ETERNAL LIFE AND IMMORTALITY.
While eternal life and immortality are often used interchangeably in common parlance, the Biblical distinction between them is clear and distinct. Eternal life is the life principle, the actuating principle, of the child of God. It is, in fact, the life of God operating in harmony with the law of God. Operating in any other way, it is perverted, and death takes its place. Adam had eternal life at first, and as long as Adam believed God, as long as his life was yielded to the law of God, God’s life operated in him normally. Adam possessed by creation and held by faith the life of the Eternal Spirit, or eternal life. When he fell, when he turned from God’s law, no longer yielding to its righteous claims, he lost eternal life, and became a dying man. Now God offers to regenerate the heart of the sinner, and give to him eternal life, if the sinner will only yield to the law of God, so that God may work in him to will and do of His own good pleasure. The yielding to God is faith, and it is not faith if one does not yield. But yielding to God absolutely is the accepting of Jesus Christ and Him alone for salvation. Therefore it is said: “He that hath the Son hath life;” “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life;” and, “These things have I written unto you . . . that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” Thus it is said that the life of Christ is manifest in our mortal flesh, while the wicked are alienated from the life of God. See 2 Cor. 4:11; Eph. 4:18. But, as with Adam, this life is held only by faith. Not till man perfects character under test will he possess eternal life absolutely. But immortality, or incorruptibility, pertains to the physical man, and is God’s stamp of an incorruptible character, perfected through faith. Or it might be said that it is God’s impress upon that character that had absolutely yielded to His holy law, the law of His life, so that God’s character was developed in it. This development is many times a mere matter of degrees in this world; for many of those who will be saved were comparatively ignorant of all God’s requirements. But they yielded absolutely to all they knew, under test, and God accepted them; and when Christ comes the second time, He will clothe the incorruptible character in incorruptible flesh, never more to know sin or death. God gives us eternal life, His life, here, that we may develop His character. If we do this, He places upon us the eternal stamp of incorruptibility and deathlessness. Eternal life is not a natural consequence growing out of the present natural condition. It is a matter of God’s promise, conditioned on faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. John 3:16, 36; Rom. 6:23. What God promises He is “able also to perform.” Rom. 4:20, 21. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness;” but when this sin-polluted earth shall have been melted “with fervent heat,” and purified from every taint of the consequences of sin, then “we, according to His promise,” shall share in what we look for, “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” 2 Peter 3:9–13. “As the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself; and hath given Him authority to execute judgment also.” John 5:26, 27. So in the execution of judgment the Son will give eternal life to whomsoever He will. Verses 21, 22, 28, 29. The condition of such life is stated again in these words: “Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” Rom. 6:22.