Of this fundamental truth in its Christian form and present reality the deliberate denial is most clearly avowed by “Notes of Readings and Addresses” in the United States and Canada. The responsibility of the production is acknowledged; for the work appears as “revised by F. E. R.”
If we pass by a cloud of other errors, and some of moment, in page 54 is a plain statement of direct opposition to divine truth. “It used to be commonly said, I know that I have got eternal life. Why? Because the scripture says, ' He that believeth hath everlasting life.' I say you have thus the faith of eternal life; but that does not prove that you have the thing itself (!). Many a person has had a promise, but not the thing promised, that [sic] was the case largely with the Old Testament saints. They embraced the promises; but they had not the things promised. Christianity is not only that you have the faith of the things proposed, but that you have the consciousness of the things that you believe.” “Scripture says” this; “I say” that! But even what he says of Christianity virtually contradicts his aim.
Can any sober Christian question that the truly blessed confession of Brethren from the greatest to the least for seventy years is here abandoned? yea, that the word of the Lord Himself is undermined? How awful to hear one frittering away the plain meaning of “He that believeth hath everlasting life!” This is not a promise, but a revealed fact. The Lord did not say, he that has the faith of eternal life shall have this life by-and-by. To confound His present assurance with O.T. prophecy is to abjure the gospel for the law. The truth in question is distinct from promise, and contrasted with not having the thing promised. Nor does the Lord here speak of having “the consciousness of the things that you believe” (whatever this may or can mean on the speaker's hypothesis), but simply if not solely of now possessing life eternal.
Equally evident in page 56 is the perversion of scripture, even if we omit the misleading talk in the preceding page. “Eternal life is there, and it is God's mind for you to be in it, but there is a gulf between you and it, and you have to pass over that gulf.” This is what “I say.” Let us hear what the Lord says. “Verily, verily, I say to you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath life eternal, and cometh not into judgment, but is (hath) passed out of death into life” (John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)). F. E. R. contradicts the gospel. The believer's privilege now, this gift of grace, he denies. A gulf may be between the unbeliever, and eternal life. Yet Christ is, not even a bridge over the gulf, but eternal life immediately to him that believes. His word has so explicitly declared the present gift of that life, that it can only be a lie of Satan to teach, as F. E. R. does, a future gulf for the believer to pass. The Lord declares that he has passed” out of death unto life. F. E. R's. voice is not the Shepherd's but a mere stranger's, an “idea” in open contempt of the Savior's final decision by grace which flesh never trusts.
What follows is hardly less evil. For in reply to one who says, “It has been stated that eternal life was communicated to us this side of the bridge,” F. E. R. dares to answer, “There is no truth in it; what is communicated to you on this side of the bridge is the gift of the Holy Ghost, and He is the well of water in us springing up to eternal life. Unless you have the Holy Spirit you will never get divine teaching, but it is by divine teaching that you get over the bridge.” This is no passing mistake or blunder. Is it not utter effrontery? That we have life eternal now he excludes. Yet the gift of the Holy Spirit supposes eternal life given, and redemption rested on by faith previously (Acts 5:3232And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. (Acts 5:32), Gal. 4:4-64But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. (Galatians 4:4‑6), Eph. 1:1313In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, (Ephesians 1:13)). If there were any propriety in the figure of the gulf and the bridge, Christ crossed it to meet the sinner; and the believer has already the life eternal, comes not into judgment, and has passed out of death into life. The gift of the Spirit is to know and enjoy the grace and truth thus come in the power of the new relationships, to live Christ in accordant ways, and to worship in spirit and truth.
The “teaching” here is flatly opposed to our Lord's, and as it is a departure from what even its propagandist long and uniformly professed, who but those in the evil or bent on compromise can hesitate to pronounce it “devilish,” not “divine”? Think of a believer without eternal life receiving the Holy Ghost! It is a quasi-incarnation of God's Spirit. This unscriptural and profane dream “divine teaching” forsooth! Nay, it is the sheerest impossibility if judged on scriptural principles, and the wanton guesswork of impiety. No wonder not a word of scripture is cited for it.
Again, we read in the next page 57, “In the third chapter of the epistle [1 John] you come to children of God, but not yet to eternal life (!!). Children brings in the thought of Father—God is Father to us as children in the world.” In page 58 “Sons of God brings in the thought of eternal counsel and of heavenly places. The close of the epistle lands you in what Paul speaks of, and that is, ' God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.'“ Does such incoherent trash, such shallow confusion, need exposure? The truth revealed in the Epistle as in the Gospel is that every believer has life eternal and is a child of God; to which the apostle Paul adds that he is a “son” as well as a child, and the end everlasting life, but of either “the epistle” says not one word.
