ETERNAL LIFE
J. A. Gardiner
Romans 6: 20–23; 1 John 5: 6–15
I would like to say something about eternal life. It is a very blessed matter that we should have fellowship with the apostles whose fellowship was with the Father and with the Son. How great that is! Divine love will not rest until it has brought us into the enjoyment of it.
God has brought it forward because of the fall, and it is the answer to all the problems that beset the race on account of the fail of man. We read in Romans 6 that it is the end to be reached in the teaching of the glad tidings. We preach mostly, perhaps, the side of relief, but I think there is great need that the teaching of the gospel should increasingly come into the preaching, because the gospel sets us up rightly in every relationship. It recovers us to God, we are set up rightly in our relations with God; we are set up rightly in our relations with men; and we are set up rightly in our relations with the authorities. Chapter 12 of course comes before chapter 13, so that we are committed to the will of God and, as far as conscience allows us, we are subject to the powers that be. Hence we have persons fully recovered to God and in the power of the Spirit moving here as delivered from all the elements and evidences of the fall of man. That is morally, and when we speak about what is moral we mean the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. There is clarification in that. We speak about what is moral and maybe young persons do not understand what it means, but that is what it means, it is the difference between what is right and wrong in God’s sight, the difference between good and evil.
Then we progress, we learn how to choose the good and how to refuse the evil. But then some refinement comes in and we have what is excellent; then we have something else and it is called “more excellent”; then we have something else that is “more surpassing excellence”, 1 Corinthians 12: 31. That is the way of love, it is the manifestation of the divine nature. The Lord Jesus has come into the position of testimony; that is what John says in his epistle. He has come into that position with the resources of His love, the water and the blood. The Spirit is here to make good in us what is in God’s mind as having delivered us from the forces of evil, delivered us from the effects of the fall. He begins with the water because our moral state is in mind; we need to learn the difference between right and wrong and good and evil as God sees it. We may all have our own judgments and assessments of what is good and what is bad, but the light of God comes in the glad tidings and shows us how He feels about everything. We need to follow what has been called the line of the Spirit’s teaching, so that we arrive substantially at eternal life, and that we are conscious in ourselves that we have it. That is what John says, you have the witness in yourself and you are the witness. The testimony that you have eternal life is manifest in the fact that you are a happy, satisfied, overcoming person.
So we begin in the gospel with the blood; Romans 3 begins with the blood, that is the judicial side is met. The blood has to do with our guilt. Light comes into your soul. Naturally we do not think about God. Oh you may think about God, but naturally we are so full of self that we think we are on a par with God. God has to show us, and ultimately we come to recognise, that we are nothing. That is what Mr. Darby’s hymn says, ‘That we our nothingness may know’ (Hymn 87). How important that is if we are to come into the enjoyment of God’s love.
So that the type is that you are in Egypt, being independent and thinking you are doing your own will; but really you are under the domination of Pharaoh. There is a superior power that really has you in bondage. The scripture we read tells us that our members were yielded in bondage unto sin. But light comes in and you feel the need of deliverance; you are guilty before God. I hope every person in this room has had that experience, that they have been conscious of guilt before a holy God, and they could nothing about it. That is an evidence of the Spirit’s work in the new birth. Finally the word of God comes to you and you find light from God, and you flee to God for mercy and come under the shelter of the blood. Things are done in haste, you do not saunter out of Egypt; your loins are girt, your staff is in your hand and you are going out, you cannot stay there. You prove deliverance from that point of view.
