Question.—Since Adam was a wilful and intelligent sinner, and was individually sentenced, and since the sentence has been executed upon him and he is now under that sentence, and now has nothing and is nothing, how much of the merit of Christ will be necessary for his release from his condemned condition?
Answer.—We understand that Adam, having been tried and found guilty and sentenced to death, and having gone down into death under that sentence, has done nothing to liquidate his obligations in any sense of the word; and that it will require the full satisfaction of a ransom-price to set him free and permit him to have another trial. In a general way, this is, of course, true of the entire human family. As Adam's children, we are dealt with as a race, instead of as individuals except in the case of the Church and of the Jewish Nation under their Law.
During the Millennial Age there will be no imputation of Christ's merit to anybody, as it is now imputed to the Church. It is imputed to us for a special purpose—to enable us to offer acceptable sacrifices. In the Millennial Age no one will need the righteousness of another to make him acceptable. On the contrary, the whole world, counted in as one, will be dealt with from that standpoint; and Christ, as the great Mediator, Prophet and King, will make satisfaction to Justice for Adam and all his children, dealing with them as one. After making satisfaction to Justice, and thus purchasing the whole world of mankind, the great Mediator of the New Covenant will put it into effect, and under that New Covenant the blessing will begin with Israel; but every member of the human race will have an opportunity of coming to perfection, as heretofore shown.
To get at the real gist of the question, we will put the matter in another form and say: If Adam had been living during the Gospel Age, to our understanding, he would not have been eligible to the offer of this Gospel Age—that it would not have been consistent with the Divine arrangement to have dealt with Adam as the Lord is dealing with the Church, because he, as personally condemned, would have had nothing that he could present as a sacrifice. We, on the contrary, have something to present—"Present your bodies living sacrifices." While our bodies are blemished, we have, nevertheless, some powers, and these we are invited to present. We have bodies which we are willing to coerce into submission. This is our hope—that we may be permitted to suffer with Christ, that we may be sharers in his glory.
The Apostle says, "Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body." (I Cor. 6:20.) This seems to imply that we had something. Having recognized Christ as the center of God's Plan and as our Redeemer, we are called upon to renounce sin—glorifying God by consecrating our lives, our bodies, to his service. But if we had been the original sinner, and had been originally sentenced, we see nothing that we should have had that we could call our own that we could have given.
Question.—Should Sisters teach Sunday School classes?
Answer.—Usually Sisters are better teachers of the young than are brethren. Nothing in the Scriptures forbids their teaching such classes. The Apostle's words are: "I suffer not a woman to teach or to usurp authority over a man." His words apply specially to the Church.
As for the advisability of having Sunday Schools! We have not changed our judgment from what we have written in SCRIPTURE STUDIES, Vol. VI.
We still believe that God holds the Christian parents responsible for the spiritual education of their children, and that they get a special blessing in fulfilling his requirement. If Sunday Schools are ever advisable, we believe they would be only for orphans or worldlings, or for children already taught at home.