ETERNAL LIFE
ETERNAL LIFE
“The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us”, 1 John 1: 2. The first point is that the eternal life has been manifested unto us by the Son. He became a Man, and it was manifested in Him; it was never manifested in a man till the Son came. It is in the eternal life only that we could have fellowship with the Father and the Son.
[p. 355] It is every way of the deepest importance that we should see the eternal life is an entirely new existence, never possible among men until the Son came, and then for the first time it was manifested. The nature and measure of the life which the saints had before the coming of Christ, I cannot determine; all I can insist on is that the eternal life which was with the Father as the very term, “with the Father”, shows — could not be manifested unto us until the Son came. The Son, a Man down here, manifested unto us the life that He had in common with the Father, and He then, as the “last Adam”, gives us this eternal life (John 17: 2).
We start, then, with the simple fact that the eternal life was never manifested in a man until the Son came, and that He was the virtual and actual expression of that life down here. No man ever had precedence of Him.
Next we have to learn that this life was an entirely new one on the earth. Men of God acted for Him here in divine power, according to the measure in which He was pleased to reveal Himself. He was never declared to any of them as Father; until the Son came, this could not be. “The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. The life of God is manifested by a Man on this earth. Hence after stating what had ever been true, that “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”, our blessed Lord can say to Nicodemus, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven. 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”. The Son of man is to be lifted up, crucified, made an offering for sin, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. This life is heavenly in its nature, tastes and interests. The blessed Son humbled Himself,
[p. 356] and became a Man. He came to do His Father’s will. He freely offered Himself. He, who knew no sin, was made sin for us. He vindicated God on our side, that every one believing in Him might be in His life; not reinstated in the condition which man lost in judgment but in the life of the One who bore our judgment, so that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. This life is consequently entirely outside the ken of man. The natural man understands not the things of the Spirit of God. “The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God”.
From Adam to Christ, the work of grace in every man of God was to be faithful to God in the circumstances in which he was placed, God acting by him, and for him; but when the Son became a Man, the very nature and ways of God were manifested in the Son of man down here. Nothing of the sort could ever have been seen in a man before. There was One now here who always did the things that pleased God. He was not trying to stand for God on this or that occasion, but He was in Himself a contradiction to everything that was not of God, as the light in the darkness. He was the exhibition of every divine beauty in every detail of His life. The life with the Father was manifested unto us; and that in the One who, because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, “likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”. There is no reinstating of the first man; there is no attempt, as with servants of God up to this, to take the kingdom by violence; now the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than any who had preceded. Hence, in John 4: 14, our blessed Lord announces to the woman of Samaria, one who was reduced to the most pitiable condition, that through the gift of God she should have a new wonderful history in the very scene of her former misery. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall [p. 357] give him shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. These words describe the state of existence that is to be enjoyed now, and which was not possible to be known by any one until the Son had come, and had Himself removed by His death everything which barred the full expression of the love of God. Where in the whole range of the Old Testament do we find any anticipation even of the blessedness propounded by our blessed Lord to that pitiable woman? The very magnitude of it, I have no doubt, leads many to pass it by as an impossibility, or as meaning something not within the range of human comprehension. Where else is there set forth anywhere such a state as never thirsting, but having in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life? Moses, David, and the prophets had deep, earnest longings, but when was any one of them in possession of what is offered to this desolate woman of Samaria?
But that is not all. As this chapter describes the believer’s state within, so chapter 5 reaches to the outward state, — the body superior to infirmities now, and the resurrection of life assured; while in chapter 6. it is food of life that is presented. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, there is no life in you. No one could have done this before Christ came; and, mark, it is by feeding on His death that we enter practically into the enjoyment of His life.
Chapter 7 is the Holy Spirit given to us from a glorified Christ. We feed on Christ’s death and we are in the power of the Holy Spirit here from Christ glorified. “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” — never known before, because “the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”.
Chapters 8 and 9 tell us of the light, how it exposes the secrets of men’s hearts, but discloses His grace, though not to condemn. But when it was possessed, as in the case of the blind man, the momentous fact was disclosed [p. 358] that no man — however near, like the neighbours; or however religious, as the Pharisees; or however naturally related, as the parents; or even God’s people on the earth, as the Jews, could grasp the source of the light; and not only this, but they cast out the man who was the recipient of it. When, or how, could any such thing have happened to a man before? The new standing of this man is described in chapter 10; out of everything Jewish, and into everything of Christ. In chapters 14 to 17 our present portion and power, consequent on the rejection of Christ, are declared to us — impossible, as well as unknown, to any saint previous to His rejection.
I have only to add that it is evident from John’s epistle that very soon the church lost the true idea of eternal life; so much so that the apostle tells us, that these things are written “that ye may know that ye have eternal life”. Let any one read 1 John, and in any degree apprehend the fellowship “with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (impossible to be enjoyed until the Son had come), and surely he will admit that the eternal life is an existence entirely apart from human ken. Many believers have no idea of this life. They are assured, through grace, that their immortal souls will be happy in heaven — which they surely will — but they have no idea of possessing a new existence, capable of enjoying God, answering to His nature, and sharing in His thoughts and interests; one, too, in which we have fellowship with one another, and in which we come out in the obedience and walk of our Lord Jesus Christ on the earth.
In this new existence we can, through the Spirit’s power, reach Him in heavenly places where He is; we can be “beside ourselves”, and break from everything here, cross the Jordan, and enjoy the scene of light above; again to resume, with a deeper apprehension of His grace, our duties down here, as He has been pleased to set us here; but always with an increasing sense of the ineffable delight that He is our life, and that when He shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory.