"For in him we live and move and are; as also some of the poets among you have said, For we are also his offspring.”
NOT in ourselves, but in Him do men exercise their activity, and have their being when they no longer live and move as in their existence here below. Death that closes all for every other animated creature on earth does not close man's being. Through one man, Adam, sin entered into the world, and death through sin, its present wages, but only in part, before its full payment, judgment, everlasting judgment. This is the second death, neither the first nor the second being extinction; for not only does man's soul exist forever, but the Son of God shall call from the tomb both those that have done good to a resurrection of life, and those that have done ill to a resurrection of judgment: an unchangeable state respectively of bliss or of woe. So says the word of God: how bright for the believer, and how unutterably solemn for him that rejects the Father and the Son!
It is intelligible in a physical point of view to describe man as the sole species of his genus, and the sole representative of his order. But the apostle rises far above the natural philosophy, and regards him in his relation to God, and with that consciousness of it, which no other animated being on earth possesses. This the great enemy of God and man seeks to darken, if he cannot destroy it; but as revealed truth asserts that relation in the clearest terms, so the echo of it was heard even where the true God was not known. Hence the apostle could cite from Greeks themselves, centuries before he spoke: "As also some of the poets among you have said, For we are also his offspring." These precise words occur in the astronomical poem of Aratus, a Cilician like himself, the Phænomena, extant to this day, and again with but one letter different, in the Stoic Cleanthes' hymn to Zeus, also extant.
It is so far infidelity, and very low infidelity, to doubt that man has an immortal soul. As to him only God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the skies, and over the earth, and over the whole earth, and every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth. And God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Think of so exceptional a dignity given to man. But there is more in Genesis 2:77And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7), where relationship is treated, and not creation only. "And the LORD God formed man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Compare it with Genesis 1:2424And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. (Genesis 1:24) "Let the earth bring forth living souls after their kind; cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after their kind." Into none but man did Jehovah Elohim breathe the breath of life. He is thus doubly distinguished from the rest of creation subjected to him as head, and alone brought into relationship with Him who inbreathed. Hence his soul had, by its constitution apart from grace and a new life, an association with Christ morally, peculiar to man. And he alone, while favored beyond all, had a, test of obedience applied in Paradise. Such a creature was responsible to obey God and must give an account to Him. Think of a horse or cow, a dog or a cat, leveled up to man's position, or man leveled down to theirs! Is it not rank insubjection to God's word? The sensuous and sensual Egyptians did not sink so low; they doubted the soul's existence after death, and a future judgment, however crude and debased by their deification of the powers of nature.
Yes, in God man lives, moves, and is of quite another sort than those creatures whose soul is as evanescent as their bodies, and has no moral link with God. Man, no doubt, shares with them the "dust of the ground;" but even so, his position is naturally erect, his eye looks up, not down, his hand is unique as Sir C. Bell proved, to suit a soul, and spirit, and even body peculiar to the race, to fill a responsible relationship with God, or the consequence of rebellion against Him. Hence in scripture "mortal" is never said of the soul, but of the body. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," has a quite different force, and means the person, the living human being, because the individuality lies in the soul, and led to such common phrases as "all the souls:' etc., in Genesis 46:15, 18, 22, 25, 26, 2715These be the sons of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob in Padan-aram, with his daughter Dinah: all the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three. (Genesis 46:15)
18These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls. (Genesis 46:18)
22These are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen. (Genesis 46:22)
25These are the sons of Bilhah, which Laban gave unto Rachel his daughter, and she bare these unto Jacob: all the souls were seven. 26All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six; 27And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten. (Genesis 46:25‑27). They were God's offspring, and so were the Athenians, though pagans, because all mankind shares the relationship, even if they make the grossest use of their natural privilege, deny their responsibility, reject the glad tidings of God's grace in Christ, and become objects of His judgment.
How then is it with you who read these words?
Grace, God's grace, in Christ can alone save you, a guilty and lost sinner. Life for you, whose old life is forfeited through sin, is nowhere but in the Son; and now is proclaimed to sinners everywhere and of every sort, but only to such as believe God about His Son. Do you speak of your sins as fearful, and your state as an active source of evil in His sight? It is sadly true but I rejoice if you own it humbly, frankly, and fully to God. Confess your sins to Him who sent His Son as propitiation for our sins, whose blood cleanseth the believer from every sin. It was He, not you, that paid redemption's price, a price beyond the value of all worlds, the precious blood of God's Son, God's Lamb. What could you offer as a sinner but sins? Are you not altogether sin in your nature as it is? So His word declares: what are your words, your thoughts, your feelings? Redemption lies wholly in the worth and work, not of the redeemed, but of the Redeemer.
Beware of bolstering your case on God's natural Fatherhood. Were not the head fallen and the race sinful, this might plead for living and against death. But as you are, you need a new and eternal life and an everlasting redemption; and the Saviour God of all grace calls you to receive both by faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus.