THE ABUNDANT LIFE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 26, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 50.

THE ABUNDANT LIFE.

JESUS said concerning those who are His, "I am come that they might have life." John 10: 10. At another time, to the unbelieving Jews, He said, "And ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life." John 5: 40.

It is evident from the above texts, and many others, that man does not have this life in himself naturally. In fact, it is by faith he receives it, and by faith he holds it, and it must come through Jesus Christ alone. Says John (20: 31), "These things are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name." The apostle Paul says, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." Gal. 2: 20.

This is not man's soulical, or natural life, which he has in common with all the animal creation, sometimes called "this mortal life," because it surely ends in death; it is the life of God, or eternal life. True it is that all life comes from God, but all life is not God's life. There are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial another. This is true of life. There is mineral life, and vegetable life, and animal life, and there is spirit life. They all come from God, but they are not all God's life. The law to which the life is subject gives the character of the life. The life of God is dominant over all lower forms of life, is the source of all life. It is higher, more potent, than all other manifestations of life, because it flows in the channels of the higher law.

The life of God is everlasting life. This is evident to all. "The everlasting God" possesses the everlasting life absolutely. It was "after the power of an endless life" that Christ was made priest for His people. This is the life, eternal life, which Jesus gives to His people. "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; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not 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: 11-13. This life is the Spirit of God. "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead [Rom. 6: 11, 12] because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Rom. 8: 9, 10. As the mother imparts the life which she has to the child, so does the Spirit of which the child of God is born (John 3: 3-5) impart the life of that Spirit.

This is the life which man possessed as he came from the hand of God. He was not mortal, for in that case he was subject to death, whether he partook of the tree of life or not. He was not immortal, or he never would have died. He was simply a perfect physical being, possessing eternal life, which connected him with the Source of all life. He, too, possessed this life by faith. Had he believed God he would have continued to live eternally, and when his character had become fixed, his whole being would have been made immortal, not subject to death. Man sinned, and cut himself off from eternal life, and became a dying creature.

For eternal life is not possessed apart from God. It is not given in sections. God does not cut up into so many portions His life or His Spirit, and divide it among His people, for each to use as he will. God is one; His Spirit is one and inseparable. To that heart which is open to receive it that blessed Spirit comes in; but in coming into the heart of the believer, it does not separate from God. It rather forms the bond of union between the believer and God. It does not allow him a little part of the life of God to use as he will, but it binds him to the great Guide by a bond which is almighty in its strength, to lead him into paths marked out by the all-wisdom of God.

O, what a preciousness there is in the thought,—the life of Jesus manifest in our mortal flesh, no longer "alienated from the life of God"! Sinner, you may possess it. Open thy heart, yield it all—the sins, the lusts, the vileness—to Jesus, who has bought thee, and receive Him, His death for the death due to thee in consequence of thy sins, His life—a free gift—for thy life, His fulness for thy emptiness, His righteousness for thy sin. Cast thyself upon His mercy, and trust Him. He saith to thee, "He that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out." Brother, sister, take comfort in the thought. Is sin hard to overcome in thy members? Let faith bring the life of Christ to that very member, that very weakness. Art thou in pain?—The life that is in Him is in thee, and the divine telegraph carries to Him the very feeling of thine infirmities. Is there not strength, power, blessing, rejoicing, in the thought, nay, in the fact? Let faith make it fact every day, every hour.