Spiritual Sight # 32

Seeking the Glory of Christ As the Son of God (continued)

The Prerogative of Life (continued)

Much has been said and written about the "immortality of the soul." The Bible does not teach this. Continuity and immortality are two distinct things. Immorality is a Divine prerogative and feature. "Who only hath immorality" (1 Timothy 6:16). Immortality is that Divine nature which is characteristic of Divine life. It is something altogether higher than just survival of physical disintegration and the grave. This latter without immortality or immortal life must be a very horrible thing. It is what the Bible means - metaphorically - by being "naked" and "ashamed." So the apostle speaks of immortality as being "clothed upon," that "morality may be swallowed up of life."

Thus the giving of that life is with God alone, and those who have it are thereby different in an inward reality from all others. They possess the basis of a complete transformation, which is the meaning of being "glorified."

But our particular message is that God has vested this life in His Son Jesus Christ, and that it cannot be had apart from Him. "As the Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself" (John 5:26). "As the Father raiseth the dead and giveth them life, even so the Son ... giveth life to whom He will" (John 5:21). The gospel of the glory of Christ is that God has given Him the glory of being able to give eternal life, incorruptible, immortal life to those who believe on Him. "This life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life" (1 John 5:11, 12). Once that life has been imparted all the glorious thoughts and purposes of God for men have started on their way to realization. So what comes in with Christ is the life of a new creation, a new universe. Everything is to be realized on the biological principle, but it is a life which is different in nature, capacity, and consciousness from all other life. Being peculiarly God's own Divine life it is the basis and link of true inward fellowship with Him. In this way we are able to see something of the immense and vital significance of Christ.

To accept Christ in a living and positive way is to receive a life which means an inward and secret difference in our very constitution, and to be in the way of possibilities which are denied all others.

To reject or neglect Christ is to lose or miss all that God ever intended when He created man and put him on a probation of faith. Herein lies the immense peril of prevarication or procrastination. It is not in man's power to say when that life hall be offered to him. When Christ is presented, that is the time when life and death are in the balances of our acceptance or rejection, and the very greatest eternal values and issues are bound up with that decision.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 33)