The Face Of Life (And Death)!

Adam’s snare *was to swallow it *as holy, *only after the ceremony of his vows *to annul it. (mast)

*[Adam’s snare] literally, the snare of Adam. For me, it’s important not to treat the proper name of Adam as a general or generic term for the use of mankind in his lesser representation of us because of the theology that surrounds him (before God). That would be our ‘snare.’ Adam is unique from the rest of us because he was created, not apart from sin as Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matt.1:20), but without sin in the grace of his justification before the foundation of the world (Rev.13:8). Adam is a representative above the rest in this unique manner (1Cor.15:45). So we must not view him with the rest of the fallen race of his posterity who were conceived by sin (Ps.51:5; Rom.5:19), his sin (Gen.4:1-2, 8; 5:3). In this pattern of life in the likeness of his own image, Adam raised up both the image of sin (Cain) and death (Abel) by the wages of God’s mercy through the fruit of his own works (Rom.6:23). That’s what makes him our federal head under the curse of the law of sin and death (Rom.2:15; 3:9; 7:14, 23, 25; 8:2; Gal.3:13, 22). As sinners, we have him as our master (1Cor.15:22), but as Christians, we can no longer serve two masters (Lk.16:13; Gen.4:7; Rom.6:14-15). He is the chief of sinners in leading our liberty into captivity (Gen.2:9, 15-17; 1Tim.1:15; Eph.4:8). He was of the ‘good’ ground that God ‘declared’ holy (Gen.1:10; 2:7-8; Acts 7:33), through his acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty (Isa.45:7), to reserve that one tree of the garden of God’s holiness as the test of Adam’s loyalty (Gen.2:17; 3:23; Ezk.28:13; 31:8-9) until iniquity was found in him, then he was cast upon the ground that God had cursed (Gen.3:14-24), to grope around in the image of a beast on his belly (Rom.8:18-24; Ecc.3:16-22; 9:3-4; Ps.73:22; 106:20; Dan.4:25, 31-33). Therefore we need to obey the Hebrew in our understanding that accurately paints Adam’s image to those who would freely partake of this theology (Gen.3:1).

Through God’s image, sin had transformed the blessing of Adam’s works into the cursing of his face in the ground (Gen.3:22-24; 6:7). So we must understand Adam in his historical sense to track with Solomon’s proverbial applications of thought. Adam was made from the ground which God had cursed after the fall (Gen.3:23), but did Adam lose his justification? No! Notice that this proverb doesn’t begin with the assumption that it was God’s snare but with Adam’s snare. From God’s perspective, this is a test, not a trap! God clearly made his instruction and revelation known concerning his reservation of the tree called the knowledge of good and evil (Gen.2:17). But that doesn’t change the fact that Adam trapped himself in all the excuses that he presented to God in discovering the likeness of his sin (death) (Gen.3:7-13).

The image and likeness of death are contrary to God, who is a life-giving Spirit (Jn.4:24; Rom.8:1-9; 1Cor.15:45). Life and death are not compatible nor comparable (Rev.6:8; 19:11, 14). One is not like the other at all (Gen.2:18). There is no measure of true life in death, and there can be no measure of death in true life. So did Adam lose his justification? No! But then who did? It was those of us, conceived of the cursed dust and of the foreign spirit of the serpent’s lie (Rom.1:24-25; Gen.6:1-3), that lost the intent of Adam's justification. We draw from the breath of life that was born through the lie (Ps.51:5; Jn.3:36; 8:44), whereas Adam (the son of God (Lk.3:38)) drew from the breath of life that remains in God (1Jn.3:14-15; Jn.5:26; Gal.2:20), for God is the God of the living (Mk.12:27; Ps.27:13; 52:5; 116:9; Jer.11:19). So as Solomon is trying to teach his posterity the understanding of the way they should walk (Jn.14:6), this new way must not be understood to be in the footprints of Adam’s sin but only in the steps that brought Adam from death to life, which were steps not of his own justification but of God’s grace, in the steps of Christ who was the last Adam (1Cor.15:45). It was Adam’s snare to toy with God’s commandment (Gen.3:6), for the command was both good and holy (Rom.7:12), and obedience to the commandment is what kept Adam holy to the purpose of God’s garden (Gen.1:26-28; 8:20-9:1, 5-6), even though it was God’s purpose for Adam to sin (Gen.3:22-24; Rev.13:8), to make a whole new race of all the nations most holy to Himself through the last and greater Adam in the resurrection of Christ (Ps.19:5; Zech.9:6; 1Pet.2:7-10; Rev.14:6; 20:1-6).

