What then is eternal life ? It cannot be saving a soul partly, or up to a certain point from which it can recede. If we accept Jesus Christ as our "one Sacrifice for sins for ever " (Heb. 10:12), and then go back and claim Him in repetition as a second offering, we clearly deny He was an infinite one at first. But our Lord has stated unequivocally that "he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet" (John 13 :10). John 6:39, 40, 44, 54, tell us again and again of the one who has eternal life:"I will raise him up at the last day."

Further, it is declared that a believer is not left to fall down somewhere between being "justified and glorified " (Rom. 8:30), and since glory is the zenith of all dispensations, he cannot come short of a full realization of unbounded and infinite blessing. To say that Christ saves with only a conditional perpetuity is to forget or ignore, yea, it is denying, Him as Priest and Advocate; for while in these offices in heaven He is not, as He was on the cross, "made sin for us" (2 Cor. 5:21), yet it does show He has gone on high to continue in never-ending grace and fulness for us that cannot possibly fail. When He finds a sheep that was lost (Luke 15) He does not leave it to its own efforts or experiences, but He puts it, not on one shoulder, giving but a half support, but on His shoulders-the fulness of His power exercised in behalf of His redeemed, as He has declared in another place (Deut. 33:27):''Underneath are the everlasting arms;" and in His ecstatic joy He calls His friends and neighbors
to rejoice with Him, and they together exult that He has found His sheep which was lost, and so securely, that it "shall never perish" (John 10:28). And eternal life is not a restoration back into the state of the first Adam in Eden-that is gone forever-but it is being "created in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2 :10) who cannot pass away, and who, with full authority to say so and power to carry it out, has declared, "Because I live, ye shall live also" (Jno. 14:19). The life which the first Adam had was a creation-a breathing from God into his nostrils- but of the believer it is said, " That God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son " (i Jno. 5 :11). Hence it is not apart from its source, but connected with Him who is not only the " fountain of life" (Ps. 36:9) but "the Resurrection and the Life" (Jno. n:25) as well as the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Jno. 14:6). Language cannot convey stronger statements than these, and yet some will say eternal life has its origin in us! There was certainly a moment when it was communicated to us, but it has no commencement in itself, for it always existed in "Christ, who is our life" (Col. 3:4). S. J. Patton