to the right hand of
the throne of heaven as our forerunner. On the very verge of the
theory just stated as Paul's, Neander hovers in his exposition of
the apostle's views, but fails to grasp its theological scope and
consequences. Krabbe declares that "death did not arise from the
native perishableness of the body, but from sin."5 This statement
Neander controverts, maintaining that "sin introduced no essential
change in the physical organization of man, but merely in the
manner in which his earthly existence terminates. Had it not been
for sin, death would have been only the form of a higher
development of life."6 Exactly so. With innocence, the soul at
death

4 Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus, s. 210.

5 Die Lehre von oer Sunde und vom Tode, cap. xi, s. 192.

6 Neander's Planting and Training, book vi. ch. 1.

would have ascended pleasantly, in a new body, to heaven; but sin
compelled it to descend painfully, without any body, to Hades. We
will cite a few of the principal texts from which this general
outline has been inferred and constructed.

The substance of the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans
may be thus stated. As by the offence of one, sin entered into the
world, and the judgment of the law came upon all men in a sentence
of condemnation unto death, so by the righteousness of one, the
free gift of God came upon all men in a sentence of justification
unto life; that as sin, by Adam's offence, hath reigned unto
death, so grace, by Christ's righteousness, might reign unto
eternal life. Now, we maintain that the words "death" and "life"
cannot in the present instance be entirely explained, in a
spiritual sense, as signifying disturbance and woe in the breast,
or peace and bliss there, because the whole connected discourse is
not upon the internal contingent experience of individuals, but
upon the common necessity of the race, an objective sentence
passed upon humanity, followed by a public gift of reversal and
annulment. So, too, we deny that the words can be justly taken, in
their strictly literal sense, as meaning cessation or continuance
of physical existence on the earth, because, in the first place,
that would be inconsistent with the doctrine of a spiritual body
within the fleshly one and of a glorious inheritance reserved in
heaven, a doctrine by which Paul plainly shows that he recognised
a natural organic provision, irrespective of sin, for a change in
the form and locality of human