ETERNAL LIFE
For many people whose minds have not been formed by the way that the truth is presented in the Scriptures, eternal life has been envisaged as being only the assurance, by faith in Christ, of never coming under condemnation, while the Scriptures present it in a present aspect, as a portion into which we enter by the Spirit ... It was in God’s mind for man in giving His only begotten Son (John 3: 16), and eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord is presented as the gift of grace (or act of favour) of God, in contrast with the wages of sin, Rom 6: 23. In some passages of Scripture, it is envisaged as a portion into which we enter in the future, such as for example in Matthew 25: 46, Mark 10: 30 and Jude 21, but in John’s writings, as elsewhere in the Scriptures, it is presented as being given now by the Son (1 John 5: 11) so that we enter into it by the Spirit (John 4: 14), and being sustained in continually eating the flesh of the Son of man and in drinking His blood (John 6: 54), which consists in abiding in the Son and in the Father (1 John 2: 24, 25), and in the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, John 17: 3. One enjoys it in the circle of the brethren where love reigns, 1 John 3: 13, 14. Timothy, who without doubt was already a believer when Paul wrote to him, was exhorted to lay hold of eternal life (1 Tim 6: 12) in contrast with the desire to become rich, v 9. In the natural order of things, life is not simple existence, but it consists in relationships with the affections and interests which are proper to them, and it has been justly said that life eternal is a heavenly condition of relationship and being outside of the world11, in which the believer has part. Peter declared that the Lord’s words, which He said were spirit and life, were the words of life eternal, John 6: 68.
Extract translated from the French magazine, ‘Ondées’,
June 1955
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