ETERNAL LIFE IN CONNECTION WITH THE CHURCH
[p. 389] ETERNAL LIFE IN CONNECTION WITH THE CHURCH
Reading, Revised by F.E.R.
Colossians 2: 1 - 23; 3: 1 - 4 We have seen that the course of God’s ways in blessing comes out in the kingdom, and the new covenant, and reconciliation, and eternal life. That describes pretty much the order of God’s ways both in regard of Israel and of christians; it is interesting to see the place of the church in connection with each point.
RSS That is the order of Romans 5, is it not?
FER Yes, there is no other order possible morally.
WM We must begin with grace.
FER Yes; God being what He is, and man what he is, no other order is morally possible. There are moral impossibilities for God; if it is a question of power, of course all things are possible; but there are moral impossibilities to God. God cannot lie.
JT The four things you mentioned are found in Romans 5.
FER Clearly. You do not find eternal life there, but grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. There is one point further, and that is the glory of God in the church.
RSS And that you do not get in Romans 5?
FER You do not get that even in Colossians, but in Ephesians 3. If we had opportunity, we might come to that this afternoon; it carries you beyond eternal life.
HF Do you think God’s dealings began with grace, was it not with love?
FER Love prompted Him and was the source of all His ways, but, man being what he is, God’s [p. 390] dealings must begin with grace; the grace of God brings salvation to man. When Christ came He came full of grace and truth. Love was the source, but grace was the attitude in which God presented Himself to man, and in which He still presents Himself.
WM What you referred to as the kingdom in Romans 5 is justification by faith, peace with God, etc.
FER That is the kingdom morally; the reign of grace in contrast with the reign of sin. Outwardly there is still the reign of sin, but what has come in is that grace should reign through righteousness, and now we are come to the apprehension of grace we have the word, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace”.
HC Is the way we become subjects in the kingdom by faith?
FER By faith you come under the moral sway of God; man’s will is subdued.
Ques Would reconciliation and eternal life be represented by peace, joy, and love?
FER The kingdom is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit; then the covenant brings in divine teaching, that is, of the love of God, the disposition of God toward us; when we are prepared for it: God does not make it known until we are prepared for it. The first thing God does in regard to man is to lay a moral foundation so that man may get into his true place in regard to God. Hence the importance of grace, it puts man into his true place. Once man is in that place, he becomes the subject of divine teaching; God makes known to him His disposition, and that is love. Then you come to reconciliation and the great point in that is that, where distance was, there is complacency and that involves new creation, because it is impossible that God could have complacency in the man that sinned. It is all leading on to eternal life.
[p. 391] R What is the aspect before us this morning of the assembly?
FER I think we have seen so far that the church is the necessary consequence of the kingdom; the Holy Spirit having come, of necessity that has brought about the house, since the Holy Spirit has not become incarnate. He has come to abide, and there must be a habitation. Christ paved the way for the coming of the Spirit, and the Spirit “dwelleth with you and shall be in you”. That brings in the house. Yesterday afternoon we saw another point in connection with the church, that Christ is Head; and in connection with that, the church is the first-fruits of reconciliation, “You ... hath he reconciled”. What is fulfilled in the church is that where distance was there is complacency, and this is true in the church, because Christ is there. Now we come to another point, a little in advance of that, that the church brings us to the truth of eternal life.
Ques In using the word ‘complacency’, it is in the sense of good pleasure?
FER Yes; the satisfaction of God. You can see the difference between the covenant and reconciliation; the covenant is man-ward, reconciliation is God-ward, that he might “reconcile all things to himself”.
JSA Do you get eternal life in this passage in connection with being quickened with Him?
FER Yes, one statement is, you are risen with Him, and the other, you are quickened with Him; and then you get the body, “From which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God”. That is, the whole body is, in that sense, in the life of Christ; He is the Spirit of it.
JSA And being quickened means being made to live together with Him where He is?
FER Not where He is, but in association; it is [p. 392] important to see that Colossians does not take you off the earth, and therefore it is in Ephesians that you get the glory of God in the church, because the truth in Ephesians sets the saints in heaven. Eternal life does not take you off the earth.
WHC You come to it in resurrection, it is in contrast to death?
FER Yes, you do not get it until on resurrection ground, and that does not take you off the earth.
JSA It is presented in Scripture as in contrast to death.