And so the historical Adam, rather than the last Adam, is being used here as the representative of all men who partake of the holy use of the commandments of God, only to then render them ineffective by the disregard of God’s holiness in them (Jn.8:21, 24). These commandments are only holy regarding their relationship to God, not with their relationship to any created man (Matt.15:9; Mk.7:7; Eph.4:14; Col.2:22). Therefore to disregard them is to offend God (Matt.5:17). It is to treat God as unholy (Isa.1:13; Ezk.20:12; Hos.2:11; Mk.2:24-3:5; Lk.13:15-16; Jn.5:18; 7:23; Col.2:16). Therefore not to treat Adam’s sin in the likeness of its relationship to him and his Creator is also to treat God as unholy (Jn.9:24-34). It is a dishonor to God to imagine Adam’s offspring as the image of God (Gen.6:5; 8:21; Lk.1:51; 11:13; Matt.12:34; Rom.1:30; 1Cor.14:33), for these are the firstfruits of Adam's own works (Ps.51:5), and his works are sin before the holy God (Jn.9:4; Rom.13:12; Eph.5:11), and therefore his posterity is sin (Rom.3:9-20; 5:19-21; Matt.13:38). God never promised the whole fallen race of spirits that they would continue in the image of God (Rom.11:16; Gen.3:24; Rev.22:1-5) when what he promised to them through Adam's federal representation was death in the falling short of the holy commandment (Gen.2:17; Matt.5:48), for the posterity of Christ’s (spiritual) offspring comes down from above in the multiplication of twice the holy interest (Rev.22:1-5; Matt.25:27). But Adam didn’t die; only the fruit of his works died having been banished from the tree of life. This is not God’s snare. This is God’s holiness that he stands behind his Word (Ezk.18:4). The increase of sin comes through the greater revelation of this same commandment (Rom.5:12-21), for the commandment has not changed (Rom.5:13); it has only changed in its effect (Rom.5:14), as more commands of God were added because of this sin (Rom.5:20; ), and thus death increased because the likeness of Adam’s sin increased through more commands (Rom.5:17). Indeed, it was Adam’s snare but God’s holy test of trust (Jn.3:16; Gen.3:22; Jn.3:19-20; Gen.3:10). What was the measure of our father’s guilt, then, in the living out of this condemnation nearly one thousand literal years in the science of this spread of death before his very face of death (Rom.5:13-14; Gen.5:3-4; Matt.23:35)?

Grammatically, we don’t need much explanation. Adam is in the absolute form and is preceded by the construct of the noun ‘snare.’ So Adam translates in the possessive form of this trap. Adam must take ownership of the likeness of this test (1Jn.1:9). God put it forth as a good test on holy ground (Gen.2:9; Rev.2:7; Acts 7:33), but Adam evilly partook of its fruit and entrapped himself in the consequences of its power and knowledge (1Cor.11:27-29; 15:32; Isa.22:13; Matt.7:19; 2Cor.13:5). Therefore Satan used what was good and proper for God to test Adam’s love but twisted the test into bait for Adam to be caught in sin (Dt.16:19; Ps.56:5; Pr.19:3; Isa.27:1; Matt.27:29; 2Pet.3:16), which was the revelation of Adam’s love for himself against his own love for God. While Adam was not warned of Satan’s schemes, he was warned of God what would happen if this bond of love and trust would be betrayed (2Cor.12:16). And so God warned Adam of His own love for the glory of His own sovereignty (Gen.3:5). God’s love for His own sovereignty was beyond His love for the sanctity of Adam (1Cor.4:6). It was clear to Adam who God was in the purpose of giving of this command (2Sam.12:14), but the serpent and Eve had him believing that God was a liar and could not be trusted (2Sam.12:23). And so it was God’s test, the devil’s bait, and Adam’s snare.

