5. — THE RESURRECTION OF THE WICKED

In view of the general and comprehensive statements of the Scriptures concerning the resurrection, it is impossible to discriminate between the two classes, the righteous and the wicked, and affirm that while the one class, the righteous, are to be raised, the other, the wicked, are never to be brought out of their graves, as some now contend. This position, it is not needful to answer here in detail. We leave its individual arguments to be answered by those texts which assert that the same “all” who die, shall also be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22); that all who are in their graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation (John 5:28, 29); that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust (Acts 24:15); and that after the first resurrection, embracing all the righteous dead (Revelation 20:6), the “rest of the dead,” which must include all the wicked, lived not again for a thousand years (verse 5), when of course they will live again. It will be sufficient here to speak only of the philosophy of God’s dealings with the children of men, the underlying principle of which forever settles the question of the resurrection of the wicked. In the light of this principle, as a few words will suffice to show, it can be clearly seen that all the wicked must have a resurrection, and be judged for their personal acts and punished therefor; and that the close of this present life, no matter under what circumstances, nor for what purpose it may occur, cannot by any possibility pay the penalty for the sins of this life, and release the individual from all further accountability to God.HHMLD 244.1

It will be admitted by all that Adam was placed on probation, and that the penalty of death, absolute and irrevocable, was affixed to the violation of the command not to eat of the forbidden tree. There was no provision made for mitigation or removal of this penalty. While yet he had no posterity, he partook of the forbidden fruit, and the sentence passed upon him, “Unto dust shalt thou return;” till which time he was to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow.HHMLD 245.1

How did that affect those who were to come after? — Adam could bequeath to his posterity no higher nature than he himself possessed — a nature, after his transgression, not only liable, but inevitably doomed, to death. The same plane of being was his children’s only heritage — a heritage of wearing toil during the period of their life, and after that, death. And this, remember, was because their father Adam had sinned in the matter of the forbidden tree.HHMLD 245.2

The apostle makes an explicit statement of this fact. He says (Romans 5:12): “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” When did death pass upon all men? — When the natural father of all men subjected himself to death by sin. From that moment it became a fixed fact that every human being who should appear in this world, would be subject to death. Instead of the words “for that” in the last clause, “for that all have sinned,” the Greek has (eph’ho), “through,” or “on account of,” whom all have sinned. The margin has “in whom;” that is, in the “one man,” Adam, by whom sin entered into the world. Again the apostle says (1 Corinthians 15:22), “In Adam all die.”HHMLD 245.3

Adam’s sin, trial, and sentence marked the end of probation with him, so far as it concerned that first offer of life which God had given him, which was suspended upon his obedience/ And had nothing more been done, it would have been the end of probation for all. So long as God saw fit to let men propagate themselves upon the earth, their lot would have been simply a hopeless life, to be terminated by an inevitable and eternal death.HHMLD 246.1

But immediately upon Adam’s failure under that first arrangement, supervened the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. Before the first penalty was fully carried out, there was time for Adam to have another trial; and through the intervention of Christ, this opportunity was given him. There was promised a “seed of the woman” who should bruise the serpent’s head. Adam was placed upon a new probation. In the promised seed, the Redeemer, a new hope was set before him; and he was taught how to manifest faith in that Redeemer by typical services, sacrifices, and offerings.HHMLD 246.2

This arrangement also looked forward into the future, and included all Adam’s posterity; else we had had no hope. A pertinent inquiry now arises; namely, How could the sentence of death already rendered, be inflicted upon the whole human family so that there should be no sacrifice of authority, principle, or prestige on the part of God, and yet the new blessing of a hope of life through Christ be placed within their reach? — It could be done in this way: Let men live, and, without any reference to their own personal actions, let them die in Adam, as the apostle assures us that they do. This fulfils the Adamic penalty for the Adamic sin, under the Adamic convenant. Then let all men, irrespective of character, be brought by Christ out from this condition of Adamic death, into which they fell through no fault of their own, once more to the plane of life; and being then alive beyond the extreme limits of the effects of the Adamic convenant, and fall, and death penalty, nothing remains but that they answer for their own course of conduct; and receive such destiny as shall be determined thereby, — if guilty, through their own sins, to suffer the same penalty for their sin that Adam suffered for his, which is death, and which to them is the “second” death, and will be eternal, because no further plan of redemption relieves them from it, as Adam’s would have been had it not been for the plan of salvation introduced by Christ; and if righteous, through faith in Christ, to enter then upon a life which will be eternal.HHMLD 246.3

This is the result to be reached, and the way here indicated being the only possible way to reach it, we may set it down as the actual arrangement in the case. And so Paul, when he declares that all men die in Adam, immediately adds, “even so in Christ shall all [the whole human family] be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:22.HHMLD 247.1

