To this we may soon give an answer, as the words do

not occur many times in the Scriptures. Aphthartos occurs 7 times, rendered "immortal"

and "incorruptible"; aphtharsia occurs 7 times, rendered "immortality," "incorruption,"

"sincerity"; athanasia occurs 3 times, rendered "immortality." The word is used of God.

"The King, eternal, immortal, invisible" (I Tim. 1: 17), and it is emphatically declared to

be His exclusive possession, "Who only hath immortality" (ITim. 6: 16). Let us

remember once again the words of satan, "Ye shall not surely die. . . .ye shall be as

God," and let us take our place with the Word of truth and brand the devil's words as a

lie. Immortality can only be possessed by man as a gift from God. Rom. ii.7 shows us

the manner of seeking it under law, "To them who by patient continuance in well-doing

seek for honour, and glory, and immortality (God will render) eternal life."

When we turn to the opening chapters of the Bible we cannot fail to see that a

difference is pointedly made between man and the rest of created beings. Gen. 1: 24 reads,

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and

creeping thing, and beast of the earth." How different when we come to the creation of

man in 1: 26, "And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let

them have dominion." The deliberate statement of 1: 26 shows the superiority of man over

all else of the six days' creation. Those who would prove immortality from the

expression "in Our image, after Our likeness" prove too much. Why stop at immortality?

Why not omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, why not go to the whole length of

man-elevating and God-dishonouring anti-christianity? Gen. ii.7 gives us the detailed

account of the creation of man. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Let us

examine this verse carefully. There is nothing very likely to minister to our pride in the

first sentence, "the dust of the ground," but many have seen a warrant for immortality in

the second. Apart from the fact to be stated presently, one would have thought that the

"nostrils were a most unlikely vehicle for immortality, and would be more likely to have

reference to the vivification of the lifeless Adam, who thereby became "a living soul."

The English Bible gives a false argument in this record of man's creation, for those

able translators, yielding to the traditional teaching which they had imbibed maybe from

infancy, veiled the inspired connection between man and beast which the Holy Spirit had

purposely made. We give therefore every passage occurring in the first nine chapters of