FER You cannot get to eternal life except either by resurrection or the setting aside of death. If God sets death aside, as in the millennium, then eternal life comes in. On the other hand, we reach eternal life by reaching resurrection.
TF What can you get from God apart from resurrection?
FER I think you may get the grace of God in the wilderness, forgiveness, and help, and a great many things. You have not reached resurrection ground until you are over Jordan; we get a great many things this side of Jordan in our individual path.
TF But God never touches us apart from resurrection.
FER No, but that is His side, not ours. Our side is another matter, we have a great deal to do this side of resurrection.
JSA We are not actually risen yet, and if God could not touch us where we are we should be badly off here.
FER If you look at a christian in his family obligations, they belong to this scene; and yet we have the grace and help of God in them.
JT That is, you come back from the resurrection sphere to fulfil these duties here.
FER Properly you begin with resurrection on the first day of the week in assembly; and then you [p. 393] come down from that to take up the duties of this life.
Rem “The life which I now live in the flesh”.
FER Exactly, that is not resurrection.
WHC Would not that describe the kingdom? “There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared”.
FER Yes, forgiveness, that is the expression of grace.
Rem This quickening here has nothing to do with new birth.
FER It is to bring you into association; new birth does not bring you into association.
WM What you said yesterday was helpful, that both reconciliation and eternal life are in contrast with what came in by sin; the one is out of death, and the other implies that the enmity is gone.
FER Yes, reconciliation has to say to enmity; on the other hand, eternal life has to say to death.
WM So the full display is in the world to come.
JSA I think you used an expression which was interesting, that eternal life does not take you off the earth. I think you mean resurrection itself does not take you off the earth.
FER Take the beginning of the next chapter, “If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”. The basis of the exhortation is, if ye then be risen with Him; that shows you where resurrection views you. You are on the earth, but you set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
PCR It puts you on new creation ground.
FER Yes.
Ques Do we not see how far resurrection carries you in the case of the Lord Himself during the forty days He remained on earth?
FER Quite so; resurrection in a literal sense puts you on earth. 1 Corinthians 15 never takes you [p. 394] off the earth; the point there is the complete triumph of God over death where death was and therefore the chapter never goes beyond resurrection.
JSA I think it is interesting in the passage about the rapture, that the dead in Christ rise first, and then are caught up together with the others, but there are the two distinct steps.
WM Only all are placed together in resurrection.
HF I do not understand how you apply the two distinct steps; what do you mean?
FER The first step comes out in 1 Corinthians 15, that is, the living are changed and the dead are raised. Then both are caught up; I daresay there may not be an interval of a second, but you get the two steps.
JT Then another thing is, the triumph is set forth where the death was.
FER That is the point.
GR You made a remark that in the millennium God will set death aside; is not that really the way it is looked at in the Old Testament, in Psalm 133 and Daniel 12, and also in the gospels?
FER Yes; in Isaiah it is spoken of prophetically, death is swallowed up in victory; that is for the millennium; and the thought of victory is taken up in 1 Corinthians 15, where the apostle says, “When ... this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory”. But in that chapter, where the subject is resurrection, the apostle does not teach the rapture, He brings in the resurrection and what follows on it.
WHC So that eternal life is connected with man and the earth.
HF Do you think in that scripture, “This corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality”, that one expression applies to those who are dead, [p. 395] and the other to those who are living when the Lord comes?
FER I think that both apply to those who have died. The apostle uses another expression in regard to those who are living, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed”.
HF What distinction do you make between this corruptible and this mortal?
FER Corruptible is perhaps a more limited term than mortal. Corruptible would refer more especially to the body, and mortal more to the general condition of man; his condition is mortal, that is, his life is forfeited.
WM You said last night that the resurrection of Christ sets forth the good pleasure of God in regard to us, so that we are risen by faith.
FER Quite so.
JT I do not know that it is so very clear to everybody that eternal life does not take us off the earth, because the most of us used to think it did, and that it belonged to heaven.
FER I do not see any meaning in its application to heaven. You could not touch eternal life otherwise than by resurrection, or by the setting aside of death. If you are come to the apprehension of resurrection and are on that ground, there it is you touch eternal life, but not short of that.
HF I do not understand; do you mean that when we go from this earth eternal life will cease?
FER I do not think the term has any longer force.
