The First Great
Deception
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With the earliest
history of man, Satan began efforts
to deceive our race. He who had
incited rebellion in heaven desired
to bring the inhabitants of the earth
to unite with him in his warfare
against the government of God. Adam
and Eve had been perfectly happy in
obedience to the law of God, and this
fact was a constant testimony against
the claim that Satan had urged in
heaven, that God’s law was
oppressive and opposed to the good of
His creatures. Furthermore,
Satan’s envy was excited, as he
looked upon the beautiful home
prepared for the sinless pair. He
determined to cause their fall, that,
having separated them from God and
brought them under his own power, he
might gain possession of the earth
and here establish his kingdom in
opposition to the Most High.
Had Satan revealed
himself in his real character, he
would have been repulsed at once, for
Adam and Eve had been warned against
the dangerous foe; but he worked in
the dark, concealing his purpose,
that he might more effectually
accomplish his object. Employing as
his medium the serpent, then a
creature of fascinating appearance,
he addressed himself to Eve:
“Hath God said, Ye shall not eat
of every tree of the garden?”
Genesis 3:1. Had Eve refrained from
entering into argument with the
tempter, she would have been safe;
but she ventured to parley with him
and fell victim to his wiles. It is
thus that many arte still overcome.
They doubt and argue concerning the
requirements of God; and instead of
obeying the divine commands, they
accept human theories, which but
disguise the devices of Satan.
“The woman said
to the serpent, We may eat of the
fruit of the trees of the garden: but
of the fruit of the tree which is in
the midst of the garden, God hath
said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither
shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And
the serpent said unto the woman, 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 like gods, knowing good
from evil.” Verses 2-5. He
declared that they would become like
God, possessing greater wisdom than
before and being capable of a higher
state of existence. Eve yielded to
temptation; and through her
influence, Adam was led to sin. They
accepted the words of the serpent
that God did not mean what He said;
they distrusted their Creator and
imagined that He was restricting
their liberty and that they might
obtain great wisdom and exaltation by
transgressing His law.
However, what Adam
did, after his sin, find to be the
meaning of the words, “In the
day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die?” Did he find
them to mean, as Satan had led him to
believe, that he was to be ushered
into a more exalted state of
existence? Then indeed there was
great good to be gained by
transgression, and Satan was proved
to be a benefactor of the race.
However, Adam did not find this to be
the meaning of the divine sentence.
God declared that as a penalty for
his sin, man should return to the
ground whence he was taken:
“Dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return.” Verse 19.
The words of Satan, “Your eyes
shall be opened,” proved to be
true in this sense only: After Adam
and Eve disobeyed God, their eyes
were opened to discern their folly;
they did know evil, and they tasted
the bitter fruit of transgression.
In the midst of Eden
grew the tree of life, whose fruit
had the power of perpetuating life.
Had Adam remained obedient to God, he
would have continued to enjoy free
access to this tree and would have
lived forever. However, when he
sinned he was cut off from partaking
of the tree of life, and he became
subject to death. The divine
sentence, “Dust thou art, and
unto dust shalt thou return,”
points to the utter extinction of
life.
Immortality, promised
to man on the condition of obedience
had been forfeited by transgression.
Adam could not transmit to his
posterity that which he did not
possess; and there could have been no
hope for the fallen race had not God,
by the sacrifice of His Son, brought
immortality within their reach. While
“death passed upon all men, for
that all have sinned,” Christ
“hath brought life and
immortality to light through the
gospel.” Romans 5: 12; 2 Timothy
1:10. And only through Christ can
immortality be obtained. Jesus said:
“He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life: and he that
believeth not the Son shall not see
life.” John 3:36. Every man may
come into possession of this
priceless blessing if he will comply
with the conditions. All “who by
patient continuance in well-doing
seek the glory and honor and
immortality,” will receive
“eternal life.” Romans 2:7.