The next thing is, of course, you can see that baptism comes in and the teaching of it, “as many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death”, Romans 6: 3. You begin to understand the power of Satan has been broken in Jesus’ death of scorn (see Hymn 290). It comes out typically in the Red Sea. And so you are clear of Egypt. I hope everybody here is clear of what Egypt typifies. It has been rightly said, We are out of Egypt but is Egypt out of me? That is the next process that is needed, to get independency out of us and become dependent on God. That is the kingdom. So we have redemption; it brings us into the kingdom, and in the kingdom we are under a different government. We begin to understand what grace is. We may feel that we are saved, we are under the shelter of the blood and the consciousness of guilt has been removed from us, but we do not really know the heart of God in its fulness. There are two sides to the blood—one is that it meets our guilt; but the other side—and that is the side that the Lord would have us appreciate—it is the manifestation of divine love. The Lord Jesus would like every person in this room to be fully in the gain of His love, and of His Father’s love, have fellowship at that level. If you follow the footnote to ‘fellowship’ in 1 John 1: 3 it refers to Hebrews 2: 14 where the footnote says, ‘that is, they are in that condition, as their common lot’. The Lord Jesus, through grace, became Man and took part in the blood and flesh
condition we are in, in order to set us free from the bondage and fear of death. Eternal life is the result of this, beloved, because it does not wane, it remains in its holy constancy in the power of the love of God.
So as subject in the kingdom, you learn how to live. The Lord Jesus would teach us how to live. I think it is very wonderful that He dwelt among them. See how He moved, how He walked about, how He spoke, how He prayed, how He met situations. It was a different kind of life, meeting things in a different way. They would meet them, I suppose, in the way they were taught as Jews, they would meet them with the letter; but we need to learn that the Lord is the Spirit of the covenant. As we are subdued in the kingdom, we are amenable to divine teaching. Your affections are secured and He begins to write in your heart. To see a person in the gain of the gospel you just need to go to Paul and see how he meets situations; see how he met the situation in Corinth positively, without in any sense compromising the truth. Imagine brethren having the audacity to say to Paul, If you come here you better take a letter with you.
That is what they said, and because they said that he writes to them saying, “Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or do we need, as some, commendatory letters ...?”. Then he says, “Ye are our letter ... known and read of all men”, 2 Corinthians 3: 1, 2. The effect of the covenant had been manifested in them. He says the Spirit is not writing on tables of stone, as Moses did. He is writing on the fleshy tables of the heart (2 Corinthians 3: 3).
Now you can see the importance of subjection in the kingdom if the Spirit of God is going to write in your heart, because if you are in a state of turmoil, there is no room for the Spirit to write. But your affections are being cleared and purified, because He has come by water as well as blood, and the covenant is being made effective in your soul. Think of the wonder of it, the ministry of the Spirit subsisting in glory (see 2 Corinthians 3: 8), and the Lord is the Spirit of the thing. As Christ was with the disciples, they could see how He handled the law, they could see the spirit of it, they could see what was meant by it, they could see the fulness of it in Him, because He magnified it and made it honourable (see Isaiah 42: 21). When we come into that land we begin to look on the glory of the Lord, the Mediator of the new covenant. It is not natural, the best of nature is not equal to it. We may be taken in by that, thinking it is very nice. Nature is all right in its place, do not let anybody say it is not, because it is of God, but remember it is a fallen nature and there was to be no honey in the oblation. They would see that with Jesus; there was no leaven, there was no honey; there was the evenness of the fine flour of the oblation as Jesus moved in every circumstance. That is the kind of food the priests were to eat, feeding upon the humanity of Christ. So the Spirit will write that on your heart, the ministry of righteousness subsisting in glory. All that leads you to look upon the glory of the Lord. So that you have redemption, you have the kingdom, you have the new covenant, and the writing is bringing out what God has wrought in your soul in new creation.
