"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly." (Jno. 10:10.)

I.

These words make an evident distinction between two conditions of life,-alike the fruit of the incarnation and the cross. It is my desire to show, as fully and plainly as possible, this distinction, which is in fact between life as possessed by the saints of old and as possessed in the present dispensation:one life, in conditions very different; one life, always dependent upon the Lord's coming and work; the conditions differing as the work was only prospective or now actually accomplished.

The manifestation of the life itself is the fruit of the " Word of life " having actually come into the world. In Him it first shone in the world, the light of it. In His gospel He has for others now "brought life and incorruption to light." It was there before, but hidden; not only, as it still is, to unbelief, but hidden to faith itself. There was, there is, in Old-Testament scriptures, no revelation of it. It is vain to expect to find it there, therefore; and as vain to argue that it did not exist because we do not find it there. We do not find there that they had been born again, and yet " except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." They were never able to take the place of children of God, and yet we know that children of God they were (Gal. 4:1-6). And these two things are closely and inseparably connected together, and with the possession of life itself,-are involved in it; and their possession, while yet unmanifested, involves that of life also; while the present manifestation of these three things, in contrast with their former hidden condition, already begins to disclose the real character of what is meant by " abundant" life.

Born of God,-children of God,–they were. We may start with this as a plain and admitted truth. Our Lord declares as to this that while "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," "that which is born of the Spirit is" no less "spirit." The flesh communicates its own nature; the Spirit, its own. This is, of course, no exclusive privilege of Christianity, and our Lord is not so applying it. "Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye"-ye Jews, as declared by Ezekiel's prophecy (36:25-27), -"Ye must be born again." But while Ezekiel prophesies of new birth thus, true to the character of the Old Testament, he does not announce the divine element in it, as the Lord does. He alone affirms the communication of the divine nature in new birth,-"that which is born ,of the Spirit" to be "spirit," as truly as "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." Now, that which before was true is manifested, as we have seen; and this is the eternal life itself as received by man,-divine life:"eternal" in the full sense of what has no more a beginning than it has an end. The "spirit" life, communicated by the Spirit of God, is nothing less or lower than divine.

It is thus, indeed, alone that men become children of God. The natural relationship is no more real than is the spiritual, of which it is the type. We are not merely adopted into His family, as strangers, but born into it, born (or begotten, the 6eov,) of God. This language of the Word must not be taken in a mere vague way. We are accustomed to use such terms loosely, and Scripture itself sanctions that use. Jabal is the father of all such as dwell in tents, and Jubal of such as handle the harp and pipe. Abraham is the father of all them that believe; and the apostle could say to the Corinthians that in Christ Jesus he had begotten them through the gospel. By many, new birth is confounded with its effects, and a change of heart (that is, of feelings, affections, disposition,) is supposed to be the whole thing. The process is thus taken to be merely one of persuasion,-a work upon man, not a real communication to him. The reality of new birth is missed; it becomes a figure of speech merely. Eternal life becomes only a vivid term for an immortal heavenly existence, ours now in hope more or less assured, but actually only hereafter. All the terms by which Scripture would depict and emphasize the wonder of this divine work, as "new birth," "quickening from the dead," " a new creation," pale into colorless phantoms which cannot be fixed or defined. And with many who are familiar enough with and use the term "eternal life," and who speak of it as a present possession, it is merely a practical life we live. They utterly ignore what in natural things they could not fail to remember-that there must be also a life by which we live, the life which in new birth we receive, and that by which alone we become the children of God.

It is this upon which the Lord insists in His account of what new birth is. Born of water and Spirit, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. There is a real communication of a divine nature from Him by whom we are thus begotten; and thus, when He goes on to declare the present truth, that " God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life" He is not contrasting this and new birth, but only giving the latter its true significance. The vail is here removed which had so long been over it. The Lord, Himself the Life eternal, manifests the life.

No other spiritual life was there ever:"In Him was life " (Jno. 1:4); not " eternal life " simply, but "life" There was no other. So He declares, when now a Man come into the world, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you;" not no " eternal life " merely, but no life at all. True spiritual life for man and eternal life are never distinguished, much less contrasted; but (as here) identified. " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you:this on the one side. Now on the other, " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life." Eternal life, or no life:so the Lord Himself declares.