HF Is it only the term then?
FER What the term expresses has not any more force.
JT You would say it was a relative term?
FER Quite so.
JA Does not resurrection take you off the earth in a certain sense?
FER I do not think so. It fits [p. 396] you for heaven;
it is an antecedent step and prepares the way for heaven, you could not go to heaven without it.
Ques What will be the character of heaven?
FER Heaven is, as far as I know about it, the abode of God, where God gives character to everything; a scene of love and intelligence, everything takes its character from God.
Rem And those associated with Christ will be there.
FER Certainly, the whole heavenly company. In Revelation 5 you find not only the church but the entire heavenly company.
WHC Would you say that Israel at the end will enter into eternal life in the millennium?
FER It is in connection with Israel that eternal life is first spoken of. When you come to the New Testament you get the thought of eternal life in its application to the nations. In the Old Testament it is in connection with Zion and Israel, it is first mentioned in Psalm 133.
JT Then in Daniel some awake unto everlasting life and in Matthew 25 the nations go into everlasting life.
FER Matthew enlarges the thought to the gentiles; the Old Testament does not do that.
GR In the end of Acts 15 do not the Jewish saints speak, as in a kind of surprise, that God had granted repentance unto life to the gentiles?
FER Yes, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
WM Do you not think many have applied the Scriptures which describe the world to come to the eternal state, and have missed the point?
FER That may be.
HF What thoughts were in the apostle Peter’s mind when he said, “To whom shall we go, thou hast the words of eternal life”?
FER They felt, evidently, that eternal life [p. 397] was bound up with Christ Himself; it was in Peter’s mind, that only He had the words of eternal life.
WHC And they could not get it anywhere else.
RSS What is characteristic of eternal life will also be characteristic of what will be in heaven. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”.
FER But that is not a description or definition of eternal life.
RSS But it is what is characteristic of it.
FER It is the form in which we touch eternal life, but it is a great deal more than eternal life.
RSS What is eternal life?
FER I suppose it involves a state of blessing consequent on the setting aside of death. Life and blessing come in by Christ where death had been; that is what I understand by it. The idea of blessing began in Abraham: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad”. He looked forward to the setting aside of death in connection with the promise of blessing that God gave him, but his thoughts did not, in the main, go beyond the earth.
TF Is life for evermore in Psalm 133 and the word in John 17 the same thing? We do not go further as to eternal life than Israel did.
FER I could not say that, life for evermore, in regard to them, is in the public setting aside of death. Now we come to that on resurrection ground, that makes the difference between us and Israel; they do not come into resurrection; we do. If God were to interfere this moment and by the coming of the Lord to set death aside, you would get eternal life in the world, “There the Lord commanded the blessing”, that is, in Zion, “even life for evermore”, that is, not by resurrection, but by the setting aside of death.
[p. 398] Rem Any aspect of eternal life is the intervention of God in power to displace death.
FER Resurrection is the displacement of death; death being swallowed up in victory is the displacement of death, and it is displaced now for us in that we are risen by faith. You have come out of death, for baptism is the figure of death, and you are risen together with Christ by the faith of the operation of God that raised Him from the dead.
WM And that is why we can touch it now.
FER And where you can touch it.
HF In the gospel of John is it not first mentioned in connection with the death of the Lord, “As Moses lifted up the serpent”, etc.?
FER It was to come in by death even on the part of God.
HF Why does it say it was with the Father?
FER I think it is where it was even when Christ was here, and it is so morally for us.
HF Do you think it is only when Christ was here that it was with the Father?
FER The apostle was speaking of what had come within their cognisance, and shows us the place and character of eternal life. “That eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us”, it was with the Father, and it had been made manifest to them.
HF Then you do not understand that “was with the Father” related to something that was past?
FER No, it is a moral statement, not a question of time; the same thing is true with us, it is that eternal life which is with the Father, that is the place of eternal life. The apostle is speaking in an abstract way, so that it may be applicable to us, that which “is true in him and in you”.
WM That is the way in which it has pleased God to bring us into eternal life, with the Father?
FER Yes, so that Lord said in John 20, “I [p. 399] ascend unto my Father, and your Father”, that is the first thing, not ‘to My God, and your God’, but “to my Father, and your Father”.
HF I do not quite understand then why He does not say, that eternal life which is with the Father. Why does it say that eternal life which was with the Father?
