LIFE FROM GOD | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 7, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 27.

LIFE FROM GOD.

We learned in our last study that as man lost life and brought death upon all within the earth, it must be won back where it was lost, in man. As righteousness and life were lost in the flesh, the battle must be won back in the flesh. As sin became incarnate in the first Adam, the head of a race of sinners, righteousness became incarnate in the Second Adam, the head of the race of righteous. As when Adam sinned, all beneath him were involved in the ruin, so when Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, finishes His work, all the creation beneath man will be delivered.

But this will not be fully accomplished until Jesus Christ shall come again, and by that same all-power which enabled Him to live a righteous life in sinful flesh, which gave Him eternal victory over sin and the grave, by which He makes every soul a “new creature” who yields to Him, He will raise the righteous dead, He will transform the righteous living, and He will change the face of all the creation marred by the sin of Adam. Those who are “born again” are children of God now, even as Christ was the Son of God while on the earth. But even as He was not revealed as the Son of God until His resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4), even so His children will not be revealed in glory till He comes again (1 John 3:1-3; Rom. 8:23). Thus it is written:—

“For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Rom. 8:19-22, R.V.

Inanimate and irresponsive creation, with its perverted life, its suffering, dying, corrupting conditions, is now represented as groaning and being in pain for that better day, even as the heavens and earth, the field and trees, are said to rejoice when Christ comes to judge the earth in righteousness. Ps. 96:11-13. Then will eternal life flow on uninterruptedly in all creation when Christ reigns, and regenerate and restored man is once again in dominion.

Now in man’s sinful condition, he looks below for his life and for food to sustain it. He feeds upon the lower animals; and many are so far deceived as to think that the flesh-eating of lower creatures is necessary to the existence of the race. And the lower creatures feed on still lower, man feeding upon them all.

But this is not God’s order. He would have man look higher. In fact, in this respect he may learn a lesson from the domestic brute; for “the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.” To teach Israel to look above for life, God led them out into a barren wilderness destitute of water. He gave them living water out of the rock, and “angels’ food” from the skies. But they acted as tho it came from Moses, and treated the life-giving food and drink as tho it were the work of man. Well did Jesus state the double truth of their blindness and its result in the following utterances: “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven;” “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” John 6:32, 49. Wherefore?—They did not eat by faith, and “their carcasses fell in the wilderness.” They did not receive it as from God, the giving of His own life, and they died. And this is the sad record of the unbelieving world.

God would give life to His people, but they must take it as from Him. He sent Jesus Christ to reveal Himself to the world, and to give life to the people; but they must eat His flesh and drink His blood; for He said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you;” but “whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.” John 6:53-56.

“But does this mean the literal eating of the literal flesh of Jesus?”—No; let Him explain His own words: “It is the Spirit that quickeneth [maketh alive]; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Verse 63. “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” It is the words of Christ received by faith into the heart, eaten, digested, assimilated, absorbed into the life, that give man life, the life of God. So Christ declares: “My meat [food] is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” And thus receiving by faith life from God through the indwelling Word, He could say to His disciples, “I have meat [food] to eat that ye know not of.”

This was the lesson which God taught the children of Israel, but which they would not learn: “And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.” Deut. 8:2, 3. But this was the lesson learned so perfectly by Jesus Christ in His fierce temptation with the enemy in the wilderness of Judea. Matt. 4:3, 4. But the Word must be received “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” 1 Thess. 2:13.

This is the reception of the law of God as it is in Christ Jesus, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” and which sets us free from the law of sin and death.

Knowing Christ, receiving His life from His living Word, taking all His gifts by faith as from God, we shall find life and blessing in everything. Our hearts and appetites and hopes will not be set upon the things that die, but upon the living Word of the living God, through a living, risen Saviour.