THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 5

THE SPHERE OF LIFE NO. 5

I am not surprised that you should be depressed by the contention which prevails amongst us. I find that the only true way is to be assured first from the Word what eternal life is, and when you are assured divinely of what it is and what it confers, then you will be proof against all perversions and misrepresentations.

It is said that a clerk in a bank first learns what a good banknote is, that he is kept in a room where the bank-notes are until he knows a good one, and then when any note which is not good is presented to him he knows it to be bad.

I do not believe that any one apprehending the greatness and blessedness of eternal life could fail to see where the truth lies at the present time. Some do not see any unsoundness in the teaching itself who do not enter into the positive side, that is, the greatness and joy of it. These latter, though they do not actually oppose, do not help. The one seeking to have a conscious knowledge of having it (which is the object of John’s first epistle, as he says, “These things have I written unto you ... that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5: 13)) is sure to be a help. The very fact that eternal life is outside of my senses — To God I am beside myself — is enough to show me that it must be opposed or evaded because it is, as Mr. Darby says, ‘an ^[p. 51] out-of-the-world condition of things’. Every one who has a heart like Peter (Matthew 14) would leave the ship (what suits man) to join the Lord in His own life outside and apart from all that refused Him here. Christians, as a rule, do not seek it. Paul says to Timothy, “Lay hold on eternal life”, though it was his all the time. Grace has given me much more than I yet enjoy or have appropriated. The Lord grant that you may appropriate and enjoy it.