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The Charter of Life
The passage relating to the present possession of eternal life is familiar: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life.” This positive statement comes to us with an intensified force of conviction as we view its context. We recollect the glory of the Speaker. He who speaks of the possession of life is the One who quickens. Words carry weight in proportion to the dignity of Him who speaks, and to His ability to establish the truth of what He utters. Here the Son of God speaks, the divine Quickener, the Judge of all.
Our part is to receive His words by faith in spite of our feeble apprehension of their significance. The value of them is only to be measured by the Person of Christ. Their validity rests upon Omnipotence. When the Son of God says that a person shall not come into judgment He has the unchallengeable right to speak on such a matter. For the Judge is speaking, the One who will preside at that Great Assize. He has therefore the necessary authority to grant an exemption from the process of judgment. This He does in the solemn declaration, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and shall not come into judgment.” The word “condemnation” in the Authorized Version falls short of the meaning of the text. This may imply being judged but escaping punishment, whereas the Lord promised freedom from the judgment itself, that is, from arraignment at the trial.
This assurance is made to the hearer of Christ's word. Hearing, however, is not merely listening, but receiving in the heart the Son's word of grace and power. It was so with the man at the pool. If he received the word “Rise” as the word of a man he could only regard it as a mockery of his helplessness; but discerning it as the voice of One who spake as never man spake he received the power he otherwise lacked. Essaying to rise in obedience to the command, he rose in a strength bestowed by the Life-giver. So, hearing the word of the Son, and believing the Father who sent Him, are inseparable from the living water which the Son of God imparts to the needy.
Thus in this passage we have the assurance (1) from the Quickener that the hearer and believer possesses eternal life, and (2) from the Universal Judge that he is immune, from future judgment. These momentous questions are by this text answered definitely and finally, and placed once for all upon an immutable foundation.
SIGNS OF LIFE
The presence of life is determined by its action. An absolutely impassive life is unthinkable. This is true of physical life which invariably exhibits itself in motion; where there is none, death is assumed. And so, by analogy, it is spiritually; without motion Godward, there is spiritual death. But if a person possesses eternal life, he has passed “from death unto life.” Such a person has the consciousness of God as Father, of the Son as Savior and Lord. He has esteem, regard and reverence, as well as adoration and worship, for the Father and the Son.
Eternal life places a person in the right relationship of heart and will to the revealed Godhead. It must not be confounded with active philanthropy. A sense of duty towards one's fellow-creatures is not necessarily evidence of the possession of eternal life. Take the case of Judas Iscariot who had every symptom of such a regard for men. In this world of suffering and sin he did many wonderful works of healing and mercy in the name of the Lord; but there was no appreciation of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ upon his lips. He did not confess like Simon Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Judas betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver. There was no life in him—no honoring the Son even as the Father.
Again: hearing the voice of the Son of God is evidence of eternal life; “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.” How can this be? Can a dead person hear? In a natural sense, it involves a contradiction of terms. Yet the testimony of Scripture is that Lazarus, and the widow's son, and Jairus' daughter heard that voice. So it is with dead souls according to the witness of the verse before us. The Speaker is the Son of God. And God in the Person of His Son quickens. He gives life—not notions, not creeds. Our part is that of faith. We miss the value of the words of Jesus if we seek to compass them by our own puny thoughts and ideas. Let us believe; for in this is life.
THE TWO HOURS
Moreover, life-giving is a present act. It is a process in progress. The “hour” for it “now is.” Spiritual life is bestowed on those who hear the word of the Son. But there is another “hour” of which the Lord goes on to speak. “The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth.” As the present hour has reference to the inner life of man, so the future one refers to the body. Light is here shed upon the darkness of the tomb into which the voice of the Life-giver will penetrate.
Resurrection is life for the dead body. The spirit of the departed believer is with Christ, which, as the apostle says, is a “far better” state than the present. This state is reached immediately upon falling asleep. Hence the Lord said to the robber, “Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” There was, in consequence, for his spiritual nature, an instantaneous transfer to the highest heaven, while the mangled body waits in the dust of the earth for the awakening word of life in the coming hour. Then in the first resurrection the Lord's redemptive work will be completed for spirit, soul and body—for him and for all who had like faith.
But this resurrection of life is the resurrection of those who heard the voice of the Son of God in the first hour. The response to His voice at His coming is the response of those that are Christ's. It is the response of a previously formed, and a living, relationship. The Lord comes into the air and speaks, and a resurrection from among the dead is the immediate result. This is the secret rapture—secret because the voice of the Lord will be unperceived then as it is unperceived now by the world, and was formerly unperceived by ourselves.
The result then of hearing the Son's voice in that coming time for those who hear His voice now, is that life will then be known by them in fullness and glory. Now the new life is hindered and hampered by the influence of present things. The spirit is clogged. Then we shall rise unfettered to ascend into a sphere of uninterrupted communion with God the Father and God the Son. The life already imparted rises to its source—to Him who is the true God and eternal life.
But the wicked dead will not escape the power of that all-compelling voice—the summons from their Judge. They will subsequently (Rev. 20) rise too in the resurrection of judgment, from which the believer, as we have seen, is exempted.
In conclusion, we may observe that the possession of eternal life is not the result of a personal struggle. It is not consequent upon a successful career of morality and philanthropy. It is a divine gift— “the gift of God is eternal life.” There is therefore no adequate cause for self-satisfaction or boastfulness. The free gift is of grace. The Son quickens whom He will. He sought us when we were lying helpless in the folly and degradation of sin. He granted unto us a new life, breathed out from Himself. Let us, therefore, as Scripture teaches us to do, ascribe all praise and glory to Him who is the Bestower of life upon those who hear His word. W. J. H.
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