Again, Rom. 8 in the central part of that instructive chapter disproves the rash assertion that “sons of God brings in the thought of eternal counsel and of heavenly places"; for therein the apostle speaks of us, alike as “sons” and as “children,” but is silent about “eternal counsel and of heavenly places.” Children is opposed to strangers; sons, to slaves; and thus sons may be adopted for a position of dignity. But we are of God's family also, and hence children in respect of true and intimate relationship. Both terms are well suited and actually employed in view of the glory to be revealed (19 and 21). Gal. 3:2626For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26) again refers to present Christian standing, “God's sons,” not children, by faith in Christ Jesus; but in no way does it in itself bring in the thought of eternal counsel and heavenlies. This is not Spirit-led exposition, but random and reckless misinterpretation to the pain and shame of all who honor God's word.
In p. 59 we read, “I think the mistake has been made of confounding the idea of children with eternal life. I have fallen into that too much myself; the thoughts are, I judge, quite distinct. Sonship is connected with eternal life; that puts you outside the death-scene.” Did one ever read such empty and self-complacent driveling? The connection of “children” is really nearer, than that of “sons,” to life eternal. For the scriptures which most fully treat of children treat also of eternal life, predicate both of the same persons, and that, not outside, but now and here, where all else is under the power of death. They are in truth intimately and inseparably associated privileges. “And the witness is this that God gave us eternal life and this life is in his Son.” So says the apostle of all addressed. Ver. 13 goes farther still: “These things have I written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have [not at all, that ye shall have] eternal life.” It was now and here where death reigns, yet according to F. E. R.'s wild reckoning “the highest platform,” after having greeted them (chap. 3:1-3) in the most glowing terms as “children of God” from “now” till manifested in glory like Christ. Could scripture more pointedly write folly on this elaborate and persistent effort to say something new, which is after all wholly untrue?
In the pages that follow are strange conceits as to life eternal. Take 66 for example. “If you fail to enter into the reality of eternal life [who ever failed more egregiously than himself?], it proves that you don't understand what it is to be identified with the minister of the sanctuary.” Can the most friendly eye discern a grain of sense, to say nothing of truth, in this jumble? Heb. 8 has its own divine force; but why drag in here failure “to enter into the reality of eternal life"? Even if one have eternal life, one may fail to appreciate, exercise, or manifest it; but how do any such failures prove that you do not understand what it is to be identified with the Minister of the Sanctuary? The language, the logic, and the exegesis are alike perverse. One comprehends failure in faith, or fidelity, or intelligence. But nothing can “prove,” and nobody can understand (it seems to me), what it is to be identified with the Minister of the Sanctuary, because it is neither intelligible in itself nor true of any one. To be “all of one” is not identification with Him, which is not taught in this Epistle. Such teaching, far from being “divine,” is not decently human, but a farrago of presumptuous impertinence and falsehood transparent to all that are not blinded.
On the allusions to eternal life in pp. 74, 75, one need not speak, as they refer to “the end “; and this all admit. Such too may be that in p. 94, though vaguely expressed. But we come to egregious trifling, as well as abandonment of the truth, in pp. 107, 108, to omit the page before.
“G. F. Would you say a believer then had eternal life in a certain sense?
F. E. R. I answer it in a very simple (!) way, he has eternal life if he has it.
R. S. S. It is not a very bad way to ask those people who say they have eternal life, what they have got.
E. R. If I came across any one who asserted it at the present time, I would be disposed to say, ‘If you have got it, let us have some account of it.' Our difficulty in England was that nobody could give any account of eternal life. If there had been anybody who could have given an account of it, the difficulty would have been much less. One person said it was one thing, and another said it was another. One old brother who affected a good many people, said that eternal life was obedience. He took up a verse in John 12 (sic), ‘And I know that His commandment is life everlasting,' and argued from that that it was obedience. It shows you in what a muddle the whole thing was. Everybody claimed to have it, but nobody could give an account of it. Another brother asked me, ‘Have you got eternal life? ' I did not know how to answer it exactly because he simply meant resting on a statement of scripture. [Yes, this is what F.E.R.'s followers must avoid.]