The only one who
promised Adam life in disobedience
was the great deceiver. Moreover, the
declaration of the serpent to Eve in
Eden – “Ye shall not
surely die” – was the first
sermon ever preached upon the
immortality of the soul. Yet, this
declaration, resting solely upon the
authority of Satan, is echoed from
the pulpits of Christendom and is
received by the majority of mankind
as readily as it was received by our
first parents. The divine sentence,
“The soul that sinneth, it shall
die (Ezekiel 18:20), is made to mean:
The soul that sinneth, it shall not
die, but live eternally. We cannot
but wonder at the strange infatuation
which renders men so credulous
concerning the words of Satan and so
unbelieving in regard to the words of
God.
Had man after his fall
been allowed free access to the tree
of life, he would have lived forever,
and thus sin would have been
immortalized. However, cherubim and a
flaming sword kept “the way of
the tree of life” (Genesis
3:24), and not one of the family of
Adam had been permitted to pass that
barrier and partake of the
life-giving fruit. Therefore, there
is not an immortal sinner.
However, after the
Fall, Satan bade his angels make a
special effort to inculcate the
belief in man’s natural
immortality; and having induced the
people to receive the error, they
were to lead them on to conclude that
the sinner would live in eternal
misery. Now the prince of darkness,
working through his agents,
represents God as a revengeful
tyrant, declaring that He plunges
into Hell all those who do not please
Him, and causes them ever to feel His
wrath; and that while they suffer
unutterable anguish and writhe in the
eternal flames, their Creator looks
down upon them with satisfaction.
Thus, the archfiend
clothes with his own attributes the
Creator and Benefactor of mankind.
Cruelty is satanic. God is love; and
all that he created was pure, holy,
and lovely, until the first great
rebel brought in sin. Satan himself
is the enemy who tempts man to sin,
and then destroys him if he can; and
when he has made sure of his victim,
then he exults in the ruin he has
wrought. If permitted, he would sweep
the entire race into his net. Were it
not for the interposition of divine
power, not one son or daughter of
Adam would escape.
Satan is seeking to
overcome men today, as he overcame
our first parents, by shaking their
confidence in their Creator and
leading them to doubt the wisdom of
His government and the justice of His
laws. Satan and his emissaries
represent God as even worse than
themselves, in order to justify their
own malignity and rebellion. The
great deceiver endeavors to shift his
own horrible cruelty of character
upon our heavenly Father, that he may
cause himself to appear as one
greatly wronged by his expulsion from
heaven because he would not submit to
so unjust a governor. He presents
before the world the liberty which
they may enjoy under his mild sway,
in contrast with the bondage imposed
by the stern decrees of Jehovah.
Thus, he succeeds in luring souls
away from the allegiance to God.
How repugnant to every
emotion of love and mercy, and even
to our sense of justice, is the
doctrine that the wicked dead are
tormented with fire and brimstone in
an eternally burning hell; that for
the sins of a brief earthly life they
are to suffer torture as long as God
shall live. Yet, this doctrine has
been widely taught and is still
embodied in many of the creeds of
Christendom. Said a learned doctor of
divinity; “The sight of hell
torments will exalt the happiness of
the saints forever. When they see
others who are of the same nature and
born under the same circumstances,
plunged in such misery, and they so
distinguished, it will make them
sensible of how happy they are.”
Another used these words: “While
the decree of reprobation is
eternally executing on the vessels of
wrath, the smoke of their torment
will be eternally ascending in view
of the vessels of mercy, who, instead
of taking the part of these miserable
objects, will say, Amen, Alleluia!
Praise ye the Lord!”
Where in the pages of
God’s word, is such teaching to
be found? Will the redeemed in heaven
be lost to all emotions of pity and
compassion, and even to feelings of
common humanity? Are these to be
exchanged for the indifference of the
stoic or the cruelty of the savage?
