1881 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

Now let us notice the difference between everlasting life andimmortal life. Immortal life is everlasting, but it is more: it is alife which cannot cease under any conditions; a life powerinherent in the being possessing it, not supplied by food or otherconditions, as is all other life, both of angels and men. "Man dideat angel's food."--Psa. 78:25.--"Of every tree of the garden thoumayest freely eat."--Gen. 2:16.) In a word, as alreadyscripturally expressed, it is to have "life in himself," to be afountain of life--a means of supplying life to others.With this, which we believe to be a scriptural definition ofimmortality, who for a moment would wonder that it wasoriginally possessed only by God the Father--"the King eternal,invisible, the only wise God," "who only hath immortality?" (1Tim. 1:17, and 6:16,) or that in due time it was bestowed uponour Lord Jesus, as we read--"As the Father hath life in himself,(immortal,) so hath he given unto the Son, that he should havelife in himself." Jesus, before he "took the form (nature and life)of a servant," and "was found in fashion as a man," was, weunderstand the Scriptures to teach, a spiritual being--i.e., aspiritual, and not a human body. He was the chiefest of all God'screatures--"the beginning of the creation of God."--Rev. 3:14.Yet, to our understanding, he did not, at that time, possessimmortality; though, like angels and all intelligent beings livingin obedience to the Creator, he was guaranteed everlasting lifeas long as obedient.This life, which, according to God's plan, he had a right topossess, he desired to give as a ransom for ours. But howR280 : page 140should he do it? If he died, a spiritual being, it would have doneus human beings no good whatever. It was a human, and not aspiritual being, which was condemned to death, and God's lawof "an eye for an eye" and a "life for a life," demanded a humansacrifice for human sinners. Nay; had ten thousand spiritualbeings died, that could never have redeemed mankind, any morethan could ten thousand "bulls and goats, which can never takeaway sin."--Heb. 10:4. Neither a higher nor a lower order ofbeings could redeem; it required a man to redeem mankind.Therefore, this spiritual being changed his condition of existencefrom the spiritual to the human, and on earth was known asJesus. It was not a death of the spiritual being, but atransferrence of life from a higher to a lower plane of existence--the perfect plane of being, which Adam had forfeited by sin.*The penalty of Adam's sin was death (everlasting,) and whenJesus took his place he became subject to that penalty--eternaldeath. Jesus, as a man, then, in order to redeem man must giveup forever his human existence. This giving up was at the timeof his baptism, and his death was typified in that act. But aftergiving up, or consecrating his life as a ransom, he was three and