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When Eternal Life Begins, June 30
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and
this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that
hath not the Son of God hath not life.
1 John 5:11, 12
.
Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” In Christ is life,
original, unborrowed, underived. “He that hath the Son hath life.” The
divinity of Christ is the believer’s assurance of eternal life. “He that
believeth in me,” said Jesus, “though he were dead, yet shall he live:
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
John 11:25,
26
.
To the believer, death is but a small matter. Christ speaks of it as if
it were of little moment. “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see
death,” “he shall never taste of death.”
John 8:51, 52
. To the Christian,
death is but a sleep, a moment of silence and darkness. The life is hid
with Christ in God, and “when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then
shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
Colossians 3:4
.
He who Himself was soon to die upon the cross stood ... a conqueror
of the grave, and asserted His right and power to give eternal life.
“I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 6:40
. Christ became one
flesh with us, in order that we might become one spirit with Him. It is by
virtue of this union that we are to come forth from the grave—not merely
as a manifestation of the power of Christ, but because, through faith,
His life has become ours. Those who see Christ in His true character,
and receive Him into the heart, have everlasting life. It is through the
Spirit that Christ dwells in us; and the Spirit of God, received into the
heart by faith, is the beginning of the life eternal.
Jesus is ... crying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and
drink.” “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely.” “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall
give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be
in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
John 7:37
;
Revelation 22:17
;
John 4:14
.
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