A New Bible Word by A. A.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1886

A New Bible Word.

By A. A.

WE have to thank the revisers of the New Testament for a new word in relation to the subject of life in and through Christ.

Hebrews 7: 16 reads, concerning Christ as priest after the likeness of Melchisedec, "Who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the law of an endless life." (Margin, "Greek, indissoluble.") That is, not subject to dissolution; endless, because in its nature it is incapable of being loosed away, or destroyed.

Kata dynamin zoēs akataluton—according to the strength of life indissoluble. The writer to the Hebrews is contrasting the Levitical priests with our High Priest in the Heavens. They were many, "because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death; but he, because he abideth forever, hath a priesthood that doth not pass to another." Margin, R. V., v. 24. He abideth because he "was dead, and is alive forever more." And it is certain that he "dieth no more," because he now liveth by a life that is in its nature indissoluble.

But were the life of all men thus indissoluble, where were the force of the writer's reasoning? He reasons as if the life of the Levitical priests was mortal, and as if they lost their lives, one after another, by death. Such a terminable life as that of mortal man is sharply contrasted with the indissoluble life of the risen Lord, in this very quality of indissolubility, and consequent endlessness.—A. A., in Bible Banner.