But this applies (it may be objected) only to the present time. That is quite true as to John 6:53, 54. What as to John 1:4? "In Him was life" applies, surely, to all the past. Was it in Him as a repository of blessing uncommunicated until He personally appeared? Was life from some other source communicated in the meantime? Assuredly the words mean that all spiritual life there ever was was in Him, and in Him alone. " Life was in Him:" not this life or that life, but " life."

The life communicated by the Spirit we have seen to be divine life,-" spirit," from the Spirit. But this, then, was the life in Him, necessarily,- divine life. In Him especially, as the foreordained Mediator, the Word, the Revealer of the Father's mind. Before He was the Man Christ Jesus in actual accomplishment, He was yet the Man of the divine counsels; and before the fulfillment of His blessed work, even from the beginning, the fruits of that work were bestowed upon and tasted by the sons of men. If it could not have been so, what blessing could have been theirs? If it could have been, why not then the life that was in Him? But indeed we are assured of its being so. By the fact that they were born again,-by the fact that they were children of God,-we are assured that divine life was theirs, and in no other way could it be theirs than in the Son.

Is this reasoning merely,-inference? I am not afraid of inference. I am assured that those who continually object to it in others use it themselves freely, and rightly use it. What else enables us to interpret parable or type? What else gives us the application of any Scripture-principle to any case before us? Take Scripture, and how many lines will you read of it without coming upon some use -some sanction therefore,-of reasoning? Who reasoned with the Pharisees and Herodians about Caesar's image? with the Sadducees about the resurrection? with them all about David's Son being David's Lord? Who is it says to men, in His condescending grace. " Come, and let us reason together"? Of course, we may abuse all this, as what else may we not? But the remedy is not in denying us one of the faculties which God in His goodness has bestowed upon us, but in insisting that inferences in divine things shall be inferences from Scripture, and clear, not doubtful inferences.

"God hath given to us eternal life," says the apostle; "and this life is in His Son." It is only to say, then, what the Word says, to say that eternal life is in the Son. But we have seen that there is no life for us now certainly but eternal life. It is this life we receive, then, in new birth. Was it different with the saints of old ? Scripture says that ever "life was in Him." Before it was communicated at all, and when it was communicated. The spiritual life communicated in new birth is thus life in Him,-that is, eternal or divine life:it is this alone by which we become the children of God.

The possession of eternal life is not, then, affected by any dispensational difference. Always, "life was in Him;" always, " that which was born of the Spirit was spirit;" always, those who were born of God were children of God. This, then, assures us that eternal life was theirs. When the Lord says, " I am come that they might have life,," He declares simply "life" to be for any the result of His coming; but this, as many other of these results, could be bestowed before He came, and was. Otherwise we must deny them not only to have had eternal life, but life at all; for it is of life simply He speaks, distinguishing it from life abundantly. He came that men might have the one as well as the other,-" that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly." If, therefore, from such words you deny that the saints of old had eternal life, you must go further, and deny that they had any spiritual life at all,-you must deny they were born again at all. In all this, you are not only " reasoning" but reasoning against the plain Word of itself.

Life for fallen man is the fruit of Christ's coming and work. Had the Old-Testament saints a life that was not that? Surely that would strike at all necessity for atonement. None would, surely, contend for men possessing life apart from this; but why could they not, then, possess eternal life, although necessarily that they might have it the Lord must come?

Manifested it was not, until he who is the life came. It was possessed, but possessed in the midst of hindrances of the most effectual kind to question of the condition of the life, not of the life itself. The babe does to "manifest" what the man is, yet it has the life and nature of the man.* *To urge "Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us," as if it meant that the life was only in heaven before its manifestation, is surely a mistake. "With the Father:is not a question of locality, but of nearness of intimacy and communion; and thus it leads to what the apostle would bring us into by faith in the revelation,"communion with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ."*

In the Son, then, come into the world, the eternal life was first and fully manifested. It was seen in Him in that knowledge of and communion with the Father, which was in Him perfect and never clouded for a moment. And by Him it was revealed as the portion of those who in faith received Him; for now that He had come, there was no faith that did not receive Him. He that believed on the Son had eternal life; and he that believed not the Son should not see life, but the wrath of God abode upon him.

