ETERNAL LIFE by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 19, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 16.

ETERNAL LIFE.

By Editor

[From an Editorial in the Sunday-School Times.]

ETERNAL life has been defined as "the existence of a moral being according to God's idea of such existence." Of course, that was exactly how Jesus lived. He was the true man, made in the image of God. He had the wonderful consciousness of perfect fellowship with God. He lived in the world the life of God. That was His great significance. To speak of eternal life as the life of God, has not very much meaning to us, because we can know so little of the life of the Infinite. We can not even conceive His manner of existence. His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways. But in Jesus we have seen what the life of God is, under human and finite conditions. The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. Divinity was naturally expressed in beautiful righteousness and love. What Jesus meant by life, was seen in the fair dealing in the little shop at Nazareth, and in the kindness of the home life in the house of Joseph and Mary; in the truth that characterized all His intercourse with men, and the graciousness of His loving ministry; in His personal soul-purity, and the uninterrupted sense of oneness with the Father. Any other way of living, Jesus would not call life. Life without God and love and truth, He would think unworthy of the name.

A marked characteristic of this kind of life, which justifies the application to it of the epithet "eternal," is that it is founded on a sense of eternal values. Jesus Himself might have been a popular king, but He conceived it of infinitely more worth to lead men to God. The devil showed Him all the kingdoms of the world. But Jesus would not exchange truth for all the glory of them. Napoleon thought otherwise. With magnificent opportunity to serve his generation in all honor, he preferred rather to satisfy personal ambition, and he lost eternal life. That is to say, Napoleon apparently lost the opportunity to live for eternal interests, choosing rather to live for the things that perish. And there was, therefore, nothing left at the end.

"The world he loved so much Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch."

That is why the New Testament makes such strong contrast between Christianity and the world. Not that we are to live the otherworldly life, looking for heaven, but that we are to live each day with reference to eternal interests. There are things that perish, tho they may not be evil in themselves,—silver, gold, raiment, tinsel, popularity, applause, and all the sensuous,—"the world passeth away, and the lust thereof." There are things that abide,—faith, hope, love. Judas' thirty pieces of silver are long since gone, but Mary's broken vase and perfume are lasting forever. He that has eternal life is the man who puts a proper proportionate value on these various things. Money is good, of course, but truth is better. If it should come to a choice, as sometimes it does, the Christian must choose with reference to the higher value. Houses and lands are to be desired, but love is the greatest thing in the world. And not seldom there are alternatives. The recent biography of the noble Hugh Price Hughes, reminds us again of the words of his good mother to him, on his choice of a vocation: "I would rather see you a Methodist preacher than Lord Chancellor of England." It is a good thing to sit on the woolsack, but it is a greater to win sinners to repentance. And these choices in the spirit of Christ are not made in order to gain eternal life, but because the choices themselves are eternal living.

When, therefore, Jesus offers eternal life, He is not simply promising immortality. He is promising that which alone can make immortality desirable,—a true quality of being. He offers us the difference between John, the beloved disciple, and the ambitious young fisherman; between Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, and "the rising hope of the stern, unbending" rabbis. To men in full physical and intellectual vigor, He said: "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly." And some have learned what He meant. They know something of the promise: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled," and of the other promise: "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God," and of the truth of His Word: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." To be sure, there has come some self-denial. They have yielded a little reluctantly sometimes the things that perish, and have sometimes had to shut their eyes to the things that allure and destroy. But the Master's promise has been fulfilled. They have lived, and, to a degree at least, have lived abundantly.