ETERNAL LIFE

P. H. Hardwick

Matthew 25: 45, 46; John 3: 12–15; 4: 13–16; 5: 24, 25, 39, 40; 6: 51–54

I shall need help in this address to say a little about some features which stand connected with eternal life; and one is much measured even in having this desire, though encouraged, because the great matter of eternal life bears such a wonderful description in Scripture, being mentioned in the Old Testament as the blessing of all blessings (Psalm 133), and, in the New, as being the act of favour of God (Romans 6). The subject evidently merits therefore a great deal of attention, the more so because the ministry of the truth has now returned to this great feature. The older ones among the saints here will be more acquainted with the critical times connected with the ministry of this truth sixty years ago. It divided the saints, but after a time it became less prominent in the ministry.

Other things came into view, which we can quite understand; the great and glorious Person of the Son had to have more place with us—a corrected, adjusted place in our minds—but we can now see one of the reasons was that this great blessing is in God’s Son. ‘God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in His Son’. How then can we begin to understand the life that is in God’s Son, a life which is to be imparted to us, unless we understand a little more of the Person of the Son? So we were helped some years ago to have this made prominent and clear; hence we now all understand that the sonship of Christ has reference not to His deity but to His manhood. What lies behind His sonship is His deity, but the majestic attractions and glory of His Person in His manhood provide the setting and pattern for sonship in us, for we are His brethren. Much lies in that. It would almost appear as if the Lord reserved this great matter of eternal life until we understood other things.

Then there is the question of the Father—the living Father. “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”. And again, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14: 28); “My Father ... is greater than all”, John 10: 29. This helps us to make our service to Christ and to the Father spiritually proportionate. And following on all these disclosures, we have now light as to the great matter of the assembly, and of the Spirit. So we have all these together—the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the assembly; and, in result, we never forget we belong to the assembly and it is to dominate our thoughts. The Lord is like the man in Deuteronomy 24 who has married a new wife and who does not go out to war nor have any business imposed upon him for a whole year, that he may “gladden his wife whom he hath taken”. This is the year, and the Lord is using every moment of it to cheer the heart of His wife.

Then there is the Spirit. Many godly men have written hymns in the past to the Spirit, hymns worth reading, but is there among them a hymn to the Spirit which takes the assembly into account? It waited for the great typical truth concerning Isaac and Rebecca to be opened up for the magnificent service of Abraham’s servant to come into prominence, one who would serve not only in connection with Abraham and Isaac but with Rebecca. The question would be—Were there any hymns to the Spirit, which introduce the assembly, before now? There are such today. So the ministry of the truth is gaining ground in this finishing time. If we ask the Lord to come it means that all that relates to the assembly must be strengthened for He is coming for the assembly, coming in connection with others as well, “those that are Christ’s”, but her specially, for there is no other family on earth in mind at the present time, only the assembly, though there are others that will rise at the resurrection.

And now the ministry has returned to this great matter of eternal life. I feel how little I know of it. It does not mean merely eternal existence. The paralytic in the gospels was just alive, but he could not be said to be living in relation to all that enters into the practical joy and activity of life. So undoubtedly every believer lives for ever, and will be eternally secure, but there is more—there is this great act of favour of God, referred to in Romans 6, provided for the believer. It implies a realm, a sphere where life and joy and blessedness can be enjoyed, and things shared with one another, as it stands related to persons. Take any exalted society of this world by way of illustration, a society with the king as its patron; its very life exists in the persons included; its life is not in title or on parchment, but in persons; and when two or three of them meet together in some unexpected place, the life of the society manifests itself, and they have a circle of enjoyment not shared by any others. Now God has that in mind, that there shall be a realm where this blessedness is to be enjoyed, and that is among the saints.

So in Matthew 25 certain ones are called righteous, “blessed of my Father”, and these enter into a realm of life—life eternal. Let us think of this great matter of a sphere of life being provided. Have you ever had any experience of it? Years ago there was a tendency to print John 3: 16 in bold characters, and to underline the word “have” and then to say, ‘I have eternal life’. The question might then be asked. If so, tell us something about it. We cannot speak of it like a shilling in our pocket as one said. We need to be instructed as to what the term means, and first of all there is a realm where it can be enjoyed, and we could enquire, Do we know anything about it? We can find it among the saints and especially among brethren dwelling together in unity in the all-pervading grace of the Spirit, like the precious ointment upon Aaron’s beard which ran down to the hem of his garments (see Psalm 133).