F. Would you not define eternal life?
F. E. R. I do not think that we have any definition of it. You can speak of what is characteristic of it, and scripture gives you that, but surely if you claim to have eternal life you can give some account of it. If a man has a possession he can give me some account of what he possesses. Otherwise I doubt if he has it. I don't say he has not title to it.
R. S. S. Or the enjoyment of it.
F. E. R. I think thousands have title to it who are not in the good of it. Eternal life is God's purpose for you; God gave His Son to that end. I have the light of this, and hence it is mine in title, but to say that I have it is another matter.”
Could the unbelief of a professing Christian go farther? Over and over again is the present possession of life eternal denied. According to F. E. R. it is “God's purpose “; and the believer has a “title to it,” but in no way has he that life himself. “To say that I have it is another matter.” Yet he knows as well as anyone, that the Lord with most marked solemnity ruled that He gives, not will give, life eternal, and that the believer “has” it, not merely is to have it. Simple title or God's purpose is excluded. Christ's meaning is made the more definite and indubitable (except to will under Satan's power), because He also says that the believer has passed from death into life. F. E. R. stands here in open antagonism to the word of the Lord on this vital matter. To quibble away His plain authority for it is to sap divine truth.
Again, how sad is the levity of the oracular platitude in answer to “G. F.! Would you say a believer then had eternal life in a certain sense?
F. E. R. I answer it in a very simple way, he has eternal life if he has it.”
Any upright mind must feel that such a come-off is Jesuitical evasion. It is anything but “simple,” being just incredulous banter and a cheat.
All but the most ignorant know that life in itself, and of every form in nature, is difficult to explain, especially to a caviler. Yet who questions its reality but a materialist? With such F. E. R. here “lands himself” as to life eternal, however clearly revealed. On the highest authority the simplest Christian is divinely assured that he has this life eternal, not its mere title or promise. He expects indeed its certain completion in his body when Christ comes again; but he has no less certainty of possessing it now in his inner man. This F. E. R. denies emphatically, unequivocally, and constantly. Yet the scheme defrauds every Christian of his primary blessedness, dishonors the Lord in His grace and truth, and perverts His words of spirit and life into a willy-nilly of dark unbelief.
Is it true that in England “nobody” among the companions of this misguided man “could give any account of eternal life”? How deplorable if it were really as he says! I dare not allow that all have accepted the lie for the truth they once seemed to hold firmly and universally. Every intelligent saint, on the contrary, is able to explain that, just as he has by nature the sin-tainted life of the first man, so has he by grace, on believing, the holy life of the Second man. Who could expect our spiritual life to be outwardly cognizable more than our natural life? Yet even skeptics do not go so far as to deny it absolutely as a present thing, though they do its everlasting permanence.
It is almost needless to say that life eternal attests its presence by a newly given faith in Christ, by prayerful dependence on God, by delight in His word, by holy ways and walk, by a broken and self-distrusting spirit, by sympathies and antipathies upward and around and within, never displayed before. Besides these subjective qualities, the objective side is at least as marvelous and real: Christ sent from above, and the only true God, the Father, made known as only then in the gracious working of the Spirit by the word. Surely this, and it might be largely increased, is “some account of it,” and familiar to the family of God. What does this incredulous talker want or mean? He is blinded by self-will and vanity against the truth. But what of the many who know better, yet hold their peace? Are they swamping truth for a unity worthless without it? Is this what they owe Christ the Lord? Do they keep His word, or do they deny His name?
The passage is really a tissue of extreme unbelief, a gross exaggeration of the condition of his companions, and withal vulgar mockery, to support a lie of the enemy. The “muddle” is in F. E. R. and his dupes, through defection from the truth which no doubt he long preached and taught, if he never in heart believed it. It is of comparatively recent years that a doubt was breathed, only to be sternly reproved and scouted as wholly unsound. Even mere Jews, as is allowed, had “the idea of it.” But whatever may be judged of those in O.T. times, the error before us is the formal repudiation of life eternal as actually attaching to the Christian, though the Lord explicitly assigns it as a present inward reality. Even if a believer were so strangely ignorant through bad teaching as to be unable to explain the matter to an adversary, he might have the fullest conviction that he has life eternal and enjoy its effects in obedience, love, righteousness, patience and hope, as he never did before his setting to his seal that God is true. Does anyone but an idiot or a philosopher doubt he is alive, because he cannot give “some account” of life—cannot even explain why his motions answer his volition? Who questions “time,” or “space", because he finds it hard if not impossible to give a ready interpretation of either?