No, no; such is not the teaching in
the Book of God. Those who present
the views expressed in the quotations
given above may be learned and even
honest men, but they are deluded by
the sophistry of Satan. He leads them
to misconstrue strong expressions of
Scripture, giving to the language the
coloring of bitterness and malignity
that pertains to himself, but not to
our Creator. “As I live, saith
the Lord God, I have no pleasure in
the death of the wicked; but that the
wicked turn from his way and live:
turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways;
for why will ye die?” Ezekiel
33:11.
What would be gained
to God should we admit that He
delights in witnessing unceasing
tortures; that He is regaled with the
groans and shrieks and imprecations
of the suffering creatures whom He
holds in the flames of hell? Can
these horrid sounds be music in the
ear of the Infinite Love? It is urged
that the infliction of endless misery
upon the wicked would show God’s
hatred of sin as an evil that is
ruinous to the peace and order of the
universe. Oh, dreadful blasphemy! As
if God’s hatred of sin is the
reason why it is perpetuated. For,
according to the teachings of these
theologians, continued torture
without hope of mercy maddens its
wretched victims, and as they pour
out their rage in curses and
blasphemy, they are forever
augmenting their load of guilt.
God’s glory is not enhanced by
thus perpetuating continually
increasing sin through ceaseless
ages.
It is beyond the power
of the human mind to estimate the
evil that has been wrought by the
heresy of eternal torment. The
religion of the Bible, full of love
and goodness, and abounding in
compassion, is darkened by
superstition and clothed with terror.
When we consider in what false colors
Satan has painted the character of
God, can we wonder that our merciful
Creator is feared, dreaded, and even
hated? The appalling views of God
which has spread over the world from
the teachings of the pulpit have made
thousands, yes, millions, of skeptics
and infidels.
The theory of eternal
torment is one of the false doctrines
that constitute the wine of the
abomination of Babylon, of which she
makes all nations drink. Revelation
14:8; 17:2. Those ministers of Christ
should have accepted this heresy and
proclaimed it from the sacred desk is
indeed a mystery. They received it
from Rome, as they received the false
Sabbath. True, it has been taught by
great and good men; but the light on
this subject had not come to them as
it has come to us. They were
responsible only for the light that
shone in their time; we are
accountable for that which shines in
our day. If we turn from the
testimony of God’s word, and
accept false doctrines because our
fathers taught them, we fall under
the condemnation pronounced upon
Babylon; we are drinking of the wine
of her abomination.
A large class to whom
the doctrine of eternal torment is
revolting are driven to the opposite
error. They see that the Scriptures
represent God as a being of love and
compassion, and they cannot believe
that He will consign His creatures to
the fires of an eternally burning
hell. However, holding that the soul
is naturally immortal, they see no
alternative but to conclude that all
mankind will finally be saved. Many
regard the threatening of the Bible
as designed merely to frighten men
into obedience, and not to be
literally fulfilled. Thus, the sinner
can live in selfish pleasure,
disregarding the requirements of God,
and yet expect to be finally received
into His favor. Such a doctrine,
presuming upon God’s mercy, but
ignoring His justice, pleases the
carnal heart and emboldens the wicked
in their iniquity.
To show how believers
in universal salvation wrest the
Scriptures to sustain their
soul-destroying dogmas, it is needful
only to cite their own utterances. At
the funeral of an irreligious young
man, who had been killed instantly by
an accident, a Universalist minister
selected as his text the Scripture
statement concerning David: “He
was comforted concerning Amnon,
seeing he was dead.” 2 Samuel
13:39.
“I am frequently
asked,” said the speaker,
“what will be the fate of those
who leave the world to sin, die,
perhaps, in a state of inebriation,
die with the scarlet stains of crime
unwashed from their robes, or die as
this young man died, having never
made a profession or enjoyed an
experience of religion. We are
content with the Scriptures; their
answer shall solve the awful problem.
Amnon was exceedingly sinful; he was
unrepentant, he was made drunk, and
while drunk was killed. David was a
prophet of God; he must have known
whether it would be ill or well for
Amnon in the world to come. What were
the expressions of his heart?
‘The soul of King David longed
to go forth unto Absalom; for he was
comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he
was dead.’ Verse 39.
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