It is not only a question of doctrine, we want the practical joy of it; and so these scriptures like Matthew 25 help us to understand that in due time, in the world to come, God will have a sphere of blessedness into which the nations will enter. Ephraim and Judah joined together without envy or

vexation, a sphere where the blessing will be commanded. If I am made a freeman of the city of London, it will not operate in Bristol, it operates where the privilege is conferred; and so in the world to come there will be a sphere with many entering into it, and tasting the blessedness found therein. It is one thing to taste the comparative absence of death, for men will live in a way that suggests eternal life, they will live to a thousand years of age and more.

It is not a thousand years since William the Conqueror; think of God keeping men in conditions of flesh and blood, alive and vigorous, not senile, but having the pressure of death lifted off! It will be a time when there is no complaining, even the children will be happy, and the ground will give its increase. If it is but a mere scratch in the earth, as we speak, and seed is sown, up will come the fruit! We shall not be there in flesh and blood conditions, for divine Persons have something different in mind as to us; for all is to be changed when the Lord comes; we shall have bodies like His own body of glory, so we shall not be here in these bodies any longer. How then, it will be asked, does this matter of eternal life and blessing attach to the saints of the present time?

That brings us to the passages I read in John’s gospel, as John does not occupy us primarily with the dispensational side of things; he brings all into the present, taking up the Lord’s own words in a peculiar way, and all these scriptures are the Lord’s own words. One might wonder how it was that Matthew did not get them; he, too, was an apostle, but he presents one side and John another. One outstanding difference is the emphasis that John’s gospel puts on love, and the great positions of love, and the quality of lovability expressed in John personally. Think of what he would be conscious of as he lay in the Lord’s bosom! Satan was in that upper room, and preparing his worst. The betrayer was there, and presently Satan enters into him. Yet John is not disturbed. It might be said he did not fully understand, but he is not disturbed, and the Lord is not. There is ability to be restful and to be full of joy even in the presence of sin and treachery, though feeling it deeply as we become conscious of it. This would show how we can enjoy these conditions now.

One of the ways of describing the Lord is “The eternal life which was with the Father”; it does not say ‘in heaven’; the disciples did not handle Him in heaven, but here, where they listened to His word. The Lord Jesus was the manifestation of eternal life, living consciously in the love of the Father, though actually here where sin and death are. The ability to do that was manifested in Him; so if we want to see the manifestation of eternal life it is portrayed in Him. For example, when everything was outwardly so black and depressing, whole cities turning against Him, and He has to say, “Woe to thee, Chorazin! woe to thee Bethsaida!”, yet in the same moment He says buoyantly, “I praise thee. Father ... that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes”. So it can be seen where His holy, living conditions were, and what was there in His Person. And this life is for us, as it says, “God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son”.

Has God according to this passage in John 3 a warrant for bringing it in? Yes, the Lord Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, the teacher of the Jews, and He is giving him a very severe shake.

“Thou art the teacher of Israel and knowest not these things!” It might do us good to get such a spiritual challenge, if it were to result in our readiness to face perhaps another kind of world,

really heavenly things, another kind of life. Nicodemus spoke of earthly things, and did not understand them—and he the teacher! “We speak that which we know”, the Lord says. Nicodemus did not know, so how could the Lord speak of heavenly things? Such things involve the thought of the mystery—a mysterious Person in a mysterious place, “The Son of man who is in heaven”.

Our minds are directed to what is heavenly by way of the cross. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, thus must the Son of man be lifted up”. The Lord is going back in speaking with Nicodemus to the very origin of evil, in the serpent. The Son of man has, in the mighty transaction of the cross, gone right back to the incoming of evil, and met it, and exhausted the judgment. The origin was not in man, it was in the serpent, hence the serpent of brass was lifted up, and those who looked lived. But the question has been met and solved in man; so Jesus is now an object of faith, that we might believe in the Son of man lifted up!

John puts the cross, so to speak, looking over the Jordan, for eternal life is in view. But Paul puts the cross as it were looking into the wilderness, according to God, having in view that we walk in righteousness, the righteous requirement of the law being fulfilled in us who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit. John directs our gaze into another land, the land of life, brought before us in chapter 5. It is as if John would say, This is a critical point, let your faith be operative here. “He that hears my word, and believes him that has sent me, has life eternal, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life”.

Think of the land of life! This becomes true in our minds and souls by the Spirit. Why do we constantly find spiritual things beyond us, and why is there no fruit in us? If we do not get on here at the beginning of things, we shall not get on at all. “Does this offend you?”, the Lord says, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before?” I believe He means that the ministry is to become more heavenly, and therefore we shall find it more testing.