He goes on in the next chapter, “So if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5: 17), it is different, there is no flaw about it. There is no genetic defect in the new birth. It is perfect, and in it, in embryo, there is the divine nature and all the attributes of God. You need proper food to develop, “the pure mental milk of the word”. Peter speaks of,
“that by it ye may grow up to salvation”, 1 Peter 2: 2. You have not come to eternal life yet, but you are on the way to it. You say, “all things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself”, 2 Corinthians 5: 18. See it is another step, you have reconciliation. You can see the progress as to the enjoyment of eternal life. We had an old sister with us locally who at one time had heard Mr. Raven in Edinburgh, and it left an impression with her all her life. The reading was about reconciliation and somebody said, You say the old man cannot be reconciled, the new man does not need to be reconciled, now who is reconciled? Mr. Raven said, You are reconciled. You know what reconciliation is—you know how you balance the books. God looks for this, things to be balanced in our lives, and to be in the enjoyment of reconciliation. Then you come to the blessedness of eternal life. In Luke 15 it is the father who suggests the merriment. There is the peace offering, there is reconciliation. Now, he says, let us be merry, let us enjoy this.
That is what the Lord Jesus has come into the position of testimony to effect in the souls of Christians. He wants your whole being to be a bondman to God, yielding all your members in the power of attraction, in the power of the love of Christ, yielding them, not holding any back. You know how you served Pharaoh, met all his unreasonable demands, made bricks without straw, there you were in bondage. You thought you were doing your own will, but really you were in bondage to the power of the god of this world. The glad tidings comes into your soul and delivers you so that you can walk in the power and enjoyment of the love of God. The thing is spontaneous. You cannot say to yourself, I am going to enjoy the love of God. How can you do it? You are cast upon the Spirit of God and He very willingly will shed abroad in your heart the love of God (see Romans 5: 5). You will know what the blessing is.
Is that not marvellous? The psalmist finds it hard to explain; he says it is like “the dew of Hermon that descendeth on the mountains of Zion”, Psalm 133: 3. What an elevated concept that is. Also he says it is “Like the precious oil upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, upon Aaron’s beard, that ran down to the hem of his garments” (Psalm 133: 2). He says,
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133: 1). He finishes saying, “for there hath Jehovah commanded the blessing, life for evermore” (verse 3). Think of that word, He commanded it. We need help, I believe, to see how willing God is that we should come into the enjoyment of Himself and of His own love.
Divine Persons have taken up positions in the economy to that end, that we might be in the gain of the knowledge of God, and live with God. Would you like to live with God? “God is love, and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4: 16), that is eternal. Tabernacling is an eternal idea. We think about service, and that is right, we think about taking these meetings, and that is right. We need to pray about it because food is needed for the household all the time. But there is something greater, and the greatest thing is to live with God. We shall do that eternally, “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them”, and be “their God”, Revelation 21: 3.
John here tells us where this life is. He says it is in the Son, that is where it is located. There was much conflict about eternal life because scripture says you have it. It says, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”, John 3: 16. Now because the scripture said that persons said they had it. Well, if you have it, John would say, show me it, prove it. He shows here where it is and how to come into the gain of it. It is in the Son. It is not located in any other person.
Consequently it is completely free from breakdown. You see you are here in wilderness circumstances, but you are enjoying a life that is eternal. It is really heaven come down, but it remains in heaven. In Deuteronomy, if you are in the gain of the commandment, you are the head and not the tail, full of resource, you lend to the nations, you do not borrow. Everything is for you. This is Christianity, beloved, properly in its fulness. Someone said that the basket is in the ocean but the ocean is in the basket. This life is in His Son, and as long as you stay in that area you are in the enjoyment of that life. What a wonderful life it is, “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
So you are the witness of it, you have the testimony in yourself, you are enjoying something that is heavenly. In Romans 8 life in the Spirit is power for the wilderness, power to overcome yourself, power to meet your righteous obligations according to God, and you more than conquer through Him that loves us (see Romans 8: 37). This is something further. This is fellowship with the Father and with the Son. It is the family of God that is in mind. It is not the Christ exactly, it is not the doer of operations, it is in the Son and that relates to the house, it relates to what is eternal. So we know how to live with God. Mr. Darby says time shall not grow old, eternal life will never grow old. Have you ever thought of it, that you will not grow old, you will not forget people’s names? The power and vitality of life will be sustained eternally; the enjoyment, the blessedness, the freshness and the greatness of it will be sustained eternally.
