GREENWICH, OCTOBER 29TH, 1890

GREENWICH, OCTOBER 29TH, 1890

It is, I judge, a grave mistake to make any essential difference between eternal life as presented in Paul’s writings and in John’s. It is the same subject wherever presented. The apostleship of Paul was especially connected with eternal life. (See 2 Timothy 1:1.) It is evident that he unvaryingly connects it with the second Man — Christ in glory. “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ”, (Romans 6:23) the One who has annulled death and brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel. We have in principle the same truth taught in John’s first epistle, “God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son”. Christ is seen in this epistle as with the Father (an advocate, etc.), and in the last chapter God’s Son is carefully identified as Jesus Christ who has come through water and blood, and it is of Him that it is predicated “He is the true God, and eternal life”; that is, as I understand it, in full revelation.

But it is also taught in John that that eternal life which was with the Father had been manifested to the apostles. Now, though this unquestionably refers to the days of Christ’s flesh, it is distinct from what He was in His own Person, and had ever been, though this now gave its character to manhood. He was when here the last Adam, the second Man, though not yet clothed according to the counsels of God, in a condition commensurate with what He was spiritually in life. What was morally life in Him was what He was with God in spiritual being and relationship (as well as Himself being God), but this was for the moment clothed in a condition pure and immaculate in itself, but not commensurate with the spiritual being. The truth of His humanity is clearly seen in the meat-offering; there was pure humanity — the fine flour mingled with oil — the divine and spiritual principle. Hence with the Lord here, there was, as we see in the garden and elsewhere, “The days of His flesh”.

Now what came under the eye of God and before the eyes of men, apart from fruits and power of the anointing of the Holy Spirit for service and glimpses of divine glory, was the perfect setting forth of man (and in a sense Israel too) after the flesh. Every detail of life down here was pervaded and governed by the spiritual principle which men knew not of — the divine nature. What they saw was man after the flesh in divine perfectness before God, and thus everything in Christ was light; there was no part dark. But all this perfectness as man here after the flesh, in which Jesus abode alone, was to end in death, that not only might He become the sin-bearer, but in resurrection enter on manhood in a glorious condition suited to what He ever was and had been in heavenly being and relationship, even when here after the flesh.

Now this condition of heavenly being and relationship ^[p. 31] to which, in Christ, all after the flesh was, so to say, subjected, was made manifest by divine grace to the apostles, together with the Father’s name. They saw that though Jesus had a condition in the flesh here, with the relationships and obligations connected with it, He was at the same time “the Son of man which is in heaven”, and it was confirmed and verified to them in His resurrection. Hence there was the revelation to them of eternal life in its true heavenly character in God’s Son.

Thus we see how in itself eternal life was outside all after the flesh, so that what was after the flesh could be laid aside, while the human soul remained, and the Son of man which is in heaven could take life again as Man, but not as after the flesh, but in a totally new condition suited to what He ever was as out of heaven; and thus He is said to be eternal life.

Now all this is utterly confused by such a statement as that He never ceased to be the exhibition of eternal life from the Babe in the manger to the throne of the Father. The exhibition of eternal life is reduced to the lowest and weakest point of man after the flesh. Christ is not honoured by it; and the perfect setting forth (in the power of the divine nature) of man after the flesh is ignored in order to connect the display of eternal life with the details of human life down here — the life of the first man — instead of apprehending the truth conveyed in the fine flour mingled with oil of which the memorial was burned with the sacrifices.

All that is now passed; Christ can never be known again after the flesh, and the out-of-the-world heavenly condition of relationship and being in which eternal life consists is now fully revealed in Christ, in whom it ever was both essentially and in the purpose of God. He is declared to be eternal life, as He is the last Adam and the second Man, all fully revealed in His risen glorious Person.

F E. Raven.