Editorial note — LESSON XVI.
Reading edition
[Footnote A: Lessons VII and VIII.]
[Footnote B: "The task we have set ourselves is to investigate the essential nature of Spiritual Death. And we have found it to consist of a want of communion with God" (Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," p. 158). So that spiritual life consists in a union with God; destroy that union—and sinning against God destroys it—and spiritual death ensues. For this doctrine we have the warrant of revelation:
"Adam * * * partook of the forbidden fruit and transgressed the commandment; * * * whereupon I, the Lord God, caused that he should be cast out from the Garden of Eden, from my presence, because of his transgression, wherein he became spiritually dead, which is the first death, even that same death which is the last death, which is spiritual, which shall be pronounced upon the wicked when I shall say, 'Depart ye cursed'" (Doc. & Cov., Sec. xxix:40, 41). "The fall had brought upon all mankind a spiritual death as well as a temporal; that is, they were cut off from the presence of the Lord" (Alma xlii:9).]
[Footnote C: Gen. iii:19. The several sentences of this chapter pronounced upon man and woman should be included as penalties affixed to the commandment, "Thou shalt not eat of it," as well as "Thou shalt surely die."]