Its Nature – the Diversity of Thought Existing on This Subject
It seems as if God had specially retained in His own hand certain secrets of nature, in order that we may be sensible how limited are the powers of the human mind, and may be prevented from intruding into that domain, which He has reserved for Himself. For though men may observe and ascertain the phenomena of nature, and what are the laws which govern them, the origin of these laws, and how they exist, is hidden from us. This is especially the case with life whether in its highest or its lowest manifestations; from the infinite God, and heavenly or angelic life, down to its lowest terrestrial forms. If it is beyond our capacity then to seize and define that vital essence – which even in the plant distinguishes it from mere dead matter – how much more profound and impenetrable to us, must be the mystery of the blessed Person, who unites in one combination of glories all that is human and divine; and how vain, and almost blasphemous, the conceit that has assumed to decipher, to define, or limit Eternal Life, or life of any kind, as it exists or is expressed, in Him.
Being what He is essentially, His life is as infinite as Himself; and it is an unwarrantable intrusion into the glory of His Person, to attempt to gauge it. Never before the rise of this system of thought, since Gnosticism had its day, do we find such unhallowed speculations. Nor do we believe that they would have been indulged in, or entertained in the minds of so many, unless, by describing Eternal Life as a sphere or condition, they had first accepted the thought that it could be dissociated, or distinguished from what Christ is personally.
Thus – though that thought is a mistake and profane – the holy fear which would have prevented the enquiry, has been disarmed.
No one denies that “condition” or “sphere,” is a necessary and indispensable accompaniment of life, and that in which the life displays itself; and thus it has come to be used, in a secondary or subordinate sense, for life itself. In intelligent beings, life belongs to, or is what is proper to, a person or being, not to a condition, for the condition only answers to, or corresponds with, that life. Hence Mr. Darby says, “Life is not a condition of being: it characterizes it.”
“Is life in God a mere condition of being? – `Being’ means what has life.” This shows that he does not lose sight of the proper and primary sense of Eternal Life, as being personal which these writers however will not allow in the sense in which it is here maintained, because they say that that would take us into Deity. To speak of it merely as a condition of being, when its essence is in question, destroys its proper nature – life in its primary and proper sense, – and substitutes by a sophism, (perhaps unconsciously), a state in which life is found, for the reality of life itself. This sophism underlies almost all the reasoning of Mr. Raven and those who receive his views; and when it comes to be applied to Scripture teaching, or to the Person of Christ, or to the life we receive, it becomes very serious. Whilst the reader is thinking of life in its proper and original signification, he is unconsciously deceived by the substitution of a condition, without being aware that essential life is either lost or dropped out of view, or the two senses confused.
Is it honest therefore of Mr. R., or his advocates, to say to enquirers, that he “believes Christ Himself to be Eternal Life”; when he is using the term in another sense and means something quite different from what is in the mind of the enquirer?
I do not accept the assertion of some that Eternal Life is an essential title of the Son of God. I am sure it cannot be maintained. I believe it to be a term indicating a condition (Letter of August 25th, 1890 published by Mr. Boyt, p. 4).
In the closing pages (see Appendix A) we have the most distinct proof, that the Eternal Life has always been identified in the mind of saints, with the divine nature and the Person of the Son of God; that it is His own life with the Father in eternity, and is therefore identical in its character and nature with the life that was in the Father, though the relationship of Son is distinct.
The “Word of life” unites the manifestation of the divine nature, with this life, before the universe existed, for the Word is the expression of the mind of God. It was “the Word” that was “made flesh”; and we have also the statement, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” But this differs materially from a “sphere,” “condition,” or “state of blessing prepared for man,” though finally it may be included as proper to it. Hence Mr. Raven carefully separates Eternal Life from Deity and from Sonship saying that Sonship is “greater” than Eternal Life. But He cannot be greater than Himself. This is conclusive. Thus he will not allow that “the Eternal Life” is applicable to, or describes, or is used to distinguish, Christ as a Person.
I strongly object, [he says] to the talk about the Personality of Eternal Life, because (as the reference is to Christ) it makes Eternal Life commensurate with the person of the eternal Son, and this I believe to be very wrong.
For the same reason he will not apply Eternal Life to passages such as, “In Him was life”; nor allow that Christ is spoken of in the Gospel of John as Eternal Life. Nor can he find anywhere that Scripture “says that He was it, though it was manifested in Him.” “Nor do I know,” he says, “where Scripture says, `He was in His own person the manifestation of Eternal Life,’ nor where it says, `It was what He was, not what He enjoyed.’” (Letter of October 1st, 1890).
