A CONSIDERABLE portion of this paper was already in type when I received a short answer of six pages by Mr. Grant to his correspondents, on the objections already made to his doctrine of "Eternal Life." It is with deep grief that I observe that, not only has all remonstrance failed to arouse him to a sense of the pernicious character of it, but he states it more boldly than ever, and seeks to shelter himself under the prestige of Mr. Darby's name. The same spirit of reasoning we have noticed all along, comes out here more strongly than ever, accompanied with such a barefaced perversion of Mr. D.'s writings as savors rather of mockery than of theological disquisition.
First of all, "eternal life" is defined to be "divine life;" "the life in the fullest sense eternal, existing from eternity to eternity in God Himself. It is the communication of this life which makes all who receive it, not children of God by adoption merely, but children of God by birth—by life and nature." Mr. G. emphasizes "divine," as explaining "eternal life." What does this mean? Why not keep to the simple definition of the word of God, in the passage (John 17:3) he quotes on page 3 of the answer referred to, as being one which "some oppose" to his doctrine? Evidently he feels that his system has received a mortal blow. But in what sense is "divine" to be understood? If it is essence, it is deity; and we have not that: Christ was "the life," but this cannot be said of us. If it be meant to infer that God is the Author or Source of life merely, the expression is also applicable to the breath of God, the soul which animated Adam's body, and which consequently is immortal. And so it might be applied to angels too; and in a lower sense to any life, for all is from God's hand: "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). If it be nature that is meant, then why not say so? But this would raise at once the question we have examined at length; and the whole system is proved to be fallacious.
To give as a definition "It is divine life, eternal in a sense no other is," just says nothing at all. They are sounding words, that leave all in the mist of confusion, and are only calculated to prevent an unwary soul from laying hold of what the scripture says quite plainly,—but which Mr. G. refuses to say.
There is not a word here (in this statement as to "eternal life") of the revelation of the Father, be it observed. And since the Old Testament saints had it, according to Mr. G., they had the life and nature by the "new birth," but without the knowledge of it, without the affections and responsibility implied in it, before the work of the cross, and without the formative power in the soul of Christ's being in the glory, and the Holy Spirit's feeding the saints with Him who is there, Son of man and Son of God!
The painful rationalistic "how then?" we have already had to notice, re-appears here in a grosser form than ever, directly contradicting the Lord's own words as to John the Baptist, in Matt. 11:11: "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. "Mr. Grant's words are:—“' Had they [the Old-Testament saints] this knowledge of the Father and Son, which is the New-Testament revelation? The answer to this may be given without any difficulty or hesitation: they had not. Does this then settle the point in question? Surely it would be hasty to imagine this in view of consequences so serious as must follow. For if the Old-Testament saints had not eternal life, new birth must have been with them a very different and an infinitely lower thing than it is with us. Nay, they could not have been, in the sense in which we are called so, children of God at all I What life had they then? and when did true eternal life begin to be in men? When Christ came, and faith received Him first? or when He rose from the dead, having accomplished His work? Not certainly, the latter, for it would exclude the people of whom the Lord affirms it to be true, in the very prayer in which these words [John 17:3] are found.”
We have already examined the chief points. I suppose the author forgot that in the same prayer, the Lord says, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do," and again, "I am no more in the world." All through he ignores that it is founded on His going up to the Father, and that it is as Son of man in glory that power over all flesh is given to Him. (Compare Matt. 28:18.) There is not such a thought as asking what scripture says: a human mind is to decide what life is, as given of God; Mr. Grant will have it to be always the same, involving the same relationships.
The following paragraph, illustrating life without knowledge from the difference between a "babe" and a "man" (the babe being human, but not yet developed into a man), is just so much dust thrown into the reader's eyes; though, for the author, it reduces the truth to "simplicity itself." If it be meant to be applied historically, as to God's dispensations, it is a direct contradiction of the truth' set forth in the Epistle to the Galatians. If it be meant to apply it individually, it sets aside 1 John 2, where “little children " are distinguished as such by the knowledge of the Father. And the whole matter is thrown into inextricable confusion, by ignoring the scriptural use of the term "eternal life" in different senses, so that at last the reader is told:—
“Yet we still hope for it as if we had it not, although we have it, and know we have it.”
