THE ONE LIFE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 26, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 21.

THE ONE LIFE.

It was shown in our last week's issue that all life in animate and inanimate living nature comes from God. “He is thy life.” “With Him is the Fountain of life.” “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.”

All the life we see manifest—all the life in the universe—is the one life from the great Fountain.

The operation and manifestation of that life in its normal condition is according to the law of the being or thing into which it flows. In the living rock it is manifest in characteristic formation, in particular forms of structure, in crystallization, etc. In plants it is manifest in each according to the law of its kind, perpetuating the plant through the vegetable organism by seed or slip or root. Like produces like. The wheat produces wheat, the potato produces potatoes, the apple seed an apple tree. In the brute creation we see a still higher manifestation of law, ranging through all degrees and species and kinds, from the borderland of the vegetable kingdom near to, in this sinful world, the boundary of the human race. The law of each brute's being and existence modifies and molds and in various ways affects life's manifestations and results.

In man we have a higher manifestation of the one life than is seen in any other creature on earth; and sometimes, sad to say, the lowest, morally.

But the life is one, whether manifest in rock or tree or fish or bird or beast or man. All live by the life of God, and when that life is withdrawn or crushed out, all die. The rock becomes inorganic dust, and plant and bird and beast and man molder back to insensate clod.

When man was made of the dust of the ground, it is said that God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen. 2:7. In the beast and fowl and creeping thing was also life, or, as the margin reads, “living soul.” Gen. 1:30. In referring to those animals which went into the ark with Noah, it is said, “And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.” Gen. 7:15. And of those that did not enter the ark, it is declared, “All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.” Verse 22. And so “the preacher” avers, “They have all one breath.” Eccl. 3:19.

These scriptures are sufficient to show that the life is one in man and beast. The same thing is evident from another consideration, namely, that under perverted law the life of one species or kingdom may be maintained or perpetuated for a limited time by feeding upon the flesh of another; or one may be transmuted or changed into another. For instance, the vegetable feeds upon the mineral, the animal upon the vegetable, man upon the animal and vegetable and mineral, the vegetable upon the animal, and the animal and vegetable turn to stone.

God is eternal. His life is therefore eternal, or everlasting. In Him, or as it comes from Him, it is essentially everlasting life, knowing no diminution, cessation, or death. Yet His creatures upon earth know death. All die—from man down through the brute creation to the living rock—all die and decay. If the life of each and all comes from God, why do they not live forever? This is an important question. Its study will be left for the future. But in reading the above, do not jump at conclusions. Study, and wait the future development from the Word of God of this great and important subject.