All this it is impossible to mistake; and though Mr. R. says elsewhere that “Eternal Life is Christ for the believer,” he himself explains in what a limited sense, and with how different meaning he understands this, when he says it was “something that came to light, and is now perfectly expressed in Him.” “A condition of relationship and being” . . . “and seeing that that condition existed, and was manifested, and is now fully expressed, even as to bodily condition, in the Son”– (putting his own construction on J. N. D.’s language) he says, “it is Christ” (Letter of July 24th, 1890). This is perfectly consistent with the previous statements which we have given. If, as he says, Eternal Life is “an integral part of His Person,” as having “embodied” this condition or state of being and relationship when He became Man, the condition became identified with His person, though it was not what He was personally, or His own divine nature in eternity. Indeed we know the explanation given on this very point by a brother: “As my arm is an integral part of myself, so Eternal Life is an integral part of Christ.” But Mr. Darby has given the reply to this, contrasting what the believer is with Christ the Source and Sustainer of life: “My hand is a part of myself, and I may lose my hand, but that is not myself.” To give another figure – which may partially illustrate a sphere or condition or state of blessing – Royalty is a condition attaching to the heir-apparent of the throne when born into this world, and, doubtless, he has a sphere connected with that state or condition; but it is not himself, nor his own essential life and being, though belonging to it, and though (as it has been explained in this controversy) he may enjoy royal life in its completeness when he comes to the throne, when royalty “is fully embodied and expressed in him.”
Condition or relationships are more accidentals than essentials of life. We may have an earthly state of life as in man, or a heavenly as in angels. Royalty or Sonship are conditions or relations of life accessory but not necessary to it. Adam was not a son, nor in the relationship of a son; all are not fathers, nor are all in the sphere pertaining to Royalty.
So that to identify life with a condition is in reality absurd and reduces it to a nullity. Hence, some of Mr. Raven’s passages give the serious impression that he does not believe in the impartation of life and of its real existence in the believer at all. He says “life is presented in Scripture, not so much as a deposit in the believer, though Christ lives in him in the power of the Spirit, but as a state of blessing. Scripture does not, I think, speak of our having had eternal life imparted to us.” (See also passages quoted in Appendix B).
But thus divine truth is undermined in the soul, though the writer is variable and not always consistent in his statements.
But where is there authority in the Word of God for a separation between Life and Eternal Life, when speaking of Christ? He is the Life and the Eternal Life. Both are averred of Him. Mr. R. says
The Life of which we are made participants is not the same life which was proper to the Son of God in His eternal existence . . . I could not make, “So hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself,” and Eternal life to be the same (Some Letters, p. 10).
So that we have this elaborate system built upon the extraordinary theory that the addition of eternal to life, or to the life, makes it “a term indicating a condition,” and a division or separation is made between Life and Eternal Life in Him, because the word Eternal is not always added. Mr. R. does not give the slightest proof of this from the word of God, but merely reasons from the fact that we receive eternal life, notwithstanding that the result of this theory is to make two kinds of life in Christ. Besides, we are as constantly said, to be recipients of life in the Son, as of eternal life.
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Here life and eternal life are used interchangeably, as in the Son, and possessed by the believer without any distinction between them.
But it is the Son, though in Manhood, who is spoken of here, and we are to believe that this life in His Son is not identical with “In Him was Life” (Some Letters, p. 15). Mr. R. does not tell us what there is in the word “eternal,” thus to qualify or alter the meaning of Life, nor can we find any such use of it in Scripture. We have “Eternal God,” “Eternal Spirit,” “eternal redemption,” “eternal salvation,” “eternal righteousness,” but in none of these can we discover such a modifying or “technical” use of the word eternal; for though life is mysterious, both in its origin and nature and varied in its developments and manifestations, that is not due to the force of the word eternal, which has a constant meaning of its own. Will Mr. R. venture to say that when Christ says, “I am the Life,” that it is not eternal life?
We subjoin an emphatic passage of Mr. Darby’s on this point
Here again (1 John 5:11, 1211And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:11‑12)) it is evident as to our possession of it, that it is impossible to distinguish eternal life from the possession of life in the Son; that life is eternal life. He that has the Son has life in the Son, eternal life, for He is eternal life, and he that has not that has no life at all spiritually . . . In John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36) we have the same truth that Christ is life – eternal life and that he that has not eternal life has none . . . The distinction between life and eternal life is utterly futile” (Collected Writings, vol. 7, pp. 32, 33).