The consideration of eternal life as possessed by the believer, necessarily raises the question of the condition of man previous to the reception of eternal life. On this point, the testimony of scripture is most plain and conclusive. He is "dead in trespasses and sins." His moral condition towards God is that of death. Not merely that he is under the penalty of' death, as a future thing, because " the wages of sin is death." This is death in the body, and doubtless includes the second death, as it is termed, when in the body, raised from the (lead, the full results of sin are reaped in the sufferings of the lake of fire: All is most solemnly true, but it is a question of the future, and will most certainly be the portion of those who are found in the day of judgment without eternal life. This is the judicial sentence of God on man in connection with his works, and not the question of his nature.
" Dead in trespasses" is man's present state in his nature; as without one pulse of life towards God. In all his thoughts and feelings towards God, he is morally dead. All men by nature are "alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them." This has been true ever since the fall, hut it was not fully proved and brought to light till Christ came into the world. Then the condition of man in his nature was fully dealt with, and what, of course, God always knew as to man, was clearly demonstrated. God was in time world in Christ, "and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Ilium not." " The right shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." Up to the coming of Christ, the dealings-of God with man had reference to what man could do for God, as a question of righteousness; but, in Christ, God presented Himself to man, in perfect grace, and all that came out was that man did not know God, and did not want Him.
Mau was thus proved to be dead to God, in addition to having sins and trespasses, which entailed judgment on him at a future day.
The truth thus came out, that man not only required righteousness, in which to stand before God outside judgment, but life,-another nature, which should enable him to see and know God, so that God might become an object to him for obedience and blessing.. It is this deadness to God that the Lord deals with when He tells Nicodemus, " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," nor "enter into the kingdom of God," and then announces the blessed truth, out of which all blessing for man flows, that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." We have two things brought together here. The present possession of eternal life; and salvation, or not perishing, as a question of a future state. The one flowing from the person of the Son of God, as the object of faith, and the other from His work on the cross for those who should believe on Him.
" Dead in trespasses and sins " being then that moral condition in which man, by nature, lives outside of God arid blessing, eternal life, as possessed by the believer, is that moral condition in which the believer in Christ lives to God, and enjoys all the blessedness that God bestows on those who are with Him. "This is life eternal," says the Lord, " that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent."
Let us again, for the moment, look at eternal life outside the believer. It is Christ Himself. The Son of God" That eternal life which was with the Father." This is what, as we may say, it is objectively. That which it is in itself, in its source and nature.
Looked at in the believer, that is to say subjectively, it is the knowledge of the Father and the Son by faith, to " know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." In corning to Christ the soul comes to eternal life in its source, that blessed fountain of divine life which the Father has sent into this world for man, " dead in trespasses and sins;" but then Christ is, not only the source of this divine, or eternal life, He is also the channel through which it flows, as He says to His Father, "as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him," and so, " the gift of God is eternal life," but only "through Jesus Christ our Lord." Therefore the Lord tells the Jews, " Ye will not 'come to me that ye might have life." They would not believe and therefore life, eternal life, could not be theirs. On the other hand, as to all who did come to Him, the Father's will was this, " That every one which seeth the Son and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise Him up at the last day." .
The absolute and inevitable result of believing on the Son, consequent upon the Father's will concerning faith in Him, is eternal life. It is impossible to believe on the Son, and not have eternal life. God's determinate will is in the matter, and it is no question of the state, as to sinnership, in those that believe; whether they have sinned much or little; whether they have many good works or none at all; whether they love God, or' don't love Him, is not in question, but simply this, that whosoever believeth on the Son may have eternal life. The result, as we have said, is inevitable. " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life," and "he that hath the Son hath life." The other side is just as absolute. " He' that believeth not the Son shall not see life." "He that hath not the Son of God hath not life."
Many true believers are distressed with doubts as to whether they have eternal life, because they have not true thoughts about eternal life, whether as a thing outside them, or as a thing in them. That is to say, they; think of eternal life only as something that links them with a state of future and eternal blessedness as to what is outside them, and of a state of happy feeling in the heart as to that which is in them now. As we have said before, it includes all this, but then these things are results that flow from having eternal life, not eternal life itself.
Eternal life is Christ. If I have Christ I have eternal life, and I have Christ if I believe on Him. But I have more than life, I have resurrection too, which is a question of the future, for I have Him who says, " I am the resurrection and the life." As a present thing, in having Christ, I have a nature,-a new nature, in which I know the Father and the Son. A life in which I can and do live to God. The degree in which I live according to that nature is another thing, but the nature I have. As a believer in Christ, I am a " partaker of the divine nature," and have the present relationship to God of a child as born of Him through believing in His Son. " We are all," says the Apostle, "children of God through faith in Christ Jesus."
Beside all this I have the spirit of adoption, and am an heir of God—joint heir with Christ, but keeping simply to the thought of eternal life, as in the believer; I have, through Christ, the nature and. life of God my Father, and know and am known of God according to that nature. Just as simply as in nature I have the life and nature of my father and my elder brother, and act according to that nature, as knowing necessarily who is my father and my brother; so in divine things, "This is life eternal that they might know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." It is only, as having eternal life, that the Father and the Son can be known, and that they are known is the proof that eternal life is possessed. Nothing can be simpler than the Lord's own description of what eternal life, as possessed by the believer, really is, and nothing more absolute and simple as the ground of the believer's certainty as to possessing that life, than His words, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." Faith then in Christ is the proof and evidence that eternal life is truly possessed, and knowledge of God, and of Christ, as sent by Him, is what that life is in him that has it.
The question, " Eternal life, what is it?" is very simple and easily answered by the eye that rests on Christ and listens to His words. It is Christ Himself on the one side, and my knowledge of Him and of the One that sent Him, on the other.
Happy for us is it when our knowledge and our walk are the simple effect of having Him before us who says, I am the way, and the truth, and the life;" and what puzzles those who would be wise is a very simple thing with those who are content to have all their wisdom in this, that they know him, whom to know is life eternal.
(Concluded from page 75.)