The Meaning of Eternal Life
What is the doctrine of eternal life? In a statement it is the need for having what is of God within, as the basis of all that is related to God in life, fellowship, service, and the eternal future. The question with Nicodemus was that of entering the Kingdom of God. We saw that the Kingdom of God is a state before it is a realm. Only that enters the Kingdom of God which is of God. The realm of God is that in which everything of God and nothing else obtains. Through the death of chapter three we move to the place where we see what is basic to the realm of God, that which has to do with every phase of our relationship to God; that is, the life of God, Divine life, known as eternal life, and that within us, as the ground upon which all the activities and operations of God proceed. Are we going to be united with the Lord? Well, that is the first step in the life of the believer. That is the very first phase of spiritual life, of the true Christian life. It is being united with the Lord. The nature of the union with the Lord is the sharing of His own life. Divine life; the life of God, uniting us with Himself. Not something broken off from Him and given to us, for life can never be cut up into fragments like that and distributed; life is one, one in essence, and it makes organically one every part into which it enters. It is the life of one body, not organized but organic. Union with God then is by reason of receiving the life of God.
Do we want fellowship with God, which is beyond union; a walk in communion? It will be only upon the basis that God's life is active within us. God will commune with that which is o Himself in us. God will bring us into fellowship with Himself by putting something into us with which He can have fellowship. God can have no fellowship with flesh, with man by nature. God's fellowship is with that which is essentially Himself, and that is given to us in the gift of God which is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Do we contemplate, or desire service for the Lord? The same principle governs that; that real fellowship with the Lord in service is upon the basis of that life of God, active and energetic within us. Paul speaks about that "energy which energiseth in me mightily:; and then he spoke of God Who is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." There is the active vocational service side of things. The doing of God upon the basis of an energetic principle. Service demands Divine life in us, and Divine life is the basis of Divine service. Many of us have proved that by Divine lie we can do what is totally impossible to us by natural life; very often Divine life comes to our rescue when we are well-nigh dead, and enables us to do things which are an astonishment to ourselves, and anyone else who knows of our inner history.
Are we contemplating knowing the Lord more fully? It will be upon the same principle: "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." It is as the life of God is unarrested and uninterrupted in us in its growth, in its movement; as we do not put any obstacle in its way by disobedience to its claims and demands, that we enlarge in our spiritual knowledge of the Lord. Life issues in light. Find the believer, the child of God, who is going on freely, and clearly, and powerfully, transparently with the Lord in spirit, without prejudice, without questioning, without controversy, without disobedience, and you will find that that child of God is coming into an ever-increasing knowledge of the Lord. Find the child of God who has put such a difficulty in the way of the Lord by disobedience, a reservation, a hesitation, an arrest, a rebellion, and you will notice two things follow instantly. One is an arrest of life, and the other is a darkening of the understanding. It is always so, the two thing go together.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 17)
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