Verse 45
45. So In accordance with this distinction between the soulical and the spiritual, it is written in Genesis 2:7.
Was made a living soul Paul quotes the words of the Septuagint, which, like those of the Hebrew, are literally rendered became unto, or into, a living soul. From these words, as Dr. Poor truly says, no argument for immortality could be drawn, for our English translation wrongly conceals that in Genesis 1:20-21; Genesis 1:24, the words severally rendered creature that hath life, living creature, living creature, are in the Hebrew precisely the same as here for living soul, which last is the true translation in every case. Yet a most remarkable difference between the case of the animals who, in the above three verses, become a living soul, and man, who becomes a living soul, is this: that whereas the animals become such in accordance with God’s fiat to nature to bring them forth, man becomes so by the direct breath of the Almighty.
Of the antitheses of this verse the clause, the first… soul is Moses’ scripture; the last clause, the last… quickening spirit, is Paul’s; and, as equally inspired, is equally good. Yet it may be Paul’s equivalent for Genesis 2:7, “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” expressed in form to balance the antithesis. Christ is a quickening, that is, an alive-making, spirit, by the resurrection of men wrought by him.
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