LIFE ETERNAL | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 2, 1904

LIFE ETERNAL.

JESUS says, in praying for His disciples: "And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." John 17:3.

There are those in the modern theologies who would have us believe that we possess this eternal life ourselves, whatever our moral attitude; and that the real essential thing is not that we should know God, but that we should know ourselves and know that God, the very Fountain of eternal life, dwells within us. They would picture us as a householder, who is dying of starvation while plenty of food is in his cupboard; nay, worse than this, we are feeding upon it all the time, but we do not know it.

Not so are we taught in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There we are told that those who are living in sin are dead spiritually, "alienated from the life of God," "separate from Christ," "without God." Of these Jesus said, "I am come that they may have life, and may have it abundantly." John 10:10. But to them He said, "Ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life." John 5:40. And the Scriptures put the matter as strong and clear as this, "He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life." 1 John 5:12. "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeyeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36.

This last text is an illuminator of the one at the head of this article. He who obeys not the Son, shall not see life; while he who knows the Father and Son finds in the knowing the life. The disobedience is the negative of the knowing, or the result of not knowing.

Now, to know God is not to know of Him, or to hear about Him. There are many who read of President Roosevelt, who have heard of him from others, who may have met him and spoken with him, but who do not know him. They have never come into harmony with his life.

There are many who know a little about music, who have heard of, or actually heard, Gounod's "Redemption," Handel's "Messiah," or Mozart's "Requiem;" but they do not know these great productions till they have come into harmony with them, and the music itself is their own, and has brought into harmony with itself every fiber of their being.

So no one knows God until he is in harmony with God, until all rebellion is banished from heart and soul, until will and body, mind and spirit, are submitted to God. Then man knows God; then God knows man. For the one important thing of human experience is to be "known of God." Gal. 4:9; 1 Cor. 8:3. Adam "knew his wife," and the result of that knowing was the bringing forth of a son. It was a knowledge of life-union. "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous." Ps. 1:6. Of all the nations, Israel only was known of God. Amos 3:2. No other nation to that time had known His power, His life, His presence. "If any man loveth God, the same is known by Him." 1 Cor. 8:3. But he only loves God who has the Holy Spirit. Rom. 5:5. Knowing God, therefore, is harmony with Him,—is life-union with Him.

The little diagram will bring to us anew the illustration used last week. The fountain represents the Source of all life. The little patches of soil represent man in three conditions. The spiritual man is represented by the little plant in the midst of the plot of soil; the physical man, by the soil outside. The whole man receives life through two general channels: (1) Direct from the Fountain in harmony with God's spiritual law, summarily comprehended in the Decalogue; (2) through the food, air, and water, in harmony with the law of his physical being.

Before man sinned, represented by figure 1, his condition was that of a perfect, developing being, in harmony with perfect, unperverted law.

When man sinned (figure 2) he closed the avenue of God's life direct to the spiritual man, and the whole man could receive life only through his lower nature. But even this lower nature, the carnal man, became corrupted; sin became infleshed, and the laws of man's physical and spiritual being both became perverted, and so perverted the inflow of life, resulting in the death of the spiritual man, and finally of the whole man. Sinful men are to-day living after the flesh, the life perverted, and themselves subject to sin and death. "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. . . . For the mind of the flesh is death; . . . because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; and they that are in the flesh can not please God." Rom. 8:5-8.

But when the carnal man yields all to God and His law, and lets Christ in by His Spirit, the hedge is broken (figure 3), and the spiritual man comes once more into direct connection with the Fountain of life. It flows in upon the drooping plant. The water of life revives the thirsty soul, and flowing out into the physical man and the deserts of sin, it vivifies and heals and strengthens the whole man. Isa. 44:3, 4. Then the spiritual man is no longer held by the bondage of sin. The body may be counted dead, but "the spirit is life because of righteousness." Rom. 8:10. And then if that creative Spirit of God is cherished in the heart and life, so that it dwell there, life shall also be given to the mortal, dying body, through the now dominant spirit. Verse 11.

It is not the Gospel of Christ, it is not the Gospel of righteousness and salvation, to tell sinful and sinning man that he has the life of God—eternal life—now. He alone has divinity within who is in harmony with the divine. He only has the Spirit of God, whose heart is open by faith to receive it. He only has the life of God who is known of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

But Christ has come that all may have the life; not the soulical life of the flesh, living—or dying—on the low plane of the flesh, but the life everlasting.

O soul, bound in the fetters of sin and death, give up the fleshly, carnal life and let the life of God in the heart! Let it purify your affection. Let it cleanse away the sin. Let it illuminate and lead the way. Let it cleanse spirit and soul and body, and so fit you for the last great change to immortality, God's seal of an incorruptible character.