p. 112 | How God Swears by Himself

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 28, 1869

How God Swears by Himself.

DEUT. xxxii, 40: “For I lift up my hand to Heaven, and say, I live forever.”

Here the Almighty is represented as swearing by himself. And this great fact that he lives forever, he uses with which to designate himself. Surely, in this he must be unlike all created beings. They cannot be creatures who possess, by virtue of their own existence, an undying nature. If they live forever, it is because he wills it. And he determines this question by putting them upon probation, and giving them a chance to form characters. If the characters which they form please him, he gives to them his own undying nature. If they fail to form such a character, he takes from them the life which he gave them. To live forever is the prerogative of the eternal God. Others shall live thus, or not, as he wills concerning them.