Faith and Life

KEY VERSE: “This is the record that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” —I John 5:11

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: I John 5:1-13

IF WE ARE TO appreciate the offer of eternal life, we must know how it is made possible. Of course, the ransom is the basis of it all. Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24) The apostle corroborates this in Romans 8:1,2: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, … for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

The way we receive eternal life is by coming to Jesus Christ, and by exercising our faith in him. Through the imputation of Christ’s merit to those whose faith leads them to consecration, we are covered by the robe of his righteousness, and presented to the Father. We are made acceptable in the Beloved, for the Father sees us as righteous. In this way only are we justified and made acceptable to God, released from Adamic condemnation, and begotten by his almighty power to become sons of God. No longer children of Adam’s disobedience, we are now described by Peter as “obedient children” (I Pet. 1:14), worthy of eternal life, if we so remain.

Adam was a created son of God—an earthly human son—in the image and likeness of God, although a little lower than the angels. Adam lost his sonship through disobedience as well as losing his privilege of communion with God. His children did not have the blessing of being sons of God, nor did they have the fellowship of communion with God. But the Apostle Paul, in Ephesians 2:1-3, explains, “You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also, we all had our conversation [conduct] in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

Although the apostle described our condition as being children of God’s wrath, of God’s condemnation in Eden, born dead in trespasses and sins, or, as the Greek translation puts it, “Dead in the trespass”—dead in Adam’s trespass, we find a ray of hope in John 3:36. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath [condemnation] of God abideth on him.” Until the Son here spoken of came into the world there was no hope of life for us. But now we are not only called to partake of life, but, if faithful, the very highest form of life—immortality.

When Jesus told his disciples, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. … I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am, there ye may be also,” he was offering them the divine nature. This was the high calling of glory, honor, and immortality. (Phil. 3:14; Rom. 2:7) This was that of which David prophetically spoke in Psalms 16:11: “Thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

Jesus was showing them the way to immortality, in fulfillment of Proverbs 12:28, “In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” He was pointing out the gateway to eternal life, as he did when he said in Matthew 7:14, “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

Jesus had a complete right to offer his disciples the divine nature—immortality. As our text says, “life was in his Son who was the embodiment of life, and, as the Heavenly Father’s agent, the dispenser of life. He himself said, in John 10:28, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

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