FER Because the apostle is referring in the passage to what they had seen and contemplated in the presence of Christ on earth. The first two or three verses of the epistle are an introduction, giving their qualification, by what had come within their knowledge, to address us.
JP It was all past from the moment of their testimony.
R In the last chapter of the first epistle, where it speaks of Him as the true God and eternal life, does it speak of Him as risen and glorified?
FER It is that which is presented to us in Him now; we have the presentation of God and eternal life in Christ as He is known to us now, “We are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ”, we know Him in that light and He is the true God and eternal life.
TF Though eternal life could be spoken of in that way, it could not be said that there was anything new came out in God. You could not make eternal life an attribute added to God, when He revealed Himself in man; there was nothing added to the blessed Person of the Lord Jesus Christ or to God.
JT As regards the expression, ‘The true God and eternal life’, would you say ‘the true God’ is what is set forth from God, as it were, and ‘eternal life’ is more connected with Christ as man God-ward?
FER I think it has come out in Him as Man, but it is God’s thought in regard of man, it is only in Christ you see eternal life; where is there any man who is actually outside of death except [p. 400] Christ?
HF Perhaps where many get a wrong thought is in not understanding what it means, that He was from the beginning; what do you understand by the beginning?
FER I think it is the outset of the subject of life, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”. Christ is Himself the outset of that.
HT Would you say the apostles of Jesus Christ when here on earth had eternal life objectively and subjectively after the resurrection.
FER I do not think they ever had it subjectively.
HT “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”.
FER That is very objective.
JP Because the word ‘know’ is not the subjective side of things; it is not the same word as in 1 John 5.
FER I think that passage brings in the idea of association.
HT They saw eternal life manifested in Christ here and were drawn to Him.
FER Yes, but they saw it in relation to the Father, and John 17: 3 brings them into that place. It is like, “I ... know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father”: it brings them into that.
HC Is not that the way in which we are to understand the expression in the epistle, “That eternal life, which was with the Father”? He that we know as eternal life was with the Father?
FER I have thought this was so even when He was in their presence, it was when they could contemplate and handle Him.
WHC Would “In the beginning” in the first epistle of John refer to the constitution of christianity?
FER [p. 401] It is the beginning of the subject of life, the outset of the particular matter in hand.
JP I think the last verse of John 15 makes that very simple, “because ye have been with me from the beginning”.
FER The proper place of the church is in association with Christ. I think all would admit that; and association with Christ must be over Jordan; that is, you cannot have association with Christ except as risen with Him. In the things of the wilderness you can have no association with Christ; you own Christ as Lord.
RSS “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone”.
HT Cannot you have Christ’s sympathy in the wilderness?
FER Yes, but that is not association. He is out of it and you get His sympathy because He is out of it; but association must be with Him where He is; that is, the other side of death.
JA The angels said, “He is not here, for he is risen”.
FER In Hebrews 7, where the subject is priesthood, He is made higher than the heavens.
JSA And that is where you are in the assembly; that is what you meant, that you touch eternal life in the assembly.
FER In the assembly you are risen with Christ, in association with Him, and there it is you touch what is outside of death.
JSA You are in the scene to which eternal life belongs.
HF What is the significance of the term, you touch eternal life?
FER Your soul comes into contact with what is outside of death, that is, Christ Himself and the saints looked at as risen with Him; we are called of God to [p. 402] priestly service, and that is where I understand the soul touches the reality of eternal life.
Ques Cannot we touch eternal life outside of the assembly, individually, I mean?
FER I do not think so. In Romans, where the saints are taken up individually, you do not find eternal life, save as a reward, or an end, or a gift; you see life, but not eternal life. The two and a half tribes typically had life, but I do not think they came to eternal life; they stopped this side of Jordan, but they had life.
WHC Would everybody who had the Spirit have life?
FER Yes, because the Spirit is life. Many good christians have life in the wilderness, but they have settled down like the two and a half tribes. They have not accepted death from the world system, and hence they never come to where eternal life is.
JSA That explains the passage in John 4, not only it “shall be in him”, but it “shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”.
WHC Is that the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus?
FER I judge so.
WM What you are speaking of now is subjective?
FER It is evident that life must be subjective. Eternal life may be a state of blessing which God may bring in in resurrection or by victory.
