LIFE AND IMMORTALITY by L. A. Phippeny

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 29, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 13.

LIFE AND IMMORTALITY.

By L. A. Phippeny

THIS world affords many desirable things, but nothing in nature, as we see it, nothing devised and brought to a state of usefulness and beauty by man, can compare with the mere joy of existence, of living. True, the material things may enhance that joy, or, under specially adverse conditions, detract from it. But there are few, indeed, that do not love life, and cling to it with all the powers of their being.

The only thing in the way of man's plans, his hopes, his earthly pleasures—and it is a tremendous thing—is death. He may expend the whole of his wealth, and make almost superhuman efforts to prolong his life, but in the end death comes. It is a terrible thing, for it would seem to be the end of everything. He would give all the world, if it were his to give, if he could escape it, and live eternally, provided, perhaps, the perplexities and sicknesses of the present life were taken away.

Well, praise the good Lord, just such an eternal life is possible and provided for every man, woman, and child who will exert the necessary effort to obtain it.

To this end are the promises: "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3); "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life;" but "he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." The man who hath not the Son is "alienated from the life of God through . . . ignorance," which is sin. He knows not God, and is without "hope, and without God in the world." Eph. 2:12. Unless he finds Christ, he "shall not see life." "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life." John 3:36. "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. These promises and statements are in the present tense, and mean that, or nothing.

Our Example; Eternal Life Now.

Christ is the great Example for all mankind, and His way of gaining the victory over death is the way for every soul in the world to gain the same victory. As He had eternal life, so are we to have it. 1 Peter 2:21; 1 John 2:6, etc. And if a man longs for eternal life, and believes the Word of God that the record is true, he will allow no obstacle that earth may present to stand in the way of his following in Christ's footsteps. This is belief in Jesus Christ and in God, who sent Him, and the same power that strengthened Christ in the flesh is ready to strengthen the sinner and the saint to-day. It does it the moment he gives up his own ways, his own plans, his earthly hopes, and decides to walk as Christ walked. The power works, and he knows it, for it enables him to do that way, and to resist sin, which he could not do before. And to such living belongs eternal life for him, the same as it did for Christ. And he has it.

Now, since the fall, try as he may, flatter himself as he may, man can not live in harmony with God by his own efforts. In his sinful flesh is absolutely no power to do right, according to God's standard of righteousness, to which his thoughts and actions must conform in order that he may enjoy eternal life. Sin

has robbed him of that power. But God's own glorious, almighty, creative power is ever present where the desire and determination are to do right according to God's way. For this power Christ prayed "with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared." Heb. 5:7. "I can of Mine own self do nothing," He Himself said. This power was administered to Him constantly, and thus was He enabled to live in perfect harmony with God, and keep His character in its integrity, "pure and unspotted from the world."

With this kind of living, with this kind of character, ever belongs eternal life. Death pertains only to sin. But "He did no sin" (1 Peter 2:22); therefore eternal life was His. He lived righteously all the way through; therefore "in Him was life," eternal life, all the time. John 1:4. It was His by right of righteous living. "In the way of righteousness is life." Prov. 12:28. But everlasting existence can be possible only where there is no corruption, no seeds of death. Christ's body, however, was dying flesh. Hence the imperative demand—a demand as long and broad and as high and deep as eternity, upon the eternal justice of God—that after His death His body should be brought forth from the grave, refashioned into a glorious body in which should not be found one seed of death. And to the everlasting credit of a faithful heavenly Father, and for the everlasting assurance of a like salvation to every man who believes, He came forth by the mighty power of God, and lives eternally.

Now the power that works for the sinner to enable him to follow Christ is resurrection power, for according to law the transgressor unto death is already reckoned as dead. His living, and moving, and having being (Acts 17:28), by virtue of his physical activity, are not accounted as living at all. He is dead spiritually, and remains in death as long as he is in sin. And as a resurrection is necessary for the dead to live again, so belief, true belief in Christ, is a spiritual resurrection from spiritual death now. "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:11); "You hath He quickened [made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins." Eph. 2:1. The man is "transformed by the renewing" of his mind. Rom. 12:2. He is by the power of God created a new man in Christ Jesus. Eph. 4:24. He has a new mind, a new character, and new ways of living. He is then alive in the only sense of living that the Lord recognizes as true living.

In him there then exists precisely the conditions that existed in Christ. When he dies, because of the demands of sin in the flesh, his by inheritance, he must come forth again from the grave with a new and glorious body, by Almighty justice and fiat. And so Paul says: "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies because of His Spirit [His mind, purpose] that dwelleth in you." Rom. 8:11, margin. Therefore, "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5), because it is absolutely your only surety of a resurrection from the grave. Do not lose it, for if you do you lose eternal life, and relapse again into the spiritual death of sin. And in the plan of God, the time between death and resurrection is not accounted a break in the eternal life of the Christian. His "life is hid with Christ in God," and when Christ, who is his "life, shall appear," at His coming, "then shall" he "also appear with Him in glory." Col. 3:3, 4.

Immortality.

The word "immortality" has two significations, closely related, however. As used in 1 Tim. 6:16 and in 1 Cor. 15:53, 54, "immortality" is translated from a word signifying "deathlessness." In other places its different forms are from a word signifying "incorruptibility,"—the "incorruption" of 1 Cor. 15:42, 50, 53, 54. Again, the word signifying "incorruptibility," or "incorruption" in the latter texts, is rendered "immortality" in the English in Rom. 2:7 and in 2 Tim. 1:10.

Both of these expressions are applied to God. "Now unto the King eternal, immortal" (incorruptible) (1 Tim. 1:17), "who only hath immortality" (deathlessness) (1 Tim. 6:16). These words signify qualities of being. Incorruptibility is the quality that enables anything to be incorruptible. Deathlessness is the quality of being deathless, undying. So if one of the ideas prevails, it is that of incorruptibility, or incorruption, which is for that reason the quality of being deathless. Immortality, therefore, inheres only in God. His being is of an incorruptible, deathless nature. Eternal life, eternal living or existence, is His also inherently. While immortality conveys the idea of quality or property of being, eternal life carries the idea of duration of time, that is, in eternity.

These definitions find application in the history of man. God bestows freely the blessings of both life and immortality under the proper condition. This condition is loyalty to Him, which means, in its fullest sense, perfect service of a perfect mind and a perfect body. He has in the true Christian now perfect service of mind, and so He bestows eternal life in the spiritual nature now. But even this can not be realized in its glorious fulness until the body is redeemed from sin, which will be at Christ's second coming. Then every trace of sin, which is the only thing in the universe that produces corruption, will be removed, and the body will be made incorruptible. This will be immortality for the man,—incorruptibility, deathlessness, and eternal life.

This is what Adam enjoyed, in common with other sinless beings, in the beginning. He came from the hands of his Creator endowed with perfect powers of mind and body. He was made in the image and after the likeness of God. Gen 1:26; Eccl. 7:29. In him the perfect condition existed for the enjoyment of these gracious gifts of his Maker, and he entered upon the glorious pathway of eternal life with no taint of corruption in his nature. But both life and immortality were lost when he sinned. They became hidden by sin. And these are the things,—"life [eternal life] and immortality [incorruptibility]"—that have been brought again "to light through the Gospel," for the race lost in the darkness of sin.

But the happy day is at hand for the complete and glorious redemption. The apostle says: "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we [the living at that time] shall be changed [translated]. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal [dying] must put on immortality [deathlessness]. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality [deathlessness], then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." 1 Cor. 15:52-54.