Thus eternal life now declared to men was necessarily connected with faith in Him. Nor, observe, did it wait for redemption to be accomplished. " The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." Thus already He was quickening dead souls with the life in Himself; and in His prayer to the Father in which He declares that " this is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent," He declares also that this knowledge they already had:"They have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me."

Clearly and unmistakably, then, does Scripture assure us that eternal life men already had before the Lord died and fulfilled His atoning work. Nay, it was even already being exhibited in its true character, already men knew the Father and the Son. Yet this was not yet, however, the life in its full" abundance." Its character was exhibited as a life of divine acquaintanceship and communion. But for this communion to be enjoyed aright, it needed to be freed from many great and terrible hindrances; the cross had to be accomplished, the resurrection from the dead the answer on God's part to the claim of righteousness there made good, that now as risen with Christ we might be possessors of a life triumphant over death, and ,5 justified from all that had brought in death, in a recognized place of nearness to God unknown before.

II.

So far, we have been following exclusively the line of truth which is given us by the apostle John. He speaks in general of the family of God, of new birth, and eternal life; of relationship, and communion by the Holy Ghost; not generally of standing and position. These last are Paul's special themes, whose gospel is the fullest presentation of the work of Christ and its efficacy for us that we have in Scripture. An illustration of the difference between the two apostles, in close connection with our present subject, is in their respective use of the words " child " and "son." John uses " child " only; Paul, both, but more frequently the latter, while adoption*"-putting in the place of sons,-is exclusively used by him of all the New-Testament writers. *Teknon is child by natural descent; adoption, uiothesia, placing as son. In the Authorized Version, Rom. 9:26, Gal 3:26, Eph. 1:5, Heb. 12:5, "children" should be "sons;" and in Jno. 1:12, Phil. 51:15, Jno. 3:1, 2, " sons" should be " children.* " This last word shows plainly the distinction. A " son " may be that by adoption; a "child," only by birth. The one speaks of relationship; the other, of place and privilege. Thus, " because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Had he said "children," it would have brought in the Old-Testament saints. So the Spirit is the Spirit of adoption; yet. He " bears witness with our spirit that we are [not sons merely, but] the children of God."

But while Paul it is who brings out distinctly the effect of the work of Christ in establishing us in our place with God, there are points in which the doctrine of John approaches closely to that of Paul. Thus, in the fifth chapter, a world spiritually dead is awaiting judgment; but the Son of God comes into it, the One into whose hand judgment

is committed; and he that heareth His voice lives:he shall not come into judgment; he is passed from death unto life (24, 25). Here, quickening, possession of eternal life, brings at once outside the whole sphere of judgment. " Life and standing are inseparable," as another has said.

This prepares the way for the doctrine of the eleventh chapter, where for the first time we hear of a present power of resurrection. " I am the resurrection and the life:he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die." Martha was thinking of a far-off resurrection. The Lord brings before her Himself as One in whom life was to be found already in resurrection,-not life and resurrection, but resurrection and life. Thus, while as to the past the Old-Testament saint, the dead believer, had to go through death, and find resurrection afterward, "at the last day,"- the living believer in Him had not death to pass through. Receiving life in resurrection, death was already behind him, met by Another, not for him to meet.

Now here, while the Lord proclaims Himself for all the one only life, (applying this blessed text to all believers, dead or living,) He speaks of it as now possessed in a new condition,-a power and fullness hitherto unknown. But this supposes His coming in the flesh, and His death, although He does not yet state this. In the next chapter He does:" Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Life must come out of death, must be resurrection life in result for all, however different may be the application in the meantime.

This, as I have said, connects closely with Paul's doctrine. Freedom from judgment, and the power of death; and this connected with the Lord's death in absolute necessity. Paul also speaks of quickening out of death, and resurrection,-"quickened together with Him," "raised up with Him" (Col. 2:13 ; 3:I; Eph. 2:4, 5).

