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CHRIST OUR LIFE

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 14, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 20.

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CHRIST OUR LIFE.

By Geo. H. Heald, M.D.

BY GEO. H. HEALD, M.D.
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen. 2:7.
Is not this text sufficient evidence that man differs from brute creation in the possession of an immortal soul? Let us see.
1. Man was formed out of the dust of the ground. So were animals. “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air.” Verse 19.
2. God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Gen. 7:21, 22 shows that all animal creation had the same breath of life.
3. Man became a living soul. In chapter 1:20 the expression “moving creature” that hath life is more properly rendered “soul” in the margin; for it comes from the same original words which are rendered “living soul” in Gen. 2:7. The expression “living creature” in verses 21 and 24 should be similarly rendered, for the same reason, and in the thirtieth verse, the literal rendering, as given in the margin, is, “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul.”
The word rendered “soul” and “life” in these passages means simply “animal life.” Paul, in 1 Cor. 15:45, in his discourse on the resurrection, says, “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [Christ] was made a quickening [life-giving] spirit.”
Christ “is our life.” Col. 3:4. He is called “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Jer. 23:6. And in Gal. 3:21 we learn that if the law could have given life, it would also have given righteousness; hence righteousness and life are inseparable. But the law could do neither; and “what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8:3, 4. So both life and righteousness are from God, through Christ. This is further shown in Rom. 5:12 and onward, where death is declared to be the result of sin. Righteousness is called a free gift (verses 17 to 19), and this righteousness is inseparably connected with eternal life in Christ, in these and the succeeding verses.
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” 1 John 3:14. Love is the fulfilling of the law, or righteousness. It is a gift from God, not something that we can develop in and of ourselves. “Love is of God.” “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” 1 John 3:1. “Every one that loveth is born of God.” 1 John 4:7.
This condition, spoken of as loving the brethren, “born of God,” “passed from death unto life,” etc., is necessary to an entrance into heaven. “Except a man be born again [“born from above,” margin], he can not see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3. It was to bring man into this condition of sonship that Christ came to the world. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” John 1:11, 12. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” 1 John 5:1.
We learn, then, that there is promised to the sons of God—those who have accepted Christ by faith—an eternal life, which is altogether different from the animal life given in common to Adam and to the beasts; for, while Adam in his sinless condition had an opportunity to go on to immortality, it would have given the same life to the beasts; for had there been no sin, there would have been no death.
But what is the record regarding the life of those who are not “sons of God”?—“For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Eccl. 3:19, 20.
Ann Arbor, Mich., April 11, 1896.