The Holy Spirit's Biography of Christ # 6

"Life ... Promised Before Times Eternal"

You ought to look up all those references to "before the world was," before "times eternal." "Whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Romans 8:29)' and the first thing in that image is the eternal life which is in Him. So John begins his Gospel with: "In Him was life" (John 1:4), and later in that same Gospel Jesus will say: "I am come that they may have life" (John 10:10). In both of those statements it is taken for granted that no one outside of Jesus Christ has that life. If they already had life why should He come from heaven in order that they should have it?

This is very elementary, I know, but we have not got very far yet. This is the beginning of the biography of Jesus Christ which is being written by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers. Of course, it is very simple when you come to think about it. It is very wonderful, very profound, but very simple, for the very first thing that a newly born again child of God realizes is that something has happened which makes him know that he does not belong here any longer. He has a new home, a new nativity, a new genealogy, and it goes - not back to Adam. Thank God for that! - but back, past Adam, into the eternity of Jesus Christ. You understand that I am not talking about the deity of Jesus Christ, but about His Sonship, and I said before that that Sonship relates to humanity. I am not going to argue that out now, but the purpose of God in creating man was to bring Himself into the relationship of Father and children, and by childhood to sonship. That is another thing that I am not going to argue about! I think that will come out as we go on.

So we begin the biography in eternity. I wonder if you are aware of that! We have a hymn which says:

"I am a stranger here, within a foreign land,
My home is far away, upon a golden strand."

As we go on our life-journey, we do find that we are getting further and further away from our natural birth, further and further away from this world, and we are becoming more conscious of our heavenly relationship.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 7 - (Eternal Life the Governing Factor)