ETERNAL LIFE NO. 6

^[p. 111] ETERNAL LIFE NO. 6

As to the contention about eternal life, the mistake is that the work is overlooked for the gift. It is very plain that Christ did not give eternal life until after the work was accomplished. It is as risen from the dead — the last Adam (see John 17: 2) — that He gives eternal life. What ‘feeble souls’ want to accept is the work of Christ. The gift of eternal life was never used, that I know of, to establish souls. “It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace” (Hebrews 13: 9). “He which stablisheth us with you ... is God” (2 Corinthians 1: 21). The more I hear, the more I am assured that ‘feeble souls’ are damaged by presenting to them the gift — the actual testimony to the last Adam, instead of the work of Christ by which He obtained the position. The idea is that if a question be raised as to whether any one is enjoying the result of the work, that you are thereby invalidating the work. Evidently if the work be truly known the result is known. John’s great desire was that the saints might have conscious knowledge of eternal life. Did he thereby invalidate or depreciate the work? If I tell a man — when there is good light you will see a certain object, am I calling in question that he has eyes, or am I calling his attention to the result of his having eyes? I am convinced that those who reason this way are not clear as to having died with Christ, “for if we be dead with him, we believe that we shall also live with him” (2 Timothy 2: 11). “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6: 53). I see that I must in ministry dwell more on the work — the death and resurrection of Christ — for that is what souls want to be established in. Every one who is consciously in His life knows and enjoys Him in glory.

Some say that the ‘babe can delight in eternal life’ before he has learnt the setting aside of the old man. This is really ————’s doctrine. He says eternal life can be given before man is set aside in the cross, and here the doctrine is that eternal life can be delighted in before the setting aside of the first man is learnt. I say that is impossible. The whole point of John 3 is that life is connected with faith in the Son of man lifted up. What is the value of the second witness, “the water” (see 1 John 5) if the eternal life could be delighted in while purification by the death of Christ is unknown? If the setting aside of the first man has not been learnt, the sense of sin presses on me, and if it does, how can I delight in eternal life? There is a great difference in delighting in the service of the Saviour in putting away my sins, and in being in the sense of His life outside the scene of sin and death. The divine order is, “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ” (Romans 6: 11). The abolishing of death precedes the bringing to light life and incorruptibility by the gospel. This teaching accounts for and fosters all the earthly ways tolerated now-a-days, for in it you gain everything through Christ, and you part with nothing. Be assured that it is the other way. You must part with your own clothes before you take up the mantle of Elijah. Christ in glory is my life. How could I know a glorified Christ, the only Christ to be known now, the Christ whom “the fathers” know, but as I am, through the Spirit, apart from and outside of all of that man who dishonoured God, and is at a distance from Him. You cannot eat the old corn of the land without crossing the Jordan.