Biblical Meaning of Eternal Life
Use of the Word "Life," "Eternal Life," etc. in the New Testament. THE question we have to consider is—not whether this word is sometimes employed in a secondary and figurative sense, to denote the highest and all possible good—but whether, when it is one of the objects held out to be sought after, and is matter of promise by God through Christ, it has, or includes, the idea of continued and never-ending existence. The holders of the popular doctrine, proceeding on the assumption that all men have eternal life, in the literal sense, must of course deny altogether that the idea of existence is even included in the terms "life," "everlasting life," and the like. For seeing, according to the common notion, that the wicked have everlasting life (taking the phrase literally) as well as the righteous, when this is promised to the followers of Christ, as something peculiar to them and unutterably glorious, they must perforce affirm that the phrase is used metaphorically, and only so. Will the serious reader do me the favor to consider the following observations? 1. That existence, and existence only, or, at all events, chiefly, is meant by such words in some passages cannot be disputed. For instance, when Christ, appearing to John in Patmos, says, Rev. 1: 18, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold I am alive for evermore," no one will affirm that the glorified Saviour, although of course unutterably happy, meant at all to convey the idea of happiness by the assertion of living, and being alive for evermore; but the idea of an existence gloriously exempt forever from all liability to a second death. So Prof. Stuart rightly expounds: "I was indeed subject to the power of death, yet only for a little time; for behold! I live for ever and ever; I have risen to a life which can never be interrupted, never cease.—Stuart in loc. And so in Rev. 4: 9, 10, "The living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever; and the four-and-twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever;" no one will wish to do away with the literal sense of the phrase employed, which appears to be used here something like the "I AM" of the Old Testament, to set forth the idea of infinite and independent existence. The Jews were accustomed to speak of God as emphatically "the living God," in distinction from the heathen deities which were either the objects of nature, the creations of their fancy, or the work of their own hands; and the formula was common, "As the Lord liveth," etc. So we are assured, Heb. 7: 25, that Christ "is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth, to make intercession for them," where, without dispute, the phrase is used literally, as it is in verse 16 of the same chapter, where Christ is said to be a priest, "not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life." But as any concordance will give many similar passages, the reader need not be detained on this first remark, except to observe— That Christ himself, in the days of his flesh, as well as subsequently, used the word in that literal sense which it would naturally convey. Thus, for example, when he said, John 5: 26, "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." No one will affirm happiness to be here intended, although God is the happy God, and Christ partakes of his felicity, or deny that the word is used in the strictest literalness. But to advance a step, it may be observed, 2. That the word is sometimes to be understood literally when men are spoken of, which will not be denied by the keenest disputant. Thus the apostle, in his famous discourse on Mar's hill, speaking of God, says, "He giveth to all life and breath and all things. . . . In him we live and move and have our being." And Christ affirmed in a passage we have already examined, "God is not the God of the dead but of the living." Where by "dead" we must necessarily understand the idea that our Lord was then controverting with the Sadducees, who held that death was the utter end of man, and that all who had died were clean perished out of existence, and that forever. Christ proved that the notion, as they held it, was false, for that God, after the decease of the patriarchs, had styled himself their God. Here the word "living," then, is necessarily used by our Lord in its natural sense; and, in this passage, he who brought life and immortality to light teaches that there is an existence after the body has yielded to decay. God is not the God of the utterly non-existent and perished. Death and life are here used for existence and non-existence. But as a concordance will give a great number of texts in which the literal is the only possible sense, the reader is referred thereto, that we may avoid filling pages with quotations, and may come still nearer to the very point of the present argument. And it may be remarked, 3. That the word is sometimes to be understood literally, when employed in a declaration of the benefits bestowed by Christ on those who believe in him. As, for example, John 6: 57, 58, when Christ says, "As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which, etc. He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." No expositor would expound it thus: "As the happy Father has sent me, and I am happy by the Father, so he that eateth me shall be happy by me"—although a true sentiment. For the question all through the discourse was not concerning happiness, but about bread that could preserve from death, which the bread furnished through Moses in the wilderness could not do. And in the verse here quoted, since no one would wish to set aside the literal sense of the word in the first and second clauses, so neither can it be rejected in the last, especially if regard be had to the scope