of averting
the dire effect, provided the transgressor would elect to avail himself
thereof.[31] The offer of the firstborn Son to establish through His own
ministry among men the gospel of salvation, and to sacrifice Himself,
through labor, humiliation and suffering even unto death, was accepted
and made the foreordained plan of man's redemption from death, of his
eventual salvation from the effects of sin, and of his possible
exaltation through righteous achievement.

In accordance with the plan adopted in the council of the Gods, man was
created as an embodied spirit; his tabernacle of flesh was composed of
the elements of earth.[32] He was given commandment and law, and was
free to obey or disobey--with the just and inevitable condition that he
should enjoy or suffer the natural results of his choice.[33] Adam, the
first man[34] placed upon the earth in pursuance of the established
plan, and Eve who was given unto him as companion and associate,
indispensable to him in the appointed mission of peopling the earth,
disobeyed the express commandment of God and so brought about the "fall
of man", whereby the mortal state, of which death is an essential
element, was inaugurated.[35] It is not proposed to consider here at
length the doctrine of the fall; for the present argument it is
sufficient to establish the fact of the momentous occurrence and its
portentous consequences.[36] The woman was deceived, and in direct
violation of counsel and commandment partook of the food that had been
forbidden, as a result of which act her body became degenerate and
subject to death. Adam realized the disparity that had been brought
between him and his companion, and with some measure of understanding
followed her course, thus becoming her partner in bodily degeneracy.
Note in this matter the words of Paul the apostle: "Adam was not
deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."[37]

The man and the woman had now become mortal; through indulgence in food
unsuited to their nature and condition and against which they had been
specifically warned, and as the inevitable result of their disobeying
the divine law and commandment, they became liable to the physical
ailments and bodily frailties to which mankind has since been the
natural heir.[38] Those bodies, which before the fall had been perfect
in form and function, were now subjects for eventual dissolution or
death. The arch-tempter through whose sophistries, half-