OUR SOURCE OF LIFE by A. G. D.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 25, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 33.

OUR SOURCE OF LIFE

By A. G. D.

Sin Doomed Man to Die Eternally — A Plan Provided That Gives Redemption and Eternal Life

"As the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." John 5:26. The Lord Jesus Christ is life. He is the source of life. He is our life.

It was Christ who created this world, and gave to matter its forces and its life. Thus we read: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." John 1:1-4.

Paul says: "For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." Col. 1:16, 17.

HIS GREAT CREATIVE POWER

These scriptures set forth the great power of the Son of God. He has creative power. He created the earth from nothing. "He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." Ps. 33:9. "In Him was life," and that life He imparted to that which He created. He said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so." Gen. 1:11. The seed contains the life germ that Christ imparted to vegetation when He commanded it to be.

Having covered the earth with nutritious vegetation, the Creator caused to exist the "living creature" after its kind,—the beasts, the cattle, the fowls, the winged insects, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. To all these creatures, as well as to vegetation, the Lord Jesus gave life. "To every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat; and it was so." Gen. 1:30.

MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

The last and crowning act of our Lord was the creation of man. Of this we read: "And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him." "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:7.

Thus we see that Jesus Christ not only has life in Himself, but that He has imparted life to everything He has created.

LIFE IMPARTED FOREVER

The life which Christ imparted to His works was to be in them forever. His purpose was that all He created should endure with Himself throughout eternity. It was not His will that His life should ever be separated from anything to which He had given it. Death, the enemy of life, did not come from Christ. It is the result, the wages, of sin. Rom. 6:23. It came upon, and entered into, the works of Christ, because of man's transgression.

DEATH ENTERED THROUGH SIN

Paul says that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Rom. 5:12. The man by whom sin and death entered into the world was Adam. When he was placed in the garden of Eden, the fruit of one tree was withheld from him. The Lord said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Gen. 2:17.

Adam transgressed the command of God. He ate the fruit, and brought upon himself condemnation and death. Thus he forfeited the life that Christ had given him, and took death instead. The very day he ate the fruit, the death sentence was passed upon him. His life was forfeited, and it was only a question of time when the sentence would be executed, and he would cease to exist.

THE WHOLE RACE WAS INVOLVED

The fall of Adam involved the whole race. It entailed sin upon his posterity. "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." Rom. 5:19. This brought condemnation and death upon all. "By the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation." Verse 18. Left to ourselves, we should all perish; for we are sinners, and we are all under the sentence of death.

There are many expressions in the Scriptures which show that God looks upon us as virtually dead. When on earth, Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life." John 10:10. He also said, "Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life." John 5:40. Again, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." John 6:53. "He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." 1 John 3:14.

WE MAY BE DELIVERED FROM DEATH

The fleeting physical life, or existence, that men have here, is not the life that God would have them possess. Christ came to destroy death, and to restore to man the life Adam forfeited by sin.

But the only way man can obtain that life is by taking Christ, who holds it. This is made very plain by the apostle John, who says, "He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life." 1 John 5:12, R. V.

Christ is received into the heart by faith. Eph. 3:17. He can not be separated from His life; so when He comes into the heart of the believer, He brings His life with Him, and that believer, according to John, "hath the life." This is what Christ taught the people when on earth. He said, "He that heareth My word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life." John 5:24, R. V. Again we read, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him." "And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." 1 John 5:10, 11, R. V.

WHERE OUR LIFE IS

Our life, then, is in Christ. Those who have Him, have life; and those who are separated from Him, abide in death. And we have life only while we have Christ. At present He holds that life for us. Says Paul, "Your life is hid with Christ in God." Col. 3:3. Again, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." Verse 4. It is at the coming of Christ that immortality will be conferred upon His believers. Then they shall die no more. All praise to our blessed Lord that He "hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." 2 Tim. 1:10.