CHRIST THE LIFE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 6, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 18.

CHRIST THE LIFE.

JESUS is not only the way and the truth, but he declares himself to be the life. Man in the beginning was found in the image of God and given life. The continuance, the perpetuity, of that life was made dependent on his faithfulness to God. Given access to the tree of life, living in the sunlight of his Maker's approval, he would have existed forever. Faithful obedience to the Lord's commandments would have perpetuated the life within him. "The commandment," says Paul, "was ordained to life." Rom. 7:10. Again say the Scriptures: "In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death." Prov. 12:28.

But man stepped "out of the way" (Rom. 3:12), and death came in consequence of sin. Life is only found in the way of righteousness; in fact, righteousness is life. They are as inseparable as fire and heat. "The wages of sin is death," declares one apostle. "Sin, when it is finished [or "full grown"], bringeth forth death," says another. Righteousness and life are the opposites of sin and death. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," declaims the prophet in Eze. 18:4. The beginnings of sin are the seeds of death. The sin may exist only in the thought, in the cherished lust, but as soon as entertained in the heart, it is the beginning of death, just as surely as leprosy in the blood is the seed of physical death, incurable, ineradicable, by any power of man, sure to end, sooner or later, in what it really is, namely, death. This is man's condition. Adam sinned, and all the race from him have inherited a sinful nature. Rom. 5:12. He was debarred from the tree of life, that a life of sin and misery might not be forever perpetuated. Gen. 3:22-24.

We have learned, however, how the righteousness which man once possessed, the image of God in him at his creation, may be restored; and that is through Christ, the Way and Truth. By faith in Christ and submission to his will, "the righteousness of God" is placed upon him, and the sinner is accounted as though he had never sinned. "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted [imputed] to him for righteousness." Gal. 3:6. And the apostle continues: "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." And "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." Gal. 3:7, 9. "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." Verse 26.

But all this change in the sinner comes about by the life-giving word. Heb. 4:12; John 15:3. Says Jesus, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63. God promises his Holy Spirit; by faith the sinner grasps the promise and the Spirit is his. See Rom. 5:5; Luke 11:9-13. That Spirit in the word creates a new heart and a new Spirit (Eze. 36:26, 27), makes him a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), creates him in Christ Jesus unto good works (Eph. 2:10), a new man created in righteousness and holiness of truth (Eph. 4:24) by the Spirit and the word of Him who is the truth (Eph. 5:9; John 14:6).

But the same time that the Spirit and word of Christ impute and impart righteousness to the sinner he is also given life. The apostle in contrasting what came on man by Adam with what came through Christ, says: "Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." Rom. 5:18. "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Rom. 8:10.

This Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and of God, and is, therefore, the very life of God. This life the individual holds by faith (Gal. 2:21), but it is not the less actual life. The leper was cleansed by faith but it was an actual cleansing. The impotent man was healed by faith in the name at the Beautiful gate of the temple, but it was actual healing. So also is the life which God imparts through his words of life to the believing soul, actual life, eternal life, because it is the life of God. This is the life which Christ came to give. Says he: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10:10. An apostle writes to the brethren in Christ, that "he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the

record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life. . . . These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may KNOW that YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE." 1 John 5:10-13. We do not know how language could make the fact more positive that believers in Christ have eternal life. See John 6:47, 54.

This life is elsewhere called "the first fruits of the Spirit" (Rom. 8:23), "the earnest of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:14), "the earnest of the Spirit" (2 Cor. 5:5). Earnest money is a pledge of the principal to follow; it is a very part of the price paid, paid in advance of the greater part as a pledge of more to follow. So God gives of his Spirit as an earnest, a pledge, of the glorious fullness of the life to come. And this portion of God's Spirit which we receive here from time to time is just as actually the Spirit of God and the life of God as though we received it without measure, as did Christ. The Spirit of God to us in this pilgrimage is actual, though not absolute. We may separate from Christ; our faith may utterly fail, and with the separation will depart the life which is in Christ. But in the child of God ever abides the life of God if he is ever faithful to God.

On the other hand, "he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:12. Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews, "And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." John 5:40. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36. And this is the invariable testimony of Scripture. Christ is the only being who ever walked this earth of whom it could be said that he had life in himself, because he had righteousness. Man apart from God, whatever his claim, dies soul and body. He is "alienated from the life of God." Eph. 4:18. To claim an immortal soul, or a never dying spirit, does not make it so; he only has life who has righteousness, and he only has righteousness who has Christ. "Let God be true, and every man a liar."

Oh, for faith to grasp the promise of eternal life, the promise of the Spirit of God, the power of his word! Having his life, his Spirit, we will do his works; "for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth." Eph. 5:9; Gal. 5:22, 23. By this life is crucified every uprising of self, and every deed is wrought from life to a larger life. We do not work for life, for it is a gift, and comes by faith. Rom. 6:23. But we work from life, because of our relationship with God, and because we count it joy to labor for Christ.

Christ is the Way, the new and living Way, all the way. He is the Truth all the way. He is the Life all the way. "For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him." Col. 2:9, 10.

Reader, this same Jesus invites you to accept of him, the Way, the Truth, the Life. All these will he be to you all the way to the kingdom of God.