NORTH SHIELDS. — What is the distinction between (1) “I give unto them eternal life” and they shall never perish.” (2) “When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin” (Isa. 53.) and “we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ” (Heb. 10).
THERE is a very clear distinction between eternal life and never perishing. It may help if we note first of all that in Scripture “life” is not mere existence, just as death is not non-existence. To perish is to be utterly ruined as regards the purpose for which a thing or person was made, and it involves as regards mankind, lying forever beneath the divine judgment, all links with God being forever severed.
Eternal life does not simply mean existing forever. The believer will, of course, exist forever, but possessing eternal life by the gift of God he enters into the relationships, the communion, the activities, the joys that are proper to it even now, though the life in all its fullness of manifestation will only be seen in the time to come.
Receiving eternal life we shall of course never perish. The possession of the positive secures us against the negative, but it would be a great mistake to treat them as though they were one and the same thing.
As to your second question, it is well to remember that no one passage of Scripture exhausts the fullness of the atoning work of Christ. There is probably no fuller or more comprehensive statement of His work than that contained in the words “Once in the end of the world [the consummation of the age] hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of “Himself” (Heb. 9:2626For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26)). Here “sin” stands for sin in its totality, root and branch. The sacrifice needful to put it away, so that ultimately it shall disappear entirely from all things in heaven and on earth, was nothing less than that of HIMSELF. All the fullness of His deity, all the perfection of His manhood, is wrapped up in that word Himself.
Considering things more in detail we find in Scripture, as you have pointed out, both the offering of His soul and of His body. The thought of the body of Christ in connection with His death is a good deal emphasized in the New Testament. The sins that had to be atoned for were man’s sins—sins wrought by men in their bodies. The Lord Jesus became a Man, taking the body prepared for Him (see Heb. 10:55Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: (Hebrews 10:5)), and that body He offered up in sacrifice. But it is equally true that His soul was made an offering for sin. It was not merely His body that was offered, but all that He was in the unfathomable unknowable depths of His being. No wonder then, that the results of His work are eternal and abiding. “He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.”