(A.) The True Life and the False Life
As you know by now, we are occupied in these meetings with what we are taught through the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:3, that is, that the Holy Spirit is writing a spiritual biography of Jesus Christ in every member of the Body of Christ. To put that in another way, the spiritual history and experiences of true believers are a repetition of what was true of the Lord Jesus, excepting His deity. So we have to understand that the Holy Spirit is repeating the life of the Lord Jesus in us.
So far we have been occupied with the first chapter of that biography: the eternal link with the Lord Jesus, which is by the gift of eternal life. That means that what was true of the Lord Jesus in His eternal life becomes true in every believer.
Now I did not say all that I wanted to last time, so I will add just a few things and then hope to be able to go into the second chapter of this biography.
Eternal Life All-Governing
Let me, then, repeat this truth: Eternal life does govern the history and destiny of humanity. Without that eternal life there is no hope; humanity is in a hopeless position. The destiny of those without this gift of God is a very hopeless thing, for it is eternal death. That does not mean annihilation, nor extinction, but it does mean eternal separation from God; and if you want to know what that means, look at the Lord Jesus in the last moments of the Cross and hear Him cry: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?!" But this other side, eternal life, is the basis of eternal hope, so it is just exactly the opposite. Thus eternal life is the governing factor in history and in destiny.
That is indicated in two ways in the Bible. It is indicated on the first page and on the last page, which means that the whole of the Bible lies between this one thing. All that is in the Bible history and destiny lies between chapter one and the last chapter, and in both of those chapters this one matter of life governs everything. It is therefore all-governing. In the beginning it is indicated in the tree of life in the Garden; at the end it is indicated in the tree fully grown in the city - the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God.
As to that tree in the Garden at the beginning (and, of course, it is only a figure, or type), it is the center of life, so God indicates that this thing called life is at the center of everything. Life is centered in that tree representatively, and you notice how very jealous God is about that tree. He is so jealous that, when man sinned against it, He set a wall of fire around it. He said: "Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life," and put a cherubim there with a flaming sword. It would be a very dangerous thing to touch that unless man was in full fellowship with God! God is very jealous over this matter of eternal life! That tree, symbolically, is a test of man's relationship with God. It is a challenge to man as to his relationship with God, or, in other words, as to whether he is in right standing with God. The whole issue hung upon man's fidelity to God, for that was the test. You see, man was put on probation. This life was to be given on one condition only: was man going to be faithful to God, or not?
Let us get away from the symbol and the type. That tree is a type of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for He is the tree of life, and our attitude towards the Lord Jesus is going to determine our destiny - whether we have eternal life or eternal death. We know from Genesis that on that day when man showed that he was not faithful to God, there in spirit and in mind he was not true to God's Son, he died, and the whole race died with him. In Romans 5, Paul says that death entered into the human race because of one man's disobedience; so the destiny of the human race was settled on that day. The Lord had said: "Of the tree of the knowledge of good an evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). Thus man died spiritually, because death is separation from God.
So we are brought to this, as our New Testament teaches us so fully: the Lord Jesus is the test of our relationship with God, and that relationship determines whether it is to be life or death. The Lord Jesus is set up in the in the midst of the human race to determine life or death for mankind. So eternal life governs everything.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 11 - (Eternal Life Reserved in Jesus Christ)
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