Adam’s love for independent thoughts from the mind of God was greater than his love for the holiness of thinking God’s thoughts after Him (Gen.3:5; Ps.82:6; Jn.10:34-36). Therefore Adam had greater regard to his own self-esteemed value and worth than the infinite value and worth of his Creator. Where is the sanctity in this pattern of thinking when God was in none of his thoughts, to cut off the temptation of this snare before it ever happened (Ps.10:4)? But what made David believe that his sin was worthy of the same manner of death by the Word of God that was spoken over the death of his still-born child, saying, “I shall go to him . . .,” (2Sam.12:14, 23), but that his struggling faith was still of the living Spirit worthy of heaven, saying, “. . . but he shall not return to me,” that the child could not be resurrected to where his bed was already made in heaven’s glory (Ps.139:8; Gal.2:20; Ps.51:4, 7, 11-12; Lev.20:2; 1Cor.5:5; Jn.8:21)?

The true sanctity of his thoughts was just not present in the time of his sin because he saw the ‘forbidden’ fruit from the perspective of his own goodness instead of the view of the fruit’s goodness in God (Gen.2:9). Like Esau, Adam valued the sight of the fruit over the knowledge of God’s holiness (Heb.12:14-17), that God was good to him in every liberty to eat from all the other fruit-bearing trees (Gen.2:9, 16-17). But Adam just had to swallow this forbidden one, too, on holy ground no less. Amazingly, the ESV finds no purpose to translate Adam in this context at all, whereas the other more popular translations render Adam in his cheapened English form, nullifying his theological purpose in Solomon’s proverbs. The debate may continue around this interpretation, but I’m standing on Adam’s original purpose as the federal head until all who are to believe come to see his headship finally put to death in the death of the last Adam (1Cor.15:54-58), who was the promised Seed for Adam’s ‘continued’ justification and replacement as Federal head of every man in the church of God (Gen.3:15; Col.1:18; 1Cor.11:3, 7-10); and also in the death of the last enemy who still reigns (1Cor.11:26; Rom.5:17; Rev.1:18; James 4:4), which is death himself in the death of death (2Cor.3:7; Heb.2:14-15; James 1:15; Rev.6:8), after all things are put under the kingdom of the sons of the first resurrection and the life (1Cor.15:24-28; 54-58; Rev.20:7-15; 2Cor.2:16; Jn.11:24-27).

While we are on the topic of Adam, it may be edifying to note here that the root of Adam’s name is from the Hebrew verb, to dye red (Hiphil form), or to rub red (Pual form). It was said of the Nazarites that they were white and ruddy (Lam.4:7), now whether through a vow, I don’t know (Num.6:1-21; Jdg.13:3-5). But it is interesting how it is connected to Adam as some kind of covering for his sin. You can try to scrub yourself with hyssop until you draw the blood-red image of death (Ps.51:7; Phil.3:2), or you can paint your face with white powder (Matt.23:27), but will any of this have the power to wash away the face of sin in the face of death from the face of the earth (Jdgs.13:7; 16:4, 28-30; Acts 23:3; 2Cor.4:6; Gen.4:14; 7:23; Gen.1:2)?

*[was to swallow it] literally and figuratively, to swallow him. Both the Geneva Bible and the KJV translate the verb as "devour" because it carries connotations of destruction at its root. Even the Hebrew pronunciation sounds like a choking upon the syllables rather than the spitting of them out. There is translative controversy over this because it only appears twice in the AV. And every translation renders it slightly different. It is more likely to be a rash consumption of words, possibly vows, rather than a wild utterance of vain promises as we shall see in the latter half of the phrase, Lord willing, where the addition of another noun describes it to be a formality of vows, even if there are vows to be associated with it, which at this point I’m not sure there is. Because its use is primitive, there doesn’t seem to be much study on the development of the word. But in this proverbial use, I don’t believe it matters much in our application as to whether this is a receiving of what is called to be holy or an offering of whatever is called to be holy. The application would be the same, either way. But ‘to swallow’ seems to be the historical understanding more than the modern translations, and I believe it also fits the narrative of Solomon’s points of proverbial applications. The Geneva Bible renders it “It is a destruction for a man to devour that which is sanctified, and after the vows to inquire.”

