Life Through Christ by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 15, 1864

Life Through Christ.

By R. F. Cottrell

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For 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 iii, 14–16.

The object for which the Saviour came into the world, and for which he was lifted up upon the cross, was, that those who should believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Man's life has been forfeited by disobedience, and he was exposed to death, and that without a hope of a resurrection, but for the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ. But for this, man was hopelessly lost; for without the resurrection those that are fallen asleep are perished. Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness to save those who had been bitten by the fiery flying serpents from literal death. The bite was fatal to life, unless they looked away to the brazen serpent, but looking to that, they lived. It was not to save them primarily from pain—it was not to save them from lingering illness, but from sudden death. Life was the object—that was the thing that was lost, but for the remedy.

Thus it is with all men. The sentence of death is out against us. But Christ gave his life a ransom for our lives. He has procured a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust; and those who believe will retain the life which he gives them—they shall never perish but have everlasting life. They shall not be hurt of the second death. But those who do not believe—those who reject or neglect so great salvation—will die a second time; because they will have lost a second probation. The first probation Adam lost, not only for himself, but for all his posterity. The first death all die in Adam, that is, in consequence of his transgression. But all, the just as well as the unjust, being redeemed from this, all have the privilege of a second probation, and may choose for themselves, individually, whether they will improve it and not perish, or neglect it and die the second death.

It was not the object of Christ's death, that immortal beings—beings that cannot die—might not endure eternal misery, but that those who believe might be saved from death and have eternal life. Had the Author of the Bible wished us to understand that man was an immortal being exposed to eternal torture, he certainly could have used language that would have clearly expressed the idea. He would not have been under the necessity of using terms, in every instance, that, instead of conveying the idea intended, convey the reverse, and, if taken literally, positively assert the mortality of man. It is unreasonable in the extreme to suppose that man is destined to exist eternally in happiness or misery, and yet in all the revelation of God to man this overwhelmingly important thought is not once plainly expressed; but that this doctrine of such vast, and to the wicked, terrible, consequences, is continually hid beneath figures of speech, which express a thought altogether different, and are the best words that could be chosen to assure the sinner that he has no eternal life abiding in him, but that the course he is pursuing is to end in a miserable death—an everlasting death—a death beyond which there is no resurrection. "A night which has no morn beyond it, and no star."

"God only hath immortality." He is the one fountain from which all life is derived. But he has given this prerogative to his Son, that he may give life to them that believe. "For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to exercise judgment also, because he is the Son of man." John v, 26. Life, in the literal sense, is here intended; for he is speaking of the resurrection of the dead. In a preceding verse he says, "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will," and in a succeeding verse, "The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." Hence it is not happiness, but life, which the Father hath in himself, and that he hath given to his Son, that he may give it to them that believe. He says, "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Now if he did give, not merely his happiness, but his life itself, upon the cross, then it is life itself which he will give to his people. And to deny this, is to deny that Christ "died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." At his appearing he will give eternal life to his sheep. Then those that are not his sheep will not have eternal life, but will be condemned to the second death. "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. vi, 23. Thus it is evident that those who do not obtain eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ, will not have it, but will perish—will die the second death—a death from which there is no resurrection. While the saints "put on incorruption" at the resurrection of the just, those who fail to secure an interest in Christ "shall utterly perish in their own corruption."

R. F. Cottrell.