Plan of the Ages.
The first great judgment [trial and sentence] was at the beginning, in Eden, when the whole human race, as repre- sented in its head, Adam, stood on trial before God. The result of that trial was the verdict Guilty, disobedient, unworthy of life; and the penalty inflicted was death "Dying thou shalt die." (Gen. 2: 17, margin.) And so "In Adam all die/* That trial time in Eden was the world's first judgment day, and the decision of the Judge (Jehovah) has ever since been enforced.
" The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness." It may be seen in every funeral proces- sion. Every tomb is a witness to it. It is felt in every ache and pain we experience all of which arc results of the first trial and sentence the righteous sentence of God, that we are unworthy of life and the blessings originally provided for man when obedient and in God's likeness, But mankind has been redeemed from the sentence of that first trial by the one sacrifice for all, which the great Re- deemer gave. All are redeemed from the grave and from the sentence of death destruction which in view of this redemption is no longer to be considered death in the full, everlasting sense of the word, but rather a temporary sleep; because in the Millennial morning all will be awakened by the Life-giver who redeemed all. Only the Church of believers in Christ are yet in any sense released or "es- caped' 1 from this original sentence and penalty; and their escape is not yet actual, but only so reckoned by faith. " We are saved by hope ' ' only. Our a&ual release from this death penalty (incurred in Adam and escaped from by getting into Christ) will not be fully experienced until the resurrec- tion morning, when we shall be satisfied to awake in our Redeemer's likeness. But the fa<5l that we who have come to a knowledge of God's gracious plan in Christ "have escaped the corruption that is [still*] on the world," so far
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