“The idea of eternal life” which Jews had is quite different from the believer's present and known possession of it. This did await Christ's coming. It is a crude and confusing statement that “It was the same thing referred to all along” (page 108). Could any say or accept this save an unbeliever in the Christian's privilege? This depended on the Son of God. Before He came, the saints had life in Him, but they were ignorant as to it; when He came, He gave them understanding of this and much more. It was greatly increased when He rose and the Spirit was given. But it is untrue that “all depended on that.” And the error affects still higher truth.
Think of a person presuming to teach yet so dense as to say that in the opening of John's Gospel “the apostle is, I judge, speaking from his standpoint, not from God's!” Such a judgment might fall from a natural man: Luke 1:22Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; (Luke 1:2) gives not the slightest warrant for it. It is the kind of slip-shod comment by which Unitarians and other adversaries of the faith seek to undermine Christ. John 5:2626For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; (John 5:26) is not the expression of Christ's divine right, but of the subject place He took when He became man, and received everything from God. Otherwise His deity is taken from the Lord.
Take another example. The alleged difference between “the Son” and “the Son of God” is rash and wrong, being even refuted by the text itself. That “Son of God” is in Psa. 2 and elsewhere as John 1:4949Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. (John 1:49), as well as Luke 1:3535And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35), said of Christ as the King of Israel is true; yet the generalization made in page 109 is a dangerous falsehood, as is made certain by such texts as 1 John 3:8; 4:15, 10, 13, 208He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)
15Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:15)
10Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
13Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. (1 John 4:13)
20If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? (1 John 4:20). But if one desire a single distinct disproof of its folly, one could not have a more decisive one than 1 John 5:1212He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:12): “He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” In this case the emphasis is rather the opposite way, as every spiritual mind must feel.
Similar lack of insight and subjection to scripture is at the bottom of page 113. God's calling is not “sonship” as such, nor is it synonymous with “eternal life.” Take Eph. 1 where His calling stands richly; but not a word is said of “eternal life,” as indeed page 119 admits. Take the Gospel and the First Epistle of John where “life eternal” is most fully treated; yet we have absolute silence about sonship. And what means the desire in page 116 to exclude “eternal life” from heaven, making it refer to earth? One might have expected a tyro to have profited better by the Lord's words to Nicodemus. A “teacher of Israel” ought to have known that to be born anew was needed for earthly things of God's kingdom; whereas the cross and eternal life suit the higher things of heaven, as made known by Him Who came down from heaven and would return thither, the Son of man who is in heaven.
The conversation on “the sphere” (116, 117) is a characteristic specimen of unintelligent pretension. Of old the term “sphere” had been rightly used to designate the heavenly source whence He came Who was the eternal life and went back into the glory He had left, where we behold Him now and look to be, conformed to Him in body at His coming. We while on earth are given life eternal; but we have it in Him Who is above, and hence for that sphere where we are not yet, however assured by His grace. This morally becomes of the highest importance to act on our faith and love as well as hope according to Paul no less than John. What bewilderment, not to say darkness, of mind to refer to Rom. 5:2121That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:21), Dan. 12:22And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2), and John 17:33And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3), the last being said to “describe the sphere!” Was ever more pitiable hallucination, if it were not spiritual guilt of a black dye?
Contrast to death is the lowest and shallowest possible “idea” of life eternal. If we simply and truly believed Christ to be our life, could we fail to apprehend that this eternal life is our newly but truly given spiritual being, capable of communion even now with the Father and with the Son Whom He sent? Why this incessant and fruitless beating about the bush, ending in absolute denial of its present possession, the very thing on which the Lord most sedulously insists?
Remark too how far the reduction of life eternal to the contrast with death carries away this sciolist. “I think eternal life refers to earth. I don't think we should talk about eternal life in heaven... I don't think the term will have much force there... I don't see much sense in connecting the idea of eternal life with heaven.” To one who pleaded his understanding “that it is connected with heaven also,” F.E.R., answers, “I don't know the connection. The point of eternal life is that it comes in where death was. I think it stands in scripture in contrast to death.” The expressions that follow might imply getting life here and now. But this he elsewhere so pointedly repudiates that we are obliged to believe that it is only “in anticipation now,” not as actually possessed. But this novel jargon is as unmeaning as the strange dictum, “If you don't apprehend a sphere, you have no idea of eternal life”! It is self-evident that he does not apprehend a sphere, simple as it is, but mystifies it.