And you will be sustained eternally in relation to it. Other families will see how you live and how you move and how you do and see the divine nature in expression. This is the first of all the families, this is the family of God. John is antedating that because that is what he has in mind, the children of God. The thing is substantial, it is tangible; that which our hands have handled and our eyes have seen (see 1 John 1: 1). We have been in touch with it, we have seen how it works. And you have the tangibility of it in yourself. You can see the glory of the glad tidings. Paul speaks of it in language that is surpassingly great, “the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ”, 2 Corinthians 4: 4. And there in His face is the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God (2 Corinthians 4: 6). All has come to us in Christ the Mediator. But here it is the Son, in these terms of affection, between the Father and the Son. John says, “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth”, John 1: 14. The family side is the greatest of all sides. Here we are children of God. When we get there it will be sonship. Eternal life meets the need in our hearts and sonship meets the need in God’s heart.
If I can only leave the impression that divine Persons are exceedingly anxious that we should come into the enjoyment of their love, I will have done some work. Because there may be little dark questions at the back of our minds that cast doubt as to the love of God. The devil would be in that. Where there is darkness there is evil, and where there is evil the devil is in it. So John says, “the darkness is passing”, 1 John 2: 8. In fact, before that, he says, “this is the message which we have heard from him, and declare to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all”, 1 John 1: 5. Then he says, “which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light already shines”.
Beloved, these are great matters. I only wish I could convey them in a way that would leave its impress upon us. We need help to follow the line of the Spirit’s teaching. Leave Egypt but do not get stuck in the wilderness; many have so there are wilderness persons. Moses thought it would be a good idea if Hobab could just show them how to go. In wonderful grace, as typified in the ark, He that came by water and blood moved out of His normal position and took up the lead. So the spontaneity of the response is wonderful. “Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered; And let them that hate thee flee before thy face. And when it rested, he said, Return, Jehovah, unto the myriads of the thousands of Israel”, Numbers 10: 35, 36.
God has great confidence in us. It is marvellous that, in these conditions in which we are, we speak to God and we know He is listening to us. It says, “if we ask him anything according to his will he hears us”, 1 John 5: 14. You will not ask anything that is out of accord with His will because you have already proved what is His will in the glad tidings, “the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”, Romans 12: 2. Get all your members assembled together rightly. The whole body is in function. You present that to God because you are moved by divine compassion, you present that a living sacrifice, you are available to God for whatever desire He might have, you “prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”.
And so your asking is in accord with that. You know what His will is, you know what is pleasing to Him. The Lord has shown you how to live in relation to God; as “I live on account of the Father, he also who eats me shall live also on account of me”, John 6: 57. That is where He is at the moment, and the witness here is in the Spirit and the water and the blood. There is adequate witness in the three, and the quality of witness is unsurpassed in the Spirit. The Spirit is the truth and that involves you. The Spirit is the truth, of course, Himself, that is true. But then the Spirit is the truth involves the Spirit’s work. I think that is very blessed, because when the Lord comes He will find what is entirely in accord with Himself in the bride.
When the Lord left the earth His work was perfect and complete in the twelve. They knew what to do, they filled out the administrative position, the Spirit came upon each one of them. It says that specifically, “it sat upon each one of them”, Acts 2: 3. There was the perfection of Christ’s work, and when He comes again He will find the perfection of the Spirit’s work, because “the Spirit and the bride say, Come”, Revelation 22: 17. What freshness, what vitality, what glory, what radiancy! You never saw a gloomy bride, did you? They are usually radiant, and that is because they are in the enjoyment of love, of natural love it might be. But the assembly is in the enjoyment of the love of Christ. How great these things are! Eternal life is something to be sought after and gone into. John brings it down here. Paul sets it out objectively. Whatever the case, it is the end to be reached in the gospel, “the end eternal life ... the act of favour of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. May the Lord help us in it, for His name’s sake.
Address at Toronto
2 October 1998