WHAT IS THE PROMISED LIFE?
By R. F. Cotterill
We answer, life, simply life, that which we all understand by the word in its primary signification; that which is the foundation of all enjoyment, and without which, there is no conscious happiness. This continued eternally, is eternal life. “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.” 1 John. ii, 25. But our friends of the contrary faith tell us the soul is naturally immortal; that all men are sure of eternal life, in its first sense, that is, of eternal, conscious existence; and, therefore, the life that is promised to a class is not life in its first sense, but happiness. Say they, It is a happy existence, a glorious immortality. This they hold is the “eternal life” which is “the gift of God.” We have no doubt but that life will be happy and glorious, though the Scriptures do not qualify life and immortality with these, or any like terms; but we are expressly told that there shall be no sorrow, pain, or curse, in the world to come. Then all that are there will be blessed, or happy. But when is the gift of eternal life given? Not in this world, but in the world to come. “He shall receive an hundred fold now in this time, . . . and in the world to come eternal life.” Mark x, 30. The giving of “the crown of life” is consequent upon faithfulness “unto death,” Rev. ii, 10, therefore, it is not given during the present life. “When he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life.” James i, 12. The period of trial is the present life; hence, the crown pertains to the life to come. It is evident to every Bible reader that the “crown of life,” the “crown of glory,” and the “crown of righteousness,” are identical—that these are three expressions to signify the same thing. The victors are crowned after the battle is fought and the victory won. When is the crown given? Not in the present life, as we have shown. Not at death, the end of this life. Not between death and the second coming of Christ—“the day of Christ,” “the day of the Lord”—the time when the dead shall be raised, when “the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven,” “the trump of God” shall sound, and “the dead in Christ shall rise.” In proof of this, we refer to the Scriptures. “When the chief Shepherd [Christ] shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory.” 1 Pet. v, 4. “Henceforth [from the time when the conflict is ended and the course is finished,] there is laid up for me [not given] a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” 2 Tim. iv, 6–8. The reference to the Lord, as “the righteous Judge,” shows that the Judgment sets, and these crowns are awarded by it. The Judgment decides who shall receive the crowns; then they are given. “That day” is “the day of the Lord,” the time of “his appearing.” The crown is given when the chief Shepherd appears. Immortality is given at the last trump, when the dead are raised. Then death is swallowed up in victory by Christ, at his coming, and the resurrection. See 1 Cor. xv, 51–54. This is the one, harmonious, scriptural answer to the question, When is the promised life given? Hence, the promised life is a literal life—a living again from the dead. Life departs at death; it is given again at the resurrection. The resurrection life continued is eternal life. When the saints that “sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,” they awake “to everlasting life.” Dan. xii, 2. The wicked awake, but not to live forever. “The wages of sin is death,” while “the gift of God is eternal life.” The wicked do really live again by a resurrection from the dead, else there would be no “second death.” When the righteous come forth from their graves, it is “to the resurrection of life”—they “awake to everlasting life.” But when the wicked come forth, it is “to the resurrection of damnation,”—they are damned, that is, condemned, to the second death. To oppose to this view the text, “He that hath the Son hath life,” to prove that eternal life is given at conversion, is like the Romanist contending for “the real presence” in the sacrament, from the text, “This is my body.” The believer, in the present life, has eternal life in a sense similar to that in which he is said to have Christ. He has Christ by faith. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;” and by his Spirit, the pledge of his future inheritance with Christ.* So he has eternal life by faith—faith in the sure promise of him that hath “promised us” “eternal life.” In the light of the above scriptures, let us analyze the opposing view—that the promised life is not literal life (a life which they say all have, and will have eternally), but happiness. We have proved that the promised life is given at the resurrection. It is not given before. Therefore, if that life is a “spiritual life,” that is, happiness, the “deathless spirit” will have to wait for its happiness till the resurrection of the body. To wait, in conscious existence, without happiness, some hundreds or thousands of years before it is received, would seem as gloomy, to some minds, as it would be to wait in unconsciousness the same length of time, for literal life and consciousness to be restored. Again, our opposing friends make the soul, or spirit, independent of the body for its life and enjoyment; and yet it must wait for its life—spiritual enjoyment, happiness—till the decayed body is brought again from the dust. The Scriptures certainly do make the body of some importance, inasmuch as they always locate the man, whether dead or alive, in the place where his body is. R. F. COTTERILL.