WHF Do you think the reason we know so little about eternal life is because we know so little about the Son of God?
FER It is because we know so little about the assembly, the body of Christ. I will tell you where most people are, they confound faith and consciousness. Every christian has the faith of eternal life, but the faith is one thing, the consciousness of it, that is, the thing itself, is a different matter. The faith of a thing is not the thing itself, but the consciousness [p. 403] is.
JP The gospel of John leads you to the faith of it, but the epistle takes you up where the gospel leaves you; it is addressed to those who have faith to bring them into the consciousness of eternal life.
FER But you must not confound the assembly and eternal life, though it is in the assembly that you touch eternal life; that is, you pass out of the death scene in the sense of association with Christ and the saints.
JT You come to resurrection in association.
FER Exactly, you are risen with Him, and that according to the will of God. You are in priestly association with Christ and the saints, and are thus outside of death; but the moment you come back to the wilderness, and to things connected with your individual path, that cannot be said to be outside of death.
HF Is there any benefit in resurrection associations, because you said you could not be in association with Him in any other way than as to the assembly.
FER But I was only taking up the word of Scripture that you are risen “with him”, that is your title. Christ has left the flesh and everything appertaining to it; and now you can only be in association with Him according to God’s calling and that is as priests, as Aaron and his sons. Hence it is you are “risen with him”, and you are “quickened together with him”; but this is all in connection with the service of God in the sanctuary.
WM And there you touch the only Person who is outside of death.
FER We are morally outside of death, as in association with Him, but our association with Him at the present time is limited to priestly service, and that is connected with the assembly. We are His body, that is, associated with Him as Head; all that is in connection [p. 404] with the sanctuary.
HF Therefore it cannot be outside of the assembly.
JC Will you explain a little more fully what you mean by the assembly?
FER I mean Christ’s body; “From which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God”. It is that which is in association with Christ, and which Christ ministers to, and supports and sustains.
HF Would you bring, for instance, preaching the gospel into priestly association with the Lord Jesus Christ?
FER No, the apostles were to be with Christ, and He was to send them forth to preach, that was to be their service. One flows out of the other. To be a good Levite you should be a good priest.
JT The disciples had been in His company several days after His resurrection, and then He sends them forth.
FER You get the pattern in John 20; He comes in among them, is in the midst, and announces, “Peace be unto you”, and says afterwards, “as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you”. He sends them, they get their commission.
JC Priestly association is in connection with the morning meeting?
FER Properly, so far as entering into it is concerned; it is a wonderful thing to be in association with Christ and His things, outside of the world and every order of man; to be in association with Him in the things in which He ministers.
Ques Does priestly association come in in connection with the assembly prayer meeting?
FER There is no such thing as an assembly prayer meeting; such things are our invention. There is nothing in Scripture in regard to the assembly, except the assembly come together, and there is only [p. 405] one coming together of the assembly, and that is to the Lord’s supper. We have encumbered ourselves with a lot of human thoughts and ideas, and have clouded the simple word of Scripture.
HF Then you do not connect the prayer meeting any more with the assembly than the reading meeting?
FER I connect the prayer meeting with Matthew 18, two or three agreed as touching anything they should ask.
JT But where the saints came together for prayer, you would be thankful to see them all come.
FER If they were all exercised. People do not pray unless they are afflicted.
TF But we could pray for others if we were free from ourselves.
HF Would you apply that scripture, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together”, to the Lord’s table?
FER There was possibly a danger of those Hebrew christians forsaking the assembling of themselves together to avoid persecution, and hence I think it is they get that exhortation.
JSA And it is more a general expression than referring to any particular meeting.
HF Speaking about the prayer meeting, would it not be useful to those who did not come together for prayer to be there?
FER I would be glad if the whole meeting came, but I do not want people to come together for the mere sake of coming. What troubles me more than that is that when we do come together, so few pray. The apostle’s exhortation was that the men were to pray everywhere. It does not want a gift to pray. The men were to pray and if brothers prayed five words it would be better than praying twenty minutes.
GR You made a remark in regard to James, “If any be afflicted”, in contrast to “if any be merry”. It is not a question of my own body. I may be [p. 406] afflicted about the state of things or the gathering, etc., and if my soul is afflicted in that way, then I pray, and I would be glad of the fellowship of others who were likewise afflicted.
