Definition
Mortality in standard theological usage is a neutral anthropological given: the finitude of human existence. In Stephen Jones’ corpus the term takes on heavy hamartological weight: mortality is not the penalty for individual sin but the direct consequence of the imputed guilt of Adam’s sin. Jones thereby inverts the traditional Augustinian sequence — it is not a sinful nature that leads to mortality, but mortality that leads to individual sin.
Usage in the corpus
Stephen Jones
Jones makes mortality the pivot of his doctrine of original sin: “The only thing passed down is MORTALITY, or Death. We are not mortal because we sin. We sin because we are mortal.” The reasoning is juridical: Adam’s sin was imputed to all (Rom. 5:12); the penalty was death, i.e. mortality (Gen. 2:17); that mortality renders humanity morally weak and vulnerable, which in turn leads to individual sin. He sharply distinguishes this from the Augustinian teaching: “man did not inherit a sin nature from Adam.” He also rejects Jerome’s rendering of eph’ ho in Rom. 5:12: the correct reading is not “because all sinned” but “on which [death] all sinned” — mortality is cause, sin is consequence. [Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 9; The Restoration of All Things, Ch. 5]
The soteriological implication is far-reaching: if mortality is the ground of all individual sin, then redemption from mortality is redemption from that ground itself. This is the foundation of Jones’ universalism: the imputation of Adam’s guilt to all creates an obligation for God to equally impute Christ’s righteousness to all. A partial redemption would leave the original imputation as an injustice never fully rectified. [Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 9]