And in this maze of uncertainty Mr. Grant leaves us, saying that "in the full reality of what it is, eternity alone can declare it to us." But has not the Son already "declared God and the Father's name" (John 1:18; 17:26) I And what about the saint's portion NOW, which is the result of this declaration I Had the phrase been penned by one who wished to scoff at the Christian profession, he could hardly have done it better. Doubtless it is unintentional; but see whore systematizing leads! The result is "eternal life" separated from the knowledge of the Father and the witness of the Spirit.
The attempted justification of these views by partial quotations from a writer whom Mr. Grant fearlessly criticizes in maintaining his doctrine, does not commend itself to an upright heart; the more so, when it is done at the expense of making him say the opposite of what he held, the contrary to what the passages themselves, taken in their connection, state distinctly enough. But the most gross perversion appears in this short paper of Mr. Grant's. And he positively underlines a phrase in the passage he quotes (which I underline also), and which contradicts his doctrine in the most positive way. How does he get over it?—He dismisses it by saying, "It is surely plain that here it is the practical life which is in question." What kind of life, then, would Mr. G. have us receive? There is only one issue for him (and it is the essence of his system): it is a life without knowledge, "without affections, character, responsibility—in a word, without faith," as indeed the quotation from Mr. Darby states.
I give the passage at considerable length:—
“There is a very deeply and fundamentally false principle running through all the author's reasonings on this point. I mean this, that, if life be there, inasmuch as it is always of God, or divine life, it is always essentially the same, whatever official distinctions there may be as to dispensation. Now, as to the possession of life by man, it must be holy, in the principle of its nature, obedient, and have God for its object. So far, it must be fundamentally the same. But this makes man the end and essential object of all this. Then these things, man having life, may be termed 'official' distinctions (though, even so, it is most sad to say that those things by which God acts peculiarly on His saints are mere official differences). I do not think a spiritual, holy mind, that loves Christ, can help being shocked at being told that that possession of the Comforter, which made it expedient that Christ should go away—which guides him into all truth—gives him communion with the Father and the Son—which is an unction by which he knows all things, the things freely given to him of God, yea the deep things of God—which enables him to cry, Abba, Father—by which the love of God is shed abroad in his heart, and by which he knows that he is one with Christ, in Him and He in him—that all this is a mere official distinction.
“But the truth is, this principle shuts God out of the matter, in making the difference as to man the end. These differences of dispensation are the displays of God's glory; and therefore of all importance, and most essential, because a positive part of His glory. The law maintained His majesty, and title to claim obedience, as the gospel displayed His grace, and gave the obedience of a child. To say that the breaking down the middle wall of partition, and the accomplishment of the glorious work by which it was effected produced only an official difference, because man had life, and man was forgiven, or forborne with, in view of it, is to say that the display of God's glory was an unessential thing: the display of all His glorious wisdom, power, and love, in that mighty work which stands alone in heaven and earth, the object of angels' research. Was it unessential to them, who found scarce even an official difference, though doubtless it affected their position, to see Him who had created them, nailed to the tree in that mighty and solitary hour which stands aloof from all before and after? Let us only remember that' dispensations are the necessary displays of God's glory, and we shall soon feel where we are brought by what makes mere official differences out of them.
“Besides, the difference is very great indeed as to man. It is everything as to his present affections, as to his life. Because God puts forth power, power too which works in man through faith, according to the display He makes of Himself. And therefore the whole life, in its working, in its recognition of God, is formed on this dispensational display. And this is the field of responsibility too. Thus, if God reveals Himself to Abraham as Almighty, Abraham is to live and walk in the power of that name. And so of the promises given to him. Israel is to dwell in the land as the redeemed people of the Lord—their affections, ways, responsibility, and happiness, flowing from what God was to them as having placed them there. So to us—the presence of the Holy Ghost Himself being the great distinguishing fact, with the knowledge He affords. Because all this is what faith ought to act upon, and the life which we live in the flesh we live by faith, for the just shall live by faith. Hence the Lord does not hesitate to say, "This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' That could not have been the life of those before. Had they then not life? Nay, but it could not be stated in that way—their life was not that; and to undo these differences is to make a life without affections, character, responsibility, in a word, without faith. 'You cannot do it; for to us to believe is to live. The more you succeed in leveling them to one thing, the more you succeed in stifling divine affections, and active human responsibility (destroying, as far as may be, divine communion, and frustrating divine grace), the more the glory and energy of faith is null, and hence God's glory in us.
