Correspondence: Life

 •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 6
Ques. From C. M.
Ans. Gen. 2:7 is how man received life; it was God breathed.
Lev. 17:11 is the life of the beast, created by His word. (Heb. 11:3.)
The beast is "made to be taken and destroyed:" it is not raised from the dead at death. It ceases to exist. (2 Peter 2:12.)
Man was made in the image and likeness of God, to represent God and to have dominion. (Gen. 1:26.)
Man Is accountable to his Maker. (Rom. 14:12) Man exists forever. (Luke 20:38.) His body will be raised again from the dead. (Rev. 20:12, 13.)
The believer will be with and like Christ in glory for eternity. (1 Thess. 4:17; 2 Thess. 2:14.)
The unbeliever will exist forever in the lake of fire. (Rev. 21:8.)
Both believers and unbelievers will have spirit, soul and body in eternity.
When the believer dies, be is absent from the body and present with the Lord, '(2 Cor. 5:8,) which is "far better" (Phil. 1:23.)
When the unbeliever dies, his body goes to the grave and his spirit goes to prison (2 Peter 2:4, 9,) where he is already in torments. (Luke 16:23; Jude 7.)
Every believer, or saint, from the beginning to the end of man's history is born again. This gives them a life they can know and enjoy God; (John 3:3,) thus the believer has two natures, the flesh and the spirit. (John 3:6.)
The unbeliever has only one, he is in the flesh. "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Rom. 8:8.)
When we are born again, and have believed the gospel, and are sealed with the Holy Spirit, we then have eternal life. (John 17:3.) It is seen in the enjoyment of God as our Father, Christ is our Savior and Lord, and the Holy Spirit as our comforter and teacher.
Everyone that is born again in all dispensations will be eternally saved, though Scripture does not speak of Old Testament saints having eternal life. Eternal life as unfolded in John's gospel and epistles, is the blessing brought to us now in the Father and the Son.
Eternal life means far more than a life that will never end.
We have often seen, alas! some whom we believed to be truly converted turn away from the truth, and sometimes sink into blasphemous doctrines, such as Russelism, Christadelpianism, Seventh day Adventism, Eddyism, etc., all of which destroy the foundations of Christianity, by attacking the person of Christ. Such we must leave to God. "The Lord knoweth them that are His." (2 Tim. 2:19.) We cannot have fellowship with them, nor own them as God's children when in such a condition, but we can earnestly pray that they may be delivered out of the snare of the devil in which they have been taken captive.
Heb. 6:4, 5. A person might have all that is in these verses without being born again.
Heb. 6; 9; 10. Here we see the fruit of the new birth as accompanying salvation. Life in the saints is not spoken of in Hebrews.