Eternal Life

Notes

Divisions of the lesson: (1) Various Grades of Life. (2) The Divine Life in Man. (3) Eternal Life and Immortality.

Questions.

Various Grades of Life.

1. What does God give to all creatures? Acts 17:25.

2. What is said of the things that are seen? 2 Cor. 4:18.

Notes

The Divine Life in Man.

Notes

1. While man is the highest of all earthly creatures, and much superior to the brutes of the highest rank, the distinction between him and them is not an infinite one. He was formed out of the same dust (Gen. 2:7) as they, though more exquisitely fashioned. He was quickened by the same breath of God. See Gen. 2:7; 7:22. He was made subject to the same physical laws.

2. Man represents the highest order of living creatures on earth. Yet the difference in degree is not so great as to take man out of the list of mortal creatures, and secure him against the common lot of all material and organic life.

3. The life received by the believer is eternal because it is the life of Christ. See Rev. 1:18. For the same reason it is divine and holy. No life can be eternally perpetuated but that which is pure, and in perfect harmony with the great Source of all life. The great object and end of man's redemption through Christ was to generate within man this new, divine life, and so make him holy and free from condemnation. The expressions, "eternal life," "everlasting life," which are so often used in the Scriptures to designate that divine life which the Spirit breathes into man in his new creation, mean more than purity. They mean that, but they also mean the life of God. 1 John 5:12.

4. The change wrought in the believer at the second coming of Christ is not a moral change. He must pass the judgment of investigation before the trump sounds. He must have the garment of righteousness before this change takes place. He must have had Christ enthroned within before his name passes in to judgment. But to have Christ within is to have eternal life, for "he that hath the Son hath life." The change from mortality to immortality which takes place at the second coming of Christ is a physical change. It is the releasing of the physical nature from the effects of Adam's sin according to the promise of God. When the time is fulfilled for this promise to take effect, the bond of death is broken and the prisoners are free. To them, no time has elapsed since they fell asleep; so there was no real break in their lives. They come forth, saying: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"