This theory of spontaneous generation of life received its death-blow at the hands of that eminent biologist, the discoverer of bacteria, the late Louis Pasteur. His experiments proved conclusively, that if due care was taken to exclude pre-existing life, and to prevent the introduction of fresh life, the result would be purely negative, that is, no life would manifest itself.
That celebrated scientist, the late Lord Kelvin, declared, I am ready to accept as an article of faith for all time, and in all space, that life is produced by life and ONLY by life."
There is no doubt that some scientists were most anxious to prove the theory of spontaneous generation of life. If the experiments had succeeded, supporting their point of view, the discovery doubtless would have been hailed with a wild chorus of impious delight, sweeping over an unbelieving world. God would have been no longer a necessity; and politely, or impolitely, would have been bowed out of His own universe.
Let this digression as to natural life serve its purpose to illustrate that spiritual life, so far as the believer on the Lord Jesus Christ is concerned, is subject to the same condition as natural life is: it can only come from spiritual life.
Seeing the believer is the possessor of eternal life as the gift of God, and that life can only come from life, the question of all importance arises, What is its source? Whence does it originate?
Man is but the creature of an hour. He is here today, and gone to-morrow. His days are "swifter than a weaver's shuttle." (Job 7:6). The only stable thing that man knows is the creation around him—the earth beneath his feet; the sun, moon and stars above his head. We may well ask, How did all these wonders come into existence? There are millions of suns in the heavens, the nearest said to be only twenty million million miles distant from this planet; whilst the distances of the most remote stars are incalculable. What mighty power created them? What mighty arm has poised them in space? What unerring wisdom controls their movements? We stand spell-bound, speechless, before such an amazing spectacle.
Most evidently creation demands a Creator, and Scripture plainly tells us what the great lesson of creation is. We read, "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His [God's] ETERNAL POWER AND GODHEAD." (Rom. 1:20).
Take this little earth of ours, a mere speck compared to untold numbers of mighty suns in the heavens. Our earth turns round on its axis every twenty-four hours. It travels round the sun on its orbit every twelve months. Scientists tell us it is traveling with the sun into space at the rate of eighteen miles every second, no one knows where. Who could arrange all this but an almighty Being, One utterly beyond our feeble comprehension?
Where then` did God come from? Was there a time when He did not exist? Did He come from' nowhere, from vacuum, from nothing? These questions scarcely need an answer in the face of the great lesson of creation. We cannot conceive of a time when there was nothing. We cannot conjure up the idea of a vacuum. Creation with its million mouths loudly proclaims the Creator's "eternal power and Godhead."
It was told that an infidel communist in Russia was boasting that every trace of God was removed from the land, when his companion pointed to the stars, and said, "You have not removed those yet." The greatest word that can pass human lips is GOD. God alone "hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power EVERLASTING. Amen." (1 Tim. 6:15).
Here we have the Source of everything, of life natural and life spiritual. The two words—eternal life—proclaim this great fundamental fact. Take these two words as they stand in our English Bibles:
ETERNAL, that which never had a beginning, and can never have an end;
LIFE, conscious existence, power to think, to will, to feel, to love.
The only conclusion we can come to, and that in the light the sacred page sheds on the subject, is that eternal life in its essence is the life of God.