From the perspective of the reformed separatists, we have the addition of this meaning of destruction, which intends to mean self-destruction as it is conjoined to the man who ‘devours’ or ‘consumes’ that which was set apart for holy use. In this understanding, the man who partakes in what is holy devours himself in the bliss of his own ignorance like a snake that eats itself alive. The Geneva notes also indicate that it was their understanding that in the application of this, it meant to take that which is holy and use it for personal use, and then to inquire how to be exempted from the fault or “fact of the vow.” So I choose to stand with the historical but reformed perspective of the verb but rendered as ‘to swallow.’ The KJV renders it ‘devour’ also. But again, however your conviction leads you, the application remains the same. Whether you set apart rashly something as holy or receive something hastily as holy, it remains to be a stumbling block to your own destruction because you did not consider beforehand the consequence of the holy standard that sanctifies the ceremony of the vow(s).

Now the grammar literally reads ‘to swallow him’. The verb is third person masculine. But the voice of the verb is in the Qal imperfective form. There’s no reflexive action to indicate that it was a swallowing of oneself, as the Geneva seems to suggest by their interpretation of the man’s destruction being the result of devouring the holy vow. The verb, however, is not pointing backward or inwards but forwards. And since we don’t know the masculine third party, I find it best left translated as ‘it’. But might I also suggest a foreshadowing of Christ, who alone has the authority to sanctify our vows of devotion through his mediatorial work (Matt.23:13-28)? And as Christ is the bread and the cup of that mediation, the pronoun ‘it’ is sufficient for me. Therefore, in a fuller and more accurate application, it is not the vow that sanctifies, but the power and authority of the bread we swallow and the cup we sip from that sanctifies our vow (Num.5:11-31; 1Cor.11:26-34). It is pointing to the sanctification of our Lord to judge our vows in truth (Jdg.11:30-31; 34-40). Jephthah’s vow is a prime example of the foolishness of rash vows and the folly of rashly honoring vows. It is up to the Lord our God to judge our superstitions and not for us to evaluate each other's circumstances by our own superstitions (Matt.1:19). Therefore, before a rendering of a lesser sense by my own preference, the pronoun in reality is masculine, as a woman should never receive a vow through her own superstitions or through another man’s. Yahweh must be her judge (Num.5:11-31). And this judgment, through the bread and cup of the only mediator given to us between God and man, who is Christ our perfect intercessor, having been judged, will judge both the living and the dead (1Cor.4:1-5; Acts 10:42).

*[as holy] literally, is holy. It is a common noun in a singular absolute form. It is describing the previous pronoun ‘him’. It can literally be rendered ‘. . . him who is holy’. But again, since it can also be rendered ‘it’ the noun can be describing something that is representing the ‘him’; or something devoted to being used for holy purposes that will represent the joining of vows or some covenant that is to be judged through a holy mediation of a third party. So ‘as’ this rendering describes the unknown object(s) that are symbolic of this holy mediation about the rendering ‘it,’ the translation ‘as’ fits more definitively conjoined to the representation of what is truly holy, the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. So Christ sanctifies the object, whether it be under the Old or the New Covenant (Mk.14:24; 1Sam.21:5).

So as we consider what we devote to be holy, it must not be out of a heart of our own understanding and design. It must not be called holy unless the Lord declares it to be holy for a holy purpose. If it is not devoted out of a proper understanding and obedience to a commandment of the Lord, the minister that acts as the earthly priest to confirm the devotion has the right not to participate in the administration of a set of vows or beliefs concerning what is presumed to be holy unto the Lord. For it is out of a confirmation of what the Lord has said through the written and objective standard of the Word of God and the spiritual witness of Christ’s continued intercession above that sanctifies any set of vows or beliefs. One illustration can be made through a case where a child is to be ‘counted’ holy through an unequally yoked marriage of at least one spouse being sanctified in their beliefs (1Cor.7:13-14).

First, the presumption is that all children are ‘counted’ unclean by virtue of the Word of God in their natural state (Rom.9:8, 11; 1Jn.3:10; Eph.2:3; 5:8; Gal.4:31), as it is written, ‘. . . otherwise your children would be unclean’. But not because of a child dedication are they “now holy” but because of the intercession of a believing spouse and an honorable marriage union. By the description of this house, a house is not sanctified by its own sanctity (that is, by its own estimation of self-worth) but by the presence of the virtue of the Holy Word of God being ‘alive and active’ in that house (Heb.4:12; Acts 16:14-15). If the believing member departs, so will the presence of holiness with them, rendering that house unclean again (Heb.12:14; Lk.11:23-28). We also can judge from this; therefore, that, in application, there is no infant baptism that sanctifies the child nor an honorable marriage vow that sanctifies the union of these souls under one house (Heb.13:4). So then how is this house rendered holy (Lk.18:16)? It is holy through the baptism of the confirmation of the believing spouse (Lk.13:34)! Because of the faith of the one member of that house, the whole house receives the benefits and blessing that comes with the rewards of membership to the local church, and of the spiritual understandings that come from the citizenship of heaven’s glory in Christ, in the face of that believing member.

What is the rush then, about devoting a child to be holy to the Lord before the time of his or her justification, if they are not ‘counted’ unclean through the trust of the confirmed member of the household of faith, to disciple them in the way of Christ (Jn.14:6)? Why devote them to be holy to the Lord before the time of their testing as Samson was (Jdg.13:7, 13; 16:25)? Failure to keep them holy to the vow brings guilt upon the whole house that witnesses the devotion (Ex.19:1-25; Dt.5:23-25; 26:16-19; 27:11-28:68; Matt.27:24-25), and the whole house is obligated to perform the devotion lest they fill up with the measure of guilt that the vow required (Matt.23:13-39; Lev.18:21; 20:2-5; 1Kgs.11:7; 2Kgs.23:10; Jer.32:35; Rom.1:24-25, 28-32; Mk.8:34-38). So in the application, we should refrain from vowing before the holy things that we don’t understand lest we render the vow ineffective because we didn’t trust the Lord to perform what he promised (Pr.22:6; Rom.3:3; 8:16; 1Thess.2:13). When the Lord performs what we seek, then we are to rejoice in the vow that the Spirit of the Word created (Jn.3:5-8; Eph.5:26; Acts 11:16; Matt.18:14; Lk.15:7).

*[only after the ceremony of his vows] conjunctively, a backward recollection. Literally, to then after, in construct with the Piel infinitive verb form. So this is a thinking back over the purpose of his vows and to change his mind about the value or virtue of them (Mal.1:7, 12, 14; 2:1-2, 11-17). And as these vows are joined together by the ceremony of the sanctuary of Yahweh they’re to be treated as holy. But this reverse contemplation renders them unholy in the mind of Solomon’s application. It is a trap to make these vows, for whatever reason or purpose they are being made, to then render them ineffective by a denial of the Lord’s power to keep them holy. So it’s as these vows are being witnessed, in the name of Yahweh, that sets up the responsible persons in a trap should they choose to backtrack and annul their vows. This backward recollection then is like walking in reverse in the wilderness until you fall into a pit filled with sharp spears that pierce through every vital organ of your fragile body. It’s like that foolish young 10th Century Persian woman who gets pregnant but believes the superstition that if you hop backward several times, the conception of a child miraculously disappears. No. It was your first decision that set you up to fall into this painful ditch. Under such a holy vow, witnessed by God above and the Holy Spirit below, you are deciding to fulfill these vows no matter the cost (1Jn.5:6-11). The cost, therefore, should be considered before the vows are made (Lk.14:28).

Background checks are a demonstration of this mistrust (1Tim.6:20). What makes a holy vow greater in degree than an honorable vow is that whatever was in the past, before the vow, is put off and dealt with by the sanctification of the gift of the Spirit that witnesses the vow (Eph.4:22; Col.3:9). An honorable vow is good (1Cor.7:38; Heb.13:4), but of itself, it is not held together by the sanctity of God’s Spirit and unified in the standard of holy truth (1Cor.6:16; Mk.10:8; Matt.19:6; Eph.2:15). Therefore to make a vow honorable that is built on human trust, you have to have a background check to verify an external image of a fleshly mind that keeps a record of wrongs that is designed only to protect the inquirer's trust (Col.2:18; Jn.8:15; 1Cor.13:4-7; James 3:14-16; Matt.23:25; Rom.2:8). But a holy vow is built on God’s trust who is able to bind the vows together by the witness of His love (Jn.1:8; 5:31-47; 8:13-18; 10:25-30). A holy vow then is a promise moving forward (Gen.3:15; 22:18; Ez.9:2; Ps.89:4; Isa.6:13; Lk.8:11; Matt.13:24, 37-38; Rom.4:16), but an honorable vow is bound or contingent to a previous trust (Rom.1:3). This kind of honor can’t hold itself together (Lk.3:23). Honor must be valued by the witness of the true standard of love (1Jn.5:6-11; Col.1:15; Heb.1:3). Love can only be honored by that which is holy (Eph.1:4; 2:21; 5:27; 1Pet.1:15-16). Self-honor cannot bond two or more witnesses together (Jn.5:22-24). A vow that is not holy isn’t worth its own honor (Rom.2:14; Rom.3:10-12; Jer.23:16; Pr.27:2; 1Tim.6:1). Consider how God hates sinners by keeping books on every thought, idle word, and deed created outside of his own mind (Rev.20:12); for there is no love of God for the mind of that world (1Jn.2:15; Rom.8:6-10). That is a mark of God’s hatred for the soul who sins (Ps.5:4-6, 9). There is a record of God’s hatred against them, for this is to protect his own honor and glory. But upon those God has chosen to love unconditionally there is no record of wrongs (1Cor.13:4-7). The handwriting of accusations is wiped completely off their record (Col.2:14), to remove the fear from our heart and make room for the love of God to be poured out into our vessel (1Jn.3:20; 4:18; Rom.5:5).