Now this is an advance upon the doctrine of Romans, with which it unites, however, in complete harmony. Nor is the aspect even so different as it may seem. Colossians, as it is well known, combines the " dead with Christ," " buried with Christ" of Romans with the "quickened with Christ," " raised up with Christ," of Ephesians. And surely there is no incongruity. The man first seen in Romans as a living responsible sinner, a man in the flesh, is not left until we see him as "alive in Christ,"-identified with Him, that is, in life. But this is a true life which he possesses himself; not independently, indeed, but in dependence on Another. He is alive in a life which identifies him with the Head of a new race, a new creation. It is true the term is not in Romans, but the Head is seen, the One of whom the first Adam was the figure (5:14). Ephesians gives us the full truth of new creation,-"created in Christ Jesus" (2:10). Thus the two epistles unite; Romans introducing us into that of which Ephesians completes the presentation.

"Alive,"-truly alive,-and alive in Christ, identified in life with Him,-who cannot see that from hence " quickening together with Him" receives its full and simple interpretation? Our life as in the last Adam, in the condition in which we now receive it, began when Christ our Representative and Head was quickened from the death in which for us He lay. We are identified with Him in that life of His (a life actually received and enjoyed by us) which began there. The life is eternal, divine life, which as that never began, but which began then to be for us in a Man, risen from the dead. This shows how fully and simply the truth in Romans unites with that in Ephesians. The one completes the other. Possessors of life in Him, we are quickened together with Him.

This again shows how, in the language I have quoted from another, " life and standing are inseparable." Necessarily, as identified with Him who has done for us His blessed work, its value attaches to us, and attaches to us from the first moment of our possession of it. Alive in Christ, we are dead with Christ; alive in Christ, we are justified in Christ; we shall not come into judgment, we are passed from death unto life.

Thus, if we are not to make systems of our own, as we are surely not, there is a harmony of truth, (because it is one, and God's truth,) which we may be permitted without suspicion of irreverence to trace, and which should awaken in us the deepest adoration. How different from any patchwork of our own is God's truth when we behold it thus in His Word!

But we are not only " quickened together with Christ," we are "raised up together," and this brings us to the full reality of the life which we now partake of. Quickening, although out of the, dead, is not yet resurrection. The apostle, in Colossians 2:12, 13, gives us the difference in the contrast which he draws. "Buried with Him," "raised up with Him;" "dead," ".quickened." Death is in contrast with life; burial, with resurrection. For burial, there must be already death. We take a dead man, and we say, " He is a dead man; he must not remain among living men." So we bury him; put the dead in the place of the dead. . Resurrection is the converse of that:a man is quickened among the dead; he is alive, he must not remain among the dead, he is brought by resurrection into the place of the living.

In quickening, then, is effected the deep internal change with which all begins, a change of condition; in resurrection is effected a corresponding external change, a change of position. Alive in Christ, we possess a risen, life,-a life in the liberty and reality of its enjoyment, a life freed from the shackles of death. All question of sin and of flesh, of act and nature, has been settled forever by Him who has for us met all, died and risen from the dead, and in whom we now live, identified with Him in all the value of that death of His. Hence, we are not only, as all saints from the beginning were, children of God:we are children in the place of children, sons, as no saints before were; we have life, as all had, but we have it abundantly, as they had not; we have, as they, the nature, but we have also the place as well as the nature. And not only are we sons, but because we are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

This is life abundantly:life, not only in the Son -divine life,-but in the Son become Christ, a Man, come up in the power and value of a work accomplished for us, which attaches now to the life communicated and possessed in Him. The Old-Testament saints had life, but not yet the justification now attaching to it, not yet the recognition of the place with God which it implies; not yet the knowledge of the Father and the Son; not yet the Spirit of adoption, the power of the blessed life. How great the difference is this! Yet it is one, not of nature, but condition simply. It is the same life, but now " abundantly." May our hearts adoringly lay hold, ever with deepening wonder and delight, of this abundance.