I Believe … in the Life Everlasting
It is clear that life everlasting is something more than life that lasts for ever. Immortality, great and wonderful as it is, cannot exhaust the meaning of these words. The Greek philosophers were aware of the Immortality of the soul, but they never knew what we mean, when under the teaching of Christ, we profess our Faith in Everlasting Life.
It is equally clear that this frequent phrase does not mean heaven, because, in several passages of the New Testament we are taught that our eternal life does not date from the moment of death, as, for instance, “‘ He that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life’ (John iii. 36). Our everlasting life is begun, and in the great future, when we see all things as they are, we shall know that our birthday was not that of our physical birth, but of that reception by us of the Christ-life, which shall never cease to expand into the likeness of God.
The Greek word translated everlasting, in the
A.V.., is rendered by eternal in the R.V. (Matt. xxv. 223
46). The note of duration is not its prominent characteristic, but rather quality than quantity. It is What sort of Life? rather than How Long of Life? That this is so will be made clear by the citation of one familiar verse, ‘‘ This is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” This being so, we can well understand the words, “He that hath the Son hath THE Life” (z.e., the life, which is life indeed), he that hath not the Son of God hath not THE Life” (1 John ¥. 12).
Not life. Recent physical science affirms that there is no such thing as dead matter. The head of a well-known college in U.S.A. told me that when taking a walk with one of his young-woman students, he struck a piece of rock with his walking-stick, and asked her whether it was alive or dead. ‘‘ Professor,” she said, “it’s alive.” Matter is only a form of electricity, the atoms of which are Electrones.
It is clear, however, that the rock is destitute of the sentient life of the dog, and this also is destitute of the moral life of the child; and this again entirely destitute of the spiritual life of a Moses or a John; and even these may be destitute of a side of experience which is familiar enough to those who have crossed the border-line. It is evident, then, that we may enjoy the life of some lower place, but be entirely destitute of the life of the planes above. This is what the Apostle meant by saying, ‘‘ She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”” You may be living in the world of art, or science or politics, and a very vivid and intense life it may be, and yet may never have entered that other kingdom, where real life is alone to be found.
The Real Life can only be obtained from the Living Christ. There has been a revival of late of an old suggestion that life may be spontaneously generated. This was originally the theory of Dr. Bastian, who filled a bottle with hay, sealed it hermetically to guard against the inclusion of air, baked it so as to kill all the living germs already in the bottle, and found, after an interval had elapsed, that germs of life were still breeding life. But Dr. Tyndall and Dr. Dallinger proved that the vitality of those germs was so great that they will exist though the intensest heat be applied to them, and that, therefore, the proof-experiment of spontaneous generation broke down.
Many theologians have tried to establish the thesis that the counterpart of spontaneous generation exists in the soul of man, that man became good by a kind of levelling-up process, and that there is no need for the impartation of Life from without.
To this we oppose the repeated teaching of the New Testament, that only he who has received the Son of God by a living faith, has life. The Eternal Life, which was from Eternity was manifested for a space in the Person of Jesus Christ, passed through death and resurrection, and now from the heart of Him who unites the Divine and the Human perfectly, waits to pour itself forth into all hearts that will yield to and accept it (I John i. 1-4). “This is the witness, that God hath given to us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son” (I John v. 11). Open your heart towards Christ, and you will receive Him, and receiving Him, live. You may not always be conscious of its uplifting glory, but the fountain may rise up within you, though its waters make no flashing in the light, and no music as they fall.
The Life which 1s Life Indeed. To know God, to live in fellowship with God, to be conscious that the Holy Spirit is dwelling within, to yearn over others and help them to realise themselves — this is the Eternal life, unto which the righteous shall go away (Matt. xxv. 46); and to have this is to have the Blessedness of Heaven already.