*[to annul it] literally, to reverse his conclusion, or to render ineffective. Under the basic Piel form, it is to inquire after the fact. The error of making or swallowing rash vows is the error of not thinking of the cost and consequences beforehand. It’s too late to inquire about the cost and consequence after the fact (Isa.28:14-18). Regarding the children of Israel’s vow to keep the Mosaic covenant, often referred to as the Old Covenant, which was the national constitution that liberated the tribes from Pharaoh, they had entrapped themselves by agreeing to preserve and obey the covenant as we studied in our introduction (Acts 7:38; Rom.3:2). And this was by God’s design so that it would tutor them to receive the new covenant in Christ’s sacrificial blood and broken body (Gal.3:24-25; Heb.5:12). The honorable weight of the Old Covenant was to reveal to them (and us) the witness of sin and death (Rom.5:12-21; 8:2; 1Cor.15:56), which is our image as a cursed man (Gal.3:10, 13; Jn.3:14). But instead, a greater sin was committed by them (Jn.19:11), in refusing to seek the word of promise (Rom.9:32-33; 10:2-6), that would fulfill a greater witness to the truth (Matt.11:11; 12:6, 41-42; Jn.5:36). God is going to fulfill this covenant of death and agreement with the accuser (Jn.5:45; Rev.12:10), which is that devil who has the power of death by virtue of the holy law’s demands (Heb.2:14), by satisfying the agreement in place of them (Jn.19:30), to uphold the perfection of his own holy name (Dt.32:4). But it was impossible for this word of promise to go without effect (Rom.3:3; 8:28-30; Gal.3:17). God’s word cannot return to him void (Isa.55:11). The eternal Word became flesh as a Son unto us (Jn.1:1, 14; 1Jn.5:7); to the children of Israel (Isa.9:6), to mediate this covenant on behalf of the fathers of Israel and on behalf of the Father’s glorious and honorable name (Gal.3:20; 1Tim.2:5). So this witness of sin and death can only be annulled through this Cornerstone (Isa.28:18; Gal.3:17; Heb.7:18), tried as a solid foundation of truth (Rev.1:15). So in application to Adam’s test and the devil’s entrapment, ‘her Seed’ entrapped himself to be Adam’s curse, to set men free from this sin and death and make them holy unto the Lord (1Pet.2:4-10).

Now, this was Adam’s snare, but the last Adam fulfilled it (Jn.19:30), as Adam set the example of clinging to his wife in the holy matrimony of the Lord’s pardon (Gen.2:23-25; 3:20-23). Therefore only what God brings together a man is not to separate (Matt.19:6). An honorable vow may make two persons as one flesh, but a holy vow makes two souls as one Spirit through the bond of God’s love for the union (1Cor.6:17). Therefore ‘to know her’ is to be joined in this Spiritual union (1Cor.6:19-20), but to merely bond together by a union of the fleshly mind is never to have been known by God in the union (1Cor.6:15-18; 2Cor.7:1; Matt.7:23). God enters the bond of the two souls together by virtue of His Holy Spirit (1Cor.6:17, 19-20). Therefore Adam and his wife, Eve, could not lose their justification in this grace of life that Christ brought together (1Pet.3:7). A holy vow clings two or more souls together for life, but merely a bodily union will perish unsanctified with the flesh (Isa.26:19; Jn.20:17; 17:18-19; 20:21).