ETERNAL LIFE AND IMMORTALITY.
ETERNAL life is the life of God, the life given by the “eternal Spirit,” the life which operates only in harmony with God’s immutable law. God’s law is the law of man’s life. Nay, more, it is the law of his own life, the expression of his own character, everlasting and immutable as his throne. Those who know righteousness are those who have God’s law in their hearts. See Isa. 51:6, 7. Therefore the law “was ordained to life,” to life without end. Death had no part or place in its object. “In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” Man was created upright, and pronounced by his Creator “very good.” He was in harmony with God’s law, the expression of God’s character, the law of God’s endless life. That man might live the righteousness of God he was given the power of the endless life of God, or eternal life. But he held this by faith. This was so of necessity. While man was “holy and without blame” before God, he had not yet perfected character. He was not righteous in the sense of having a righteous character. He had not developed character under test. Faith includes absolute and willing submission to God. Anything less than this would be in opposition to God’s law. The life of God could, therefore, be held only by faith, by a perfect harmony with the law of God. As soon as unbelief came in, man disobeyed. He departed from God’s law in purpose, and God’s life could not operate contrary to God’s law. The straight perverted becomes crooked. Good perverted becomes evil. God’s law perverted becomes sin. Life perverted becomes death. So when man transgressed the law of life, the perverted law in him became the law of sin and death. Therefore says the apostle, “The commandment which was ordained unto life, I found to be unto death.” Man by sinning set his will against God’s will, and found naught but destruction and death in his course. By thus doing he cuts himself off from the source of life. When, therefore, man sinned, he lost eternal life. But while possessed of eternal life when he came pure from the hands of his Maker, he was not immortal. Immortality means incorruptibility, genuineness, deathlessness, that which is not corruptible. Such is God in his very essence: “Who only hath immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16), that is, inherently, in his very nature. But while man’s nature was pure, it was capable of being corrupted. Had he been immortal, he would never have known sin or death. Were he mortal, he had also sin, for mortality is a consequence of sin. Man was, therefore, neither mortal nor immortal. He possessed a pure and innocent nature, and was a candidate for immortality. The condition, as before stated, was faith. The choice rested in his will. The power to do was in the life of God in his holy law, responsive ever to faith. But man sinned and thus perverted the law of God in him, and lost eternal life. By faith through and in Jesus Christ man may again connect with God’s life, and place himself in the channel of its working, so that life may bring forth fruit in him. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life.” John 3:36. “He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life. These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.” 1 John 5:12, 13, R. V. Says the regenerated Paul: “Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.” Gal. 2:20. If man thus choose God’s will, if he let God’s life infuse him, if he constantly and forever submit to the eternal law of God, the law of righteousness and life, he thus perfects a righteous character, a character incorruptible. By enduring all tests, he is purged from all corruptible elements, and builds into his character the incorruptible commands and promises of God, the words of life. And when that character is perfected, and the judgment of God of which his law is the rule, shall so declare, then God shall place upon man the stamp of the incorruptible character—immortality. Immortality is, therefore, the seal of man’s character. It is the outward expression of the character that is within. It declares that as the physical man will know no decrepitude, age, or death, because of the change wrought by the power of God, so the character within is fitted, has been perfected under test by the same power, so that it will never more sin, because its will is eternally set to do the will of God alone. Man can not sin, because he will not, eternally will not. The moral fiber of his character has been wrought in the workshop of heaven; the chords of his whole being are forever attuned to the music of the eternal law. All this being true in the very nature of the case, we are not surprised to read in the word of God, contrary tho it be to false and popular theology, that God “only hath immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16); that man, instead of possessing it here, should seek for “glory, and honor, immortality” (Rom. 2:7); that it is not in man of himself, but comes alone through “Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10); that instead of man possessing immortality here, it will be given only when Jesus Christ shall come the second time, and then “this mortal must put on immortality,” fulfilling the expression, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 1 Cor. 15:51–55. This view, the Biblical, Gospel view, gives no man opportunity to glory in men; for all is of God through Jesus Christ. The law is of him, the life is of him, the righteousness is of him, the mercy, the goodness, the power, the glory are all of him; and to him every soul that knows his life and receives the boon of immortality will ascribe endless praise. “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.” Reader, will you not choose life, that you may live?