FER I think so.
HF Do you think that the scripture, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name”, does not apply to the assembly?
FER It is true for the assembly, but the Lord is contemplating the coming together of two or three to pray. This might occur where there is no possibility of the assembly. Take two or three on board ship, or in an isolated place, they come together and count on Christ being with them.
HF But do you not think it particularly applied to the assembly?
FER No, though it is true to the assembly.
JC Do you use the word ‘assembly’ in two aspects?
FER Yes, in a sense. The assembly is not always convened. Parliament is not always sitting. The same thing is true in regard to the assembly, it is always here, but not always convened. In heaven the assembly will always be in function, but it is not always in function down here.
RSS Going back to the subject of eternal life, would you speak of it in connection with the assembly, but we have not the good of it only there?
FER We need to make the distinction between eternal life and life. In Romans 8 life is the consequence of the presence of the Spirit in the believer; that is, “the body is dead on account of sin, but the Spirit life on account of righteousness”. But that is connected with the wilderness and practice. It is that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. “The Spirit life on account of righteousness”. But that is evidently a question of individual [p. 407] practice, and is connected with your pathway, which will come to an end.
HC What about that verse in Romans 6, “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”?
FER It is that God gives eternal life in Christ Jesus; it is there for you.
RSS So that in that way it may not be wrong to say that christians around us in system who have the Spirit have life, and yet, so far as eternal life is concerned, they really know nothing about it because it has to do with a scene outside of death.
FER Which they have never touched.
RSS I suppose that of which we were speaking, “that eternal life, which was with the Father”, refers to what was morally outside of death?
FER Christ was never under death. They saw the truth carried on to resurrection. They saw His life placed outside of death in resurrection. You can very well understand that the experience of Romans 8 comes to an end. It is not eternal life, and yet life is there; life comes out morally, in view of righteousness; the christian loves God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself because the Spirit is life in view of righteousness.
RSS It will not be a question of righteousness in heaven.
FER Not at all; but the evidence of life in the christian is that he does righteousness; he proves that he is born of God.
JSA I think there was a remark made in one of the other meetings which might be helpful to some here, viz., that a person cannot really say that he has actually eternal life unless he is clear of death. If he is going to die, how can he say he has actually got eternal life?
FER It is an enigma to me.
WM They mistake the faith of the [p. 408] thing for the thing itself, because Scripture says, “He that believeth hath”.
FER It is God’s mind for every christian and God has put it there in His Son and the whole question is as to reaching the Son.
WHC When you say ‘faith’, do you mean a revelation of God?
FER Faith is the light of God in the soul, the revelation of His will. The Galatians had sonship, but it was in faith, “Ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”. It was God’s mind for them, but they had not come to it, they were going back to circumcision, etc.
WM So that the only two things that we have actually are forgiveness and the Spirit.
RSS It says in the last chapter of John’s epistle, “These things have I written unto you ... that ye may know that ye have eternal life”.
FER Because you have come to it. You are conscious of it — but not as a possession. If I talk about having the Son, the Son is not a possession, and yet I am said to have the Son.
RSS You have Him objectively.
FER Exactly; in the truth of Him. You have appropriated Him; that is what you have come to. Affection has really reached Him. A .wife has a husband and yet he is not her possession; you cannot make the word ‘have’ always mean possession. I never questioned from the outset that eternal life was God’s thought for the christian. But in Scripture it is not a subjective thought as a possession, but it is placed in the Son and the whole point is reaching the Son.
RSS But of course we have what comes in in John 4, the well of water springing up into eternal life.
FER You possess the well of water, that is, the Spirit is in [p. 409] you.
RSS You have the good of eternal life now by the Spirit.
FER “He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting”. You have the power in you by which you reap it and so has every christian. You have in you that which springs up, but it has to spring up.
RSS But you have eternal life in the assembly.
FER But you do not reach it except by association.
RSS How about praying in your room alone?
FER You cannot be conscious of eternal life apart from the saints; apart from association.
GR Would you say the idea of a family illustrates it; there may be brothers and sisters who are much to one another and yet they are apart. When they come together it is a different thing, then you get association.
GBM Am I right in this thought that prayer in the closet can be cut short by death but association with Christ never can?
FER Precisely; when you come to association with Christ, and the saints, and priestly service, all is eternal.