sometimes a "river;" but in both aspects, it is everlasting. It is "the
1:4). Nay, he is called the eternal life itself,—"This is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20). How truly, then, must our life be everlasting! He cannot die, neither can we, for he is our life.
3. There is the joy connected with this life.—It is everlasting (Ps. 16:11). The life and the joy are linked together inseparably, forming one double star of wondrous beauty. Life and joy!—who or what can sunder them? Nothing in this world: nothing in the world to come.
4. There is the crown of life.—It is everlasting. It is sometimes called the "crown of life" (Jas. 1:12), sometimes the "crown of righteousness" (2 Tim. 4:8), sometimes the "incorruptible crown" (1 Cor. 9:25), sometimes the "crown of glory" (1 Pet. 5:4). But, whatever name it gets, there is no intimation given that it shall grow dim, or fall from our head. It "fadeth not away." The weight of its exceeding glory is "eternal" (2 Cor. 4:17). Instead of lessening, it will increase both in weight and in brightness. It will "wear well," as men speak, even though worn for ever.
5. There is the tree of life.—It fades not throughout the ages of ages, but is eternally green, bearing its fruit every month. Under it shall we sit down with great delight, and find even its shadow blessed; and, whilst enjoying the evergreen foliage, we shall find its "fruit sweet to our taste." Within the region where it springs, what trace of death or sickliness can be found? It fills the whole region with life and health, so that there the inhabitant shall not say, "I am sick." Disease, whether of soul or body, shall then be impossible. Our youth, renewed like the eagle's, shall remain undecaying.
6. There is the water of life.—Sometimes it is called a "fountain," and sometimes a "river;" but in both aspects, it is everlasting. It is "the fountain of the water of life;" it is "a pure river, clear as crystal;" it "proceedeth out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." It is no longer merely the water from the smitten rock, following us in our desert march: it is the river whose streams make glad the city of our God, bursting forth from the celestial throne.
Such are some of the aspects in which the everlasting life is set before us. Each of them has gladness in it, and is the assurance to us, that over that land which is to he our heritage, no shadow of death shall ever hover. Life in its completeness—life in its fulness—life in its incorruptible excellency—only life is there! Yes; "the gift of God is eternal life." It is that "eternal life which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began" (Tit. 1:2).
This life is sometimes spoken of as a possession, and sometimes as a hope; for it is both. We have it; for it is written, "He that believeth hath everlasting life:" and we shall have it; for it is written that, "being justified by his grace, we are made heirs, according to the hope of eternal life" (Tit. 3:7). On the one hand, we do possess it, when we receive God's record concerning it; and on the other, we look for it as a thing yet future and unenjoyed.
And how welcome is this hope of it! for have we are beset with so many dangers, that we seem ever on the point of losing it. We know, indeed, that we cannot lose it, for we shall never perish nor be plucked out of the Deliverer's hands: but still we find such diffculty in retaining it; we have to battle so sorely each hour with death; we have to seek shelter so continually from the storm which threatens to extinguish it—that we feel at times as if it were almost gone, and can well understand why the righteous are said to be "scarcely saved." But when the hope arrives, then all this is over: the perils of the rough voyage are past, and the shore is gained. Then the eternal life is no longer a thing disputed between us and our enemies, with a hard strife to maintain for it; but a quiet and undisturbed possession. It shall compass us about with an atmosphere of health, and joy, and beauty, which shall make us feel how completely, in every sense of the figure, "death has been swallowed up of victory."
The Lord's own words respecting himself, point to something great and blessed,—"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). His errand was not the mere relighting of the spark which our first father had quenched; it
was to be the kindling of a light such as neither earth nor heaven had seen before. His death was to be, not simply the ransom of our life, but the purchase-money of a life far nobler than that which Adam lost. It was as the "Prince of life" that he died; and the giving up of life by the "Prince of life" could not but issue in results surpassingly glorious. What wonder, then, that "more abundant life" should be the fruit of such a death?
This more abundant life is our hope. It is waiting to unfold itself; and when once the unfolding is begun, it must go on without check, or stint, or termination, throughout the unmeasured hours of the eternal day. "Our life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3). Thus hidden, thus guarded, it awaits the time when it shall come forth into manifestation. Then shall we know what a treasure it was that was thus, during our day of danger, so carefully "hidden"—hidden so as to be beyond the reach of injury, either from ourselves or others; hidden "with Christ," and so, hidden "in God;"—doubly hidden, doubly safe, being hidden with him who is in the bosom of the Father.
The preparation for that time of the eternal living, is said by the apostle to be our "sowing to the Spirit" (Gal. 6:8). Just as sowing to the flesh issues in "corruption," so our sowing to the Spirit has, as its harvest, "life everlasting." With the hope of such an harvest, how anxious should be the preparation! for according to our sowing shall be our reaping. How there can be degrees in this everlasting life, so that one may have it more largely than another, we do not inquire. The apostle's statement does seem to intimate this. And what a motive to diligent sowing! How watchful should we be against sowing to the flesh! how careful in sowing to the Spirit!
When we indulge in worldliness, and immerse ourselves even in the lawful business of this world, that is sowing to the flesh. When we "live in pleasure on the earth and are wanton," that is sowing to the flesh. When we take our ease and please ourselves, instead of being self-denied and ungrudging, either in labour or in sacrifice, we sow
to the flesh. When we "love the world," and seek its friendships, and walk "according to its course," we sow to the flesh.
How often do we find ourselves doing so, thereby not only losing sight of our calling, but forgetting that "corruption" can be the only fruit of such a sowing!
Then God steps in to remind us of our folly. He smites us in a way such as rouses us, and makes us feel the evil of our flesh-pleasing. Nor does he cease, till he has made his meaning plain, and shewed us that this sin is not more hateful to him than injurious to ourselves. The vanity of this sowing to the flesh then appears, and we turn anew to the better sowing, in the assurance that the harvest shall be everlasting life.
