The Meaning of Eternal Life (continued)
Then you may look at it from one more standpoint: religiously. We have seen how, as a kind of back door out from this embarrassment and awkward situation, she turned to discuss religion, but she betrayed something when she introduced those matters. "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Well, in any case it is tradition without power. "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain ..." What moral effect has that upon her? What moral effect or spiritual effect has it upon her that she has a temple in Mount Gerizim, and a copy of the Old Testament Scriptures, and her fathers worshiped? It is no use talking about the fact that: "My grandfather was a great saint and my parents good Christians." That is not the way out. So far as she was concerned it was mere tradition without power. It did not bring her to satisfaction or to moral deliverance; and viewed from the religious standpoint, religion was rather an enemy to her than an ally. Religion was no help to her. The religion of her fathers meant nothing to her. And very often the fact that we have been brought up among Christians, and have Christian traditions behind us, may be working rather to our undoing or against us than otherwise.It is not always an unmixed blessing to have Christian upbringing. Oh! no one would limit the value, or seek to minimize the value of any help. Some of us wish that we have a good deal more of the strain of genuine saintliness and Godliness in our blood. Perhaps the conflict has been all the greater for want of it, and yet a religious upbringing is not always an unmixed blessing, and certainly it does not mean, that because we have had it, we are all right in the sight of God. Tradition may be without power so far as we are concerned. Certainly it was in her case.
Now all this is the local setting of things, and it all shows the absence of eternal life. It is all one strong argument that there is lacking here that which is the central theme, eternal life. Eternal life answers all these questions. Eternal life brings to an end that sense of eternal deficiency. You know that you have got something which brings finality to your heart, when you receive eternal life. Eternal life brings moral deliverance. You will see how that is in a moment. Eternal life changes all our traditions into living realities. Would that there could be the opening of the flood gates of eternal life into the traditional systems of today. But all this was seeming life that was not life, but death.
The Nature of Eternal Life
Then what is the nature of eternal life? There are four Greek words translated "life" in the New Testament. 1. "Bios," which means the manner or period of life, the kind of life we lead, or the means of living and the duration here. 2. "Psuche," which means animal life; sometimes breath; it really means a living being, a being that is animate or possesses life. 3. "Pneuma," which is spirit, and very largely means liveliness, activity. It is only used in this case once, in Revelation 13:15. But "pneuma" is the Holy Spirit. 4. "Zoe". This is the word always related to God, or almost always. It is the gift of God in Christ, what Christ came to give; what Christians alone have. There is the denominative "eternal (aeonian) "Zoe"; incorruptible life, Divine life.
Having said that, and arrived at this eternal life, we are able to notice its nature. It has two elements. One is its quality, and the other is its duration; its quality, and its abiding endurance. Its quality is its main factor, and is the factor in its permanence; and because its quality is its permanence, when it is received it beings with it a sense of permanence, and therefore of satisfaction. It is the life of God, and being the life of God has in its very essence the very nature of God. That is eternal. That is final. That is absolute. And when you receive that in germ, and in a vital way, you know that you have found the answer to all your questions and all your longings, and it is only a matter of time now for you to enter intelligently into the answer of everything.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 19)
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