of the entire discourse. So in John 14: 19, "Because I live, ye shall live also." Where, again, no one will attempt seriously to expound it, though the sentiment is true, "Because I am happy, ye shall be happy also." And to revert to a passage already quoted, John 5: 26, when Christ says, "For as the Father hath life in himself, so also hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;" in this connection it is, when obviously using the word in its literal sense, that he says in the verse immediately preceding, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself," etc. And the statement of our Lord to Martha, weeping bitter tears of sorrow, may, perhaps, be fairly adduced, John 11: 23: "Thy brother shall rise again." But at that moment of intense grief, when her recent loss was so vividly realized, the prospect of the general resurrection, to her apprehension so indefinitely remote, did not very greatly pacify her mind; and her gracious Lord, intending to gratify her wish, scarcely half-formed, and not to be intimated, begins to remind her that the general resurrection was to be accomplished by himself, who could, therefore, at any moment, quicken whom he would. It is to his words, at this point of time, that the reader's attention is invited. When he says, verse 25, "I am the resurrection," we of course understand him, by the use of a common figure of speech, to mean that he would be the efficient cause, the author of the resurrection,—he would accomplish it. Now the word "resurrection" is universally and of necessity here taken in its literal sense. So, therefore, must the next word be, "life." "I am the resurrection and the life." Strange indeed would it be to interpret the one word literally, and the next word figuratively. In whatever way Christ is "the resurrection," in that same way must he also be "the life." And it would indeed be something very like wresting the Scriptures to serve a purpose, to understand the word resurrection literally, and make the very next word, "life," a metaphor. Our Lord teaches that he would raise the dead, and make them live again; and that if any who had believed were already dead, he would nevertheless raise them to life; while of the then living who believed, and who must of course taste of death, it was a glorious fact that their death, not being final, was not, strictly speaking, deserving of the name, for that they should live forever. This seems to me the general sentiment of these verses, which are adduced here in support of the idea that life, literally understood, is made the matter of distinct declaration and promise by Christ. For in this passage it will not do to spiritualize the words, "life," and "he shall live," "dead," and "shall not die15for ever," seeing there was no question noted about spiritual death and life, nor about misery and happiness. And to engraft these ideas would be not only gratuitous, but would spoil the beautiful propriety of our Lord's discourse on that sorrowful occasion, and make it altogether irrelevant. And if the life here promised could possibly mean happiness, then, according to the principles laid down by the Eclectic Reviewer, and already referred to, since Christ is the resurrection to all men, and the assertion, "I am the resurrection and the life," is made generally and without discriminating any, all who are raised from the dead by Christ will also be made eternally happy by him—a conclusion which none will allow to be deduced from this text. I submit, then, that we must understand the terms in this passage literally. But here it will doubtless occur to the reader, that if the spiritualizing process would make against the popular notion, by representing happiness (life, taken metaphorically) as co-extensive with the resurrection, so the literal rendering of the passage makes as completely against my view, by exhibiting continued existence after resurrection as equally the portion of all. It is but fair that I should acknowledge whatever force lies in this rejoinder; but it is, I believe, apparent, and not real. Let it be remembered, then, that in the last of the above two suggestions, I am merely using the principle of an opponent to convince him that on his own principle he must consent to understand the word "life" literally. For the understanding it figuratively, for happiness, and then applying to the declaration his canon, that when no discrimination is affirmed, the sense is universal, would make him a universalist. I, however, deny this principle, so that the argument stands good against an opponent, but not against myself. And so I come back to this,—Christ is the author of the resurrection, and the giver of the life then to be enjoyed. This is a general assertion, leaving us yet to ascertain who are to be raised—who are to be endowed with life. We are elsewhere assured that all the dead, both small and great, shall be raised, but that they only shall receive everlasting life, who are saved by Christ; "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish." "All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation." Let this passage be accepted as expository of the former one, showing who are to receive the crown of life when they are raised from the dead, for as in that, life must be understood literally, so in this. And then, by my reviewer's law of antithesis, taking life literally, we understand the resurrection to condemnation to be a retributive resurrection to a second death. The reader will be so kind as to remember that all I am asserting under this third head is, that sometimes, at all events, life is to be literally understood, when it is the subject matter of declaration and promise by Christ, and I have adduced as one proof the passage in John 11: 25.—Future Punishment, by H. H. Dobney.