THE WAY OF LIFE

It is evident that God’s thought for the creature is life. Having created man, He breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living soul, one capable of enjoying life in relation with God. God being what He is delights in the happiness of the creature. Then He created a garden with everything to sustain him in life, everything to satisfy his desires. In the garden He placed the tree of life, thus proving that His thought for man was life. This no doubt will be realized in the fullest sense in the glory, Rev 22. The tree of life is in the paradise of God, God’s thought is never defeated, but being at the first connected with the responsibility of the creature was lost for the time being. Man by sin forfeited life, and came under the penalty of death. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin”, Rom 5: 12. The way of life was closed to man. So then if God’s thought was to be realised, Christ must die, thus only could sin be expiated, and the way of life be opened to men. In dying He has annulled death, and him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and He has opened up the way of life, which had been barred before. He is the resurrection and the life, the last Adam, the life-giving Spirit. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life”, John 3: 36. “This is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son, and believes on him, should have life eternal, and I will raise him up at the last day”, John 6: 40.

Here we may raise the question, What is life, subjectively, in the spiritual sense? It is the capacity to know and enjoy what is revealed of God, and to respond to His love. “We have known and have believed the love which God has to us. God is love, and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him”, 1 John 4: 16. “We love, because he has first loved us”, v 19. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”, 1 John 3: 14. In the eternal state this will be universal in the whole creation. God will be all in all. But His desire is that we should enjoy this life now. It is the present blessing of God. He has given us the Spirit as the power to enjoy this life. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost”, Rom 5: 5. We are really happy as we respond to the love of God and love one another.

With many of the children of God how little is this life known experimentally. The secret may he found in the Lord’s words in Matthew 7: 13, 14, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it”. The broad way is the way of the world, it is the popular way, yet how many Christians are found walking in that way. Life is not to be found there. It is not in the riches, or pleasures, or religion of the world. The best things of the world are but vanity, death is on everything here. It all ends in destruction. We know that God in sovereign mercy will finally deliver every true believer from ultimate destruction. But as far as the present enjoyment of life and testimony is concerned, the way is destructive. Life is not to be found in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life; these things constitute the world.

Life is only to be found in the narrow way. The narrow way is the path of separation, the way that Jesus has marked out for us, the way in which He walked. He has left us an example that we may follow in His steps. This way has never been popular, “few there be that find it”. The strait gate is the cross of Christ. In it God has exposed and condemned the flesh in every form. If we accept the teaching of the cross, it means the putting off the body of the flesh, that is, the flesh in its totality. So that before we can enter by the strait gate, we have to be stripped of everything which gives us any importance in a natural way, as Paul said, “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ”, Phil 3: 7. Naturally we are too big to enter in by the strait gate. There must needs be a reducing process, as the Lord said to the disciples, “Unless ye are converted and become as little children, ye will not at all enter into the kingdom of the heavens”, Matt 18: 3. This way of life is not congenial to the natural man. So that it takes some finding. It is the only path of real satisfaction and happiness. What is really life is to be found nowhere else. Death is on everything in this world. The world passes away and the fashion thereof. But life is eternal, it is beyond the power of death. If souls are in earnest they will find this way of life, It is a divine principle that “he that seeketh findeth”, Matt 7: 8. “He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal”, John 12: 25 ¹².

From Goodly Words vol 9 (1931)