p. 6 (406) | THE WORD OF LIFE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 30, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 26.

“THE WORD OF LIFE.”

WE have learned from the Word, in our previous studies, of God, the Fountain of life, of the Spirit, the life, the presence of God, flowing out into all parts of God’s living universe, of the law of life according to which the Spirit operates; and, saddest and most evident of all, we have learned of the result of the perversion of that law and life through sin.

Nay, more, we know the sin, the results of sin, the misery, the wo, the crime, the pain, the wretchedness, the despairing guiltiness, the cries of distress, the hopeless bondage,—we know it all, and not a few of us have moaned in our slavery, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” And the despairing cries of earth’s millions go up continually: “How may I be free? By whom may I be set free? How long shall the defeat, the bondage, the misery, the death of sin continue? How long, O Lord, how long?” Men laugh and jest and abandon themselves to pleasure both light and lustful; the next moment the door opens, the skeleton swings forth, the laughter changes to mourning, the joy to heaviness, the lust to corruption, the sin to death. The very Spirit, the life, of God so perverted in ten thousand different ways pleads for those who are their own worst enemies, with groanings which can not be uttered, that they may turn to God.

For there is deliverance. Where the battle was once lost, in human flesh, it is won.

Before man sinned, Eternal Life was incarnate—flesh dwelling. God was incarnate in man. He dwelt by His Spirit in the sinless man. When man sinned, he lost the eternal life, he lost the Spirit of God; and henceforth he knew no other life than the perverted life of God, which man received not by faith. When man, earth’s king, yielded, all in earth was subjected to sin and its bondage and its end, death.

When the dominion is won back, the battle must be fought again where it was lost, in the flesh. God’s normal life, eternal life, must again become incarnate, dwelling in flesh brought into harmony with God’s law through faith.

All this was accomplished for man through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who “emptied Himself,” and God filled Him “with all the fulness of the Godhead.” “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit [life] of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”

Jesus Christ was in perfect harmony with God’s law. Before He came He said, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart.” And when He came He declared: “I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.” “I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.”

Being perfectly obedient, He was perfectly in harmony with God’s holy law. The law was in Him what it was ordained to be,—life. In Him it was “the law of the Spirit of life.” Being perfectly in harmony with God’s law, the law of God’s life, God gave Him the Spirit without measure. John 3:34. Having utterly emptied Himself, He had no other spirit save the eternal Spirit of God. And so it was true that “as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.”

As in man, in the flesh, God’s law and life were perverted so as to produce sin and death, so in man God’s law and life were restored, and righteousness and life were the result. “Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned; . . . for as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One shall the many be made righteous.”

In Jesus Christ, therefore, is life for the world. “In Him was light, and the light was the life of men.” “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” “Christ our life.”

There is, therefore, hope to the dark, despairing, sin-sick souls. “How and by whom and when may I be free from sin and death?” “Verily I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life.” “Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” “The flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in Me.” “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Why wait then to know the power of God’s “endless life”? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Believing Him is yielding in all and every respect to His character and word. That brings us into harmony with God’s law in Christ. And the life from the great Fountain flows out into us in unperverted streams. O, there are life and strength and gladness in believing through Jesus Christ our Lord, our Life!