“There is another point connected with this, that I would not leave untouched:—namely, that making a difference of position in glory is setting aside the value of Christ's blood, and malting our place on high depend on something else. Now I meet this difficulty in the face. And I say there is a difference in glory; and that difference does not depend on the precious blood of Christ; and that to say that it does, takes away its value from that blood. Difference there is. The Savior recognizes the sitting on His right hand and on His left; and many other passages prove it. Now, if this depend on the blood of Christ, this would attribute a various value to it, making it uncertain and imperfect in the extent of its efficacy. The blood of the Lamb gives to all their sole title to be in the glory, and gives to all an equal and perfect justification from sin; and therefore in its effect, there can be no difference. To suppose a difference is to call in question the completeness of its efficacy. But there is a difference. And this (while the title to be in the glory is, for all, in the blood) depends therefore on something else. It is, in the accomplishment of the counsels of God the Father, given to those for whom it is prepared; and given (though man is not in the least the judge of that labor, and there are first that shall be last, and last first) according to the working and energy of the Spirit of God, and faithfulness through grace in service. God does what He will with His own. Still we know that in doing so He displays what He is, and is consistent with Himself; and position and reward answer to the sovereignty of God, which has given us a position, and the operation of the Spirit by which we have walked in it. It is the sovereignty of God, we know from the Lord's answer to the eons of Zebedee, and the parable in Matt. 20 It is the fruit of labor, as we know from 1 Cor. 3:8; the parables (Luke 19 and Matt. 25); 1 Thess. 2:19, 20; 2 John 8. I suppose it will not be questioned that this work is through the efficacious operation of the Spirit of God. (Collected Writings, vol. viii., 39-42.)
Lastly, Mr. Grant concludes by another partial quotation out of the same volume. The passage treats of the difference between the life communicated, and the divine "Word incarnate, the Son of God, who came down from heaven,” and shows that” union with the Person of God is not scriptural " (pp. 554-558). The article from which the quotation is taken, states, in the opening paragraphs of the Introduction (p. 526), the general truth—founded upon the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus—that all the redeemed will be conformed in resurrection to the image of the second Adam; but, subsequently, in speaking of the millennium, it distinguishes heavenly and earthly saints, as is expressly stated in the note (p. 555), and repeated in the text with a good deal of detail (pp. 556, 561, 562, &c.). So that to quote an isolated passage, in the way Mr. G. does, leading the reader to infer that it applies to the Old Testament saints about whom not a word is here said, is quite misleading. The passage that does speak of them maintains the very opposite of Mr. G.'s teaching. I do not wish to say that this is an intentional falsifying of the quotation; but it is at any rate gross carelessness, unpardonable, in so serious a matter, in one who takes the place which Mr. G. does of setting other people right. And besides, as quoted, the passage does not speak of life "in the Son," but of life in Christ, so that even in this way, it is the very opposite of Mr. Grant's theory; and two pages further on, it is stated that the millennial saints have life from Christ, always supposing His death and resurrection accomplished; and it is added: "though they have it from the risen Man, so that I doubt not they will be changed into likeness to Him, and though their forgiveness and their blessings are enjoyed through the blood of the Lamb, yet they do not sit together in heavenly places." Mr. G. leaves all this aside, and writes as follows:—
“But at page 554 of the same volume, he is still more explicit:
And if it be said, ' But were they not quickened with the life that was in Christ?' No doubt they were. He [Mr. N.] holds now that there was the same life essentially in all of them [heavenly and earthly saints]. With this I fully agree.”
It is the usual style of his quotations, and, when examined, condemns itself. It can only temporarily deceive those who do not take the trouble to verify references. But when he adds: "And this is all that has ever been contended for,"—we are constrained with grief to record that the statement is untrue.
I may add that on page 563, of the same volume, he might have found a quotation of Mr. B. W. N., which is so like his own statements and inferences, in the passage I have quoted from his last six-page tract (see p. 129), that one can hardly believe they are not by the same pen. And it is Mr. N. that Mr. Darby is reviewing! From the same volume (pp. 173-4) I quote the following:
“The life and spiritual energy of a saint depends on his faith in what is proper to his own dispensation. This is so true, that, if he only believed what belonged to the last, it would not be life to him; it has ceased to be the test of faith to him. To Abraham, faith in Almighty God was living faith: is this (though living faith surely owns it) what living faith consists in now? A Jew, not owning Jehovah, would have failed from the covenant. And it is true of power too. If the Holy Ghost be not fully owned, if the proper heavenly place of the church be not fully owned, no general idea of salvation, however true, will give the power, nor form and guide for Christ's glory those who neglect the former. What is special to the dispensation is the power and testimony of the dispensation, and not what is said to be common to all.”