ETERNAL LIFE AND IMMORTALITY.
THERE is a difference between eternal life and immortality, and yet the two terms are often used interchangeably. Hereby often arise misunderstandings. In our last week’s issue it was shown that eternal life is the life of the eternal God, that it is all life as that life comes from God; and the only reason why it is not eternal life in everything on this earth is that sin has perverted the law of that life, and in those who have come under the perverted law, it ends in death. But in Jesus Christ it is accessible to all men by faith. Those who by faith yield to God’s eternal law receive the eternal Spirit of God. The law received in Christ Jesus does not condemn; it becomes “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” He who once wandered blindly in the bondage and darkness of sin, can by “the power of an endless life” in Christ Jesus “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” All the power there is is in life. God is the Creator, the mighty God, because He is “the living God.” As long as the sinner endeavors to live above sin by the power of the perverted life in him, he will fail. “Alienated from the life of God,” he can not keep the law of God. But the Lord longs to give him His Spirit, that in the erstwhile sinner “the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled.” Rom. 8: 4. “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” Verse 9. “Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Gal. 2: 20. What life did Christ live in Paul? Was it not the life of God, eternal life? This life we hold by faith, conditionally, but not the less actually. This earnest money is the same as that used for the final payment. It differs not in kind, but in quantity. Tho conditional, it is not the less actual. To him who endures to the end it will be given absolutely. Immortality means deathlessness, and is the stamp of incorruptibility. In its very essence and origin God alone is immortal. 1 Tim. 1: 17; 6: 16. The original of the word aphthartos means undecaying, uncorruptible. That immortality God promises to render to His children at the last day. Rom. 2: 7. At Christ’s coming this corruptible will put on incorruption. 1 Cor. 15: 53. But it will be given only to those who are faithful to the end, to those who “love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity [incorruption].” Eph. 6: 24. It will be God’s stamp of the incorruptible character, the character which has endured every test of Satan, and by the power of the endless life conquered. This is expressed in other words in Phil. 3: 20, 21. The Revised Version is quoted: “For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Himself.” The power by which Christ has conquered is the power of the Spirit or life that is in Him. It is that power which He gives to us; it is that power which raised Him from the dead (see Eph. 1: 19–23). The same power, the same life, which is in the Head of the church is in the body, and in each member in particular. And as the life of God in Christ enabled Him to form an incorruptible character, so the same power in us brings “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Cor. 10: 5. Upon the character of such Christ places the seal of immortality at His coming. The incorruptible character will live in an incorruptible body. The body humiliated by sin and death will be no more, and the people of God will live forever. Man, therefore, was not created immortal, incorruptible. This was shown by the fact that he soon became corrupted in both character and body. He was not created mortal, for had his obedience continued, he would never have known death. He had a sinless body, and possessed eternal life, but his character was not formed, his immortality was not assured. God gives to all who will submit to Him His own mighty, eternal Spirit, bearing His own life as it pulses from the throne of the universe. He who will let that life work in him in harmony with God’s holy law, will develop a character like the law, like the Spirit, like our Master, Christ Jesus; and upon him will the Lord bestow the gift of eternal deathlessness, of unending incorruptibility at His coming. “And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.” Reader, do you wish the immortal body and unending existence?—Then by faith in Christ seek the incorruptible character.