Let us, then, take heed to our sowing. Each day's sowing tells upon the coming harvest. Shall that harvest be scanty or abundant? The question is not, Shall there be one at all? we take for granted that there shall be; but it is, Shall it be a plentiful one? Shall our barns overflow with the store? Shall we have an entrance administered unto us abundantly into the kingdom, or shall it be bare admission? Shall it be the mere gleaning of a few withered ears, or shall it be a harvest of rich plenty?
Let us sow to the Spirit, bringing forth his fruits more ripely and more bountifully, knowing that "he who soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." The connexion between such a sowing and such a reaping is no fancied one, but sure and real. Each day's living here tells upon the endless living hereafter. What diligence, what carefulness in sowing, should be ours, so that though we "go forth weeping, bearing the precious seed, we may come again with rejoicing, bringing our sheaves with us!"
Sons of God, and heirs of the life to come! Lose not sight of that eternal harvest—no, not for an hour! Grudge no toil or cost in sowing. "In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening with-hold
not your hand." Redouble your diligence, your earnestness, your selfdenial, as ye see the evil days surrounding you, and the coming of the Lord drawing nigh.
CHAPTER V
THE LIGHT OF THE AGES TO COME
IN receiving the Father's testimony respecting Him who is the "light of the world," we became "children of the light and of the day." That reception on our part of the record of free love altered at once our position and our prospects—our connexion with the world, and our relationship to the world to come. We were "made partakers of CHRIST" (Heb. 3:14), that is, fellow-sharers or joint proprietors with him in all that he is and has. His light became our light; nay, he himself became our light,—absorbing all our darkness, and making over to us the fulness of his infinite radiance.
Our reception of that testimony was our casting in our lot with Israel, in whose dwellings there is light (Ex. 10:23); it was our choice of Goshen, the region of light,—and our rejection of Egypt, the kingdom of "the darkness that may be felt."
We then passed out of the kingdom of darkness, breaking the bond between us and the ruler of the darkness of this world. We were "called out of darkness" into "marvellous light" (1 Pet. 2:9); or as Isaiah calls it, "great light" (9:2): and we did find it to be "great" and "marvellous," something to be wondered at, something fitted to excite our amazement as well as our joy. It was full of wonders in itself, like the natural sun's own sevenfold ray; and it shewed us vast wonders on every side, far and near—wonders which eye had not
seen nor ear heard; giving us glimpses, through the rents in the cloudy masses overhanging us, of far greater wonders yet to be let down upon us in the ages to come.
Restoring their lost transparency to the faculties of the soul, the Holy Spirit fits them for receiving the light, and then he pours it in. Each region and recess of the renewed spirit becomes pervaded with the light—a light which carries not merely gladness but healing in its wings (Mal. 4:2). "The eyes of our understanding are enlightened" (not merely opened); and by this enlightenment we are made to know that hope to which God is thus calling us, and the "riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints" (Eph. 1:18); as if one of the great objects which God had in view in enlightening our eyes, was to shew us what a "hope" there is in reserve for us, and what an inheritance of glory he has provided. One of the first uses which we make of our newly opened and enlightened eyes is, to gaze upon the glory of which we have, so undeservedly, become the heirs.
But there is yet more than this. The rays thus let in to our souls by the Holy Spirit's almighty touch, kindled a sun within us; for it is written, "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shined in our hearts, to give us (or others) the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). In these words the idea is not so much that of a light shining on us, or into us, as of a sun kindled within us, and giving forth to others the light of the knowledge of his glory; so that we are made, in a measure, what Christ himself is—the "light of the world" (Matt. 5:14). God has lighted us up as so many stars and suns, which, maintaining their several orbits and courses, are to light up the universe for ever with the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, "the Christ of God." Once "we were darkness, but now we are LIGHT in the Lord" (Eph. 5:8), as if we were now as wholly made up of light, as before we were composed of darkness.
This light changes not. "It shines more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov. 4:18). It does not go out like the lamps of the foolish
virgins; nor can it be blown out by the gusts of a stormy world. "The light of the righteous rejoiceth," says Solomon, "but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out" (Prov. 13:9). This light "rejoiceth;" it exults; and it does so in the certainty of its continuance, in the confidence that it will not be "put out." Once lighted up, we cannot be extinguished. We shine for ever, dwelling in light, and diffusing light around.
"Light is sown for the righteous" (Ps. 97:11). It is deposited in the ground as seed, and after remaining for a season hidden, it springs up and blossoms all the more excellently because of this sowing process to which it has been subjected. The present dispensation is the seed-time. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." The seed is still under ground, or at most but in the bud or blade; yet still it is excellent and precious. And if its imperfect condition be so goodly, what will not its perfection be in the approaching harvest! If the bud be so fair, What will not the unfolded blossom be in the new earth, and under the new heavens! The sowing time is one of weeping, but the reaping time shall be joyous. It is still night above us. Clouds rest upon us. Grief, conflict, failing of heart, compass us about. But sunshine is coming up. Light has been sown for us—the light of Him who is light itself, and in whom is no darkness at all.
We are partakers of "the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col. 1:12), and such being our inheritance, we are "made meet for it." We are made like it. The possessors and the possession must resemble each other. The sunshine of the kingdom would not suit a child of darkness; nor could a child of light be satisfied with anything short of entire resemblance to an "inheritance in light." Of this inheritance we receive the earnest now, in that measure of light that is shed into us, or made to burn within us, when we become one with Him of whom it is said, "in him was life, and the life was the LIGHT of men" (John 1:4).
Still this is only the earnest—no more. It assures us of what is yet to come, and makes us feel how bright and how abiding it will be when