Let the situation before and after Adam’s sin be clearly understood. Adam was placed upon probation with life or death before him under the unconditional test of obedience or disobedience. Before he had any posterity, he sinned. He probation ended, and the sentence which no arrangements had been made to avert) was pronounced upon him, and immediately began to be executed; that is, his nature, before capable of life, was now fixed to a state of mortality and decay; and at the end of nine hundred and thirty years, the sentence was fully carried out in his death. This settled the account with Adam and Eve, under that first arrangement: a penalty was affixed to sin, as was right and just; the sin had been committed, and the penalty paid, as God had said.HHMLD 247.2

By the plan of salvation which was then revealed, God and Christ graciously granted man another trial. Adam was placed upon a new probation; but this did not affect in the least the sentence of death passed upon him for his failure under his first probation. But now he had only a mortal, dying nature, and he could entail nothing better than this upon his posterity; therefore they all must die as well as himself. But there was this difference: when Adam died, it was in his case the penalty of his own personal sin under his first probation; when his posterity die, it is not to them a penalty for their own personal sins, but a result to them of Adam’s sin, by which he acquired a mortal nature and transmitted it to them. When Adam was placed upon a new probation, of course it gave to all his posterity a probation for themselves; for he begat them to the same condition with himself. Being on probation, they are of course subject to all the conditions of a probation; namely, life and death set before them, a judgment to decide upon their actions, and sentence to be rendered and executed according to their works, — death for disobedience, and life for righteousness through repentance and faith.HHMLD 248.1

But how can this be carried out, since we are all under the sentence of death, anyway, on account of Adam’s sin? Answer: The plan of salvation involves the resurrection of all men, irrespective of character, from the first death, to place them beyond the results of adam’s transgression, that they may be judged on their own personal merits. Therefore, as in Adam the author of the fall, all men die, so in Christ, the author of the plan of redemption, all men are raised from that death, and then stand before the bar of judgment on their own merits, to receive according to their own deeds. Now to say that God will not raise and judge and execute a person because it is known that he threw away the period of his probation in sin, is to say that God will deviate from his plan, fail to fulfil his own threatenings, and reduce this portion of his government to a farce.HHMLD 249.1

We are now prepared still further to draw conclusions. When Adam, some nine hundred and thirty years after his experience in Eden, died, he died because he ate of the forbidden tree, not because of anything he did after that event. But if, after the Judgment, Adam shall be found worthy of the second death, and be consigned to that fate, it will not be because he ate of the forbidden tree, but because of what he did, and did not repent of, after that event. When Methuselah and Noah and Abraham died, it was not because of any sins they had personally committed, but because their father Adam had transmitted to them a mortal nature. And when Caligula, and Nero, and Caesar Borgia, and Catharine de Medici, and Jeffreys, and Claverhouse died, it was not because they were themselves monsters of iniquity, but because they belonged to a death-doomed race. And when the antediluvians, and Sodomites, and Egyptians, and incorrigible Jews died, it was not because of their personal sins, but because, in the beginning, death had passed “upon all men.” Therefore all these men must be raised to give account of their own personal actions to God.HHMLD 249.2

Such is the inevitable conclusion from the established fact that we die the first death only in Adam, not on our own account. The second death is the only death in which is involved the result of our own personal actions; and this death is reached only after a person has passed through the first death, and is the termination of a second state of being.HHMLD 250.1

Does God, then, ever visit judgments upon men in this life for their sins? — He certainly does, but to what extent? — Only so far as to anticipate by a brief period the death to which they are already doomed. And this is all that he could do; for the penalty of the second death cannot be reached till we have passed the first death.HHMLD 250.2

Take the antidiluvians, whose cases will illustrate all others. Their conduct became so intolerable that God could not suffer them to live out their days. Therefore he anticipated by a time the death which, on entirely other ground, was their inevitable portion. Had he not brought the flood upon them as a manifestation of his displeasure against their sins, they would have died anyway after a few years more of life; and had they been paragons of piety, they would have died, just the same. But the death, whenever it came, would have been only the death in Adam, which must first be inflicted, because it had passed on all men; and in this death one’s own personal righteousness or guilt is in nowise involved.HHMLD 250.3

Therefore the personal account on the antediluvians, and of all others who have gone down under special judgments, still remains unsettled; and they must have a resurrection to answer therefor, and then receive the penalty for the same, which will be the second death. And so it will be with all the wicked. And this is no wanton act of cruelty on the part of God — making men alive on purpose to put them to death again. But it is only carrying out the conditions on which alone a second probation could have been offered to man, and which, once offered, God could not ignore and remain true to himself. And so “every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12), and “all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” 2 Corinthians 5:10.HHMLD 250.4