On the “proportion” of deliverance here taught (page 106), it is enough to say that it is not so that scripture teaches. There is also no sense of correlation in saying, “I think the Father orders the world” (page 110) (for scripture testifies the contrast between these two), and in thinking that worship addresses itself to the Father, because the thought of God is presented to us in the Father (111). Now John 4 is express in distinguishing the worship of “God” as such from that of “the Father,” as any one may see in comparing vers. 23 with 24. Spiritual perception is wholly lacking; and most sects have a peculiar style, or lingua franca, of their own. Could any one match the strange absurdity that John 17:33And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3) describes the “sphere”? His friend J. S. A. (who writes the introduction) indulges in the dream that where his leader is deeply astray, he is “correcting defective or erroneous use of terms!” Nowhere could be shown infatuation more complete. And the worst is that not only are the terms defective and erroneous to an extraordinary degree, but the vital truth of scripture is misrepresented and lost, whilst empty falsehood takes its place.
The true sphere of eternal life was for the Word, the Son, with the Father (John 1:44In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4), 1 John 1:22(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) (1 John 1:2)) till the Incarnation. Then on earth in due time He said, “I came that they (the sheep) might have life, and that they might have it abundantly” (John 10:1010The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)). They believed and had life eternal in the days of His flesh, and in yet greater power when He died and rose (John 5:25; 6:33-50, 51-58; 20:2225Verily, verily, I say unto you, 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. (John 5:25)
33For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. 34Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. 35And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. 36But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. 37All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. 38For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. 39And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. 40And this is the will of him that sent me, 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. 41The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. 42And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? 43Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. 44No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. 46Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. 47Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. 48I am that bread of life. 49Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. (John 6:33‑50)
51I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 52The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 53Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. 57As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. 58This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John 6:51‑58)
22And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: (John 20:22)). Finally He returns to heaven and is glorified above with the Father's own self, with the glory which He had along with the Father before the world was. This is the “sphere” proper to the eternal life in its fullest character as we know it. But it is of the essence of the truth when revealed that we, Christians, have it now, and were to live because He lives, Christ living in each Christian, not merely in a future and risen state, but as to the life which each now lives in the flesh.
There will be, as no instructed saint doubts, life eternal for Israel and the nations in the world to come; but it will be in a way quite inferior to our privilege. For as it is our characteristic portion to know Christ with the Father in heavenly glory, we now have it in Him there but have also Him in us here. Were it otherwise, what incalculable loss! But it is not so; we cannot have the one without the other. The N. T. which alone reveals the full character of the life eternal in no way points us to “the world to come,” which is its earthly display, but to the Son on high. Then shall we, and not we only, reign in life by the One, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5.17); and this is not limited by “the world” and “age” to come, but will be true forever, a far higher and an everlasting enjoyment of life eternal than Israel or the nations enjoy in “the world to come.” Nor can there be a more senseless view of life eternal than to look for the earth at that period as our sphere of its display. It is systematic error from ignorance of scripture, and a falsification of what life eternal is. Too plainly judaizing here ousts Christianity and its better hope. What a blind leader of the blind is he who would exclude “heaven” from the completion of life eternal, or from the Christian's enjoyment of His association with Christ there even now! See the trumpery too of treating “sonship” as greater than eternal life in page 119.
As to “the world to come,” most astounding is the departure from the truth. “What thoughtful person could say that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life now? I do not think it does yet. I do not think that grace is manifestly set in the ascendant” (p. 136). Not yet in the ascendant manifestly when Christ sits on God's throne when grace triumphs in the power of the Spirit sent forth It is the most deplorable ignorance of the world to come; for “righteousness” shall reign then, not “grace” as now. Christianity is ignored for the Jewish hope. This profound error is repeated and applies throughout; yet he says, “I do not doubt at all that what I have indicated to you is the line of divine teaching!” Did ever fancy's fondness for its offspring more deceive itself? But where is God's word and Spirit in all this assumption? It is apostasy from what was once loved as the truth, now alas! trodden down under unclean feet. Rom. 5:2121That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:21) applies now, as distinctly as Isa. 32:11Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. (Isaiah 32:1) will to the world to come.
LONDON:
T. WESTON, Publisher, 53, Paternoster Row.
Published Monthly.