Now the Lord goes back not only to the origin of evil, but to the origin of love, for love is in God and He gave His Son “that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. Christ has given God a free warrant, may we say, to come out with all that is in His heart. Then why should we not all enjoy it? The settlement for God of every moral question at the cross enables God to reveal the love of His heart, and faith begins to visualise another scene, another world of life in Christ, “in his Son”.

Then in chapter 4 the Lord Jesus is talking about the power of eternal life. God is now free to give it, the preaching of the word includes that. It is the great gift He has for men, to set them up in joy. Most of the trouble in John 4 is connected with this question of power to find our joy linked up with the sphere where life is. So the Lord says, “The water which I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life”. Who can doubt the Lord was speaking about the Spirit under the guise of living water which He was prepared to give, so that it might be in us and operative! It is abundantly clear from these two chapters that chapter 4 provides the subjective answer to the objective presentation of Christ in John 3.

It is not to be a pool, not a certain volume to remain there, like the pot of oil unused, but living and active, and operative, reminding us that the sphere of eternal life is connected with resurrection. We shall spend our time during the millennium in the heavenly setting, but at the present time we can have this water springing up to our joy.

Many of us would have to admit, if we laid bare our hearts, that we are held up on this; we know little of it, and some have not touched it. The reason is that moral questions have never been solved. The woman said, “Sir, give me this water ...” and the Lord replied, “Go call thy husband”. He touches the moral side with her. We have spoken of this many times, and there it is—one of the most outstanding instances of the spiritual depending on the moral. The Lord would say, You must get this question settled in My presence whatever you are wedded to; it may be self-will, and you will not give it up. This woman was perfectly transparent. She could see, in the Son of God, One who could give her the best, but only on a moral basis.

How easily these things can be settled, as in this case! This is cognate to a great many things.

What keeps many out of fellowship or hinders their return? The brethren always know where we are, but this is the mainspring, we can have the blessing, but on moral grounds. This woman said, I shall face it, whatever it is. What the Lord has in mind is the Spirit as a fountain springing up to a realm of joy where the brethren are. It is a living company on the other side of death; let us not shut ourselves out of that. Come into it by way of this moral process.

In chapter 5 we have a sphere of eternal life dominated by Christ. “He that hears my word ... has life eternal”. That strikes again at certain conditions. If God and the Father give the best gifts, there must be conditions. If, for example, I sought to join the exalted worldly society, alluded to earlier, it would involve compliance with certain conditions, and this sphere we have been considering is the most blessed, so has God

not a right to insist that we shall be clear of what would detain us, and subject to His Son and the word, if we are to be admitted there? What the Lord says would prevent us from thinking of mere words, or a mere phrase to describe the blessing. We might quote Mr. Darby and say, ‘Eternal life is an out-of-the-world condition of things’, but that does not give it me! To the Pharisees the Lord said, “Ye search the scriptures, for ye think that in them ye have life eternal, and they it is which bear witness concerning me; and ye will not come to me that ye might have life”. Coming to Me means all these questions solved. It is a question of His Person; later Martha says of Lazarus, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection in the last day”. That is, she had a time and specific event in her mind, but the Lord’s answer is, ‘ I am the resurrection and the life’. That is, it is a question of what is in His Person now.

John 6 indicates who gets life eternal. Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of man indicates He has died, and we are to appropriate His death not for relief for our sins this is not the setting—but that all the life pertaining to the first order of man, especially his pretension and importance, may be finished with in our own souls. So we are not appropriating any other kind of man. We must go this way, not be clinging to social distinction. Eternal life negatives all that; it cannot work under such conditions. John’s words bring it to our very door as they are from the lips of the Son of man. So it does away with all the pretentiousness of the first man. “He that eats … has life eternal, and I will raise him up at the last day”. Am I helping on the last day? It is a long period. For the earth it is a thousand years, and the Lord Jesus raising people up to go through it, but for us there is something better.

Have we a place in all this, are all enjoying it? All this is to whet our appetites, so that we may ponder it, and see that nothing hinders on our side. There is a hint of what is subjective in 1 John 3: 15, “No murderer has eternal life abiding in him”; one who hates his brother nullifies the conditions. May we be attracted by what is presented, and pray about it and seek the Spirit’s help, that we may have entrance into this wonderful blessing and the sphere of its enjoyment.

Address at Enfield, (Revised by P.H.H.)
8 April 1950