So those words everlasting Life must needs mean something more than that. What do they mean?
First. What does everlasting mean?
It means exactly the same as eternal. The two words are the same: only everlasting is English, and eternal Latin. But they have the same sense.
Now everlasting and eternal mean something which has neither beginning nor end. That is certain. The wisest of the heathen knew that: but we are apt to forget it. We are apt to think a thing may be everlasting, because it has no end, though it has a beginning. We are careless thinkers, if we fancy that. God is eternal because he has neither beginning nor end.
But here come two puzzles.
First. The Athanasian Creed says that there is but one Eternal, that is, God; and never were truer words written.
But do we not make out two Eternals? For God is one Eternal; and eternal life is another Eternal. Now which is right; we, or the Athanasian Creed? I shall hold by the Athanasian Creed, my friends, and ask you to think again over the matter: thusIf there be but one Eternal, there is but one way of escaping out of our puzzle, which makes two Eternals; and that is, to go back to the old doctrine of St. Paul, and St. John, and the wisest of the Fathers, and sayThere is but one Eternal; and therefore eternal life is in the Eternal God. And it is eternal Life because it is Gods life; the life which God lives; and it is eternal just because, and only because, it is the life of God; and eternal death is nothing but the want of Gods eternal life.
Certainly, whether you think this true or not, St. John thought it true; for he says so most positively in the text. He says that the Life was manifestedshowed plainly upon earth, and that he had seen it. And he says that he saw it in a man, whom his eyes had seen, and his hands had handled. How could that be?
My friends, how else could it be? How can you see life, but by seeing some one live it? You cannot see a mans life, unless you see him live such and such a life, or hear of his living such and such a life, and so knowing what his life, manners, character, are. And so no one could have seen Gods life, or known what life God lived, and what character Gods was, had it not been for the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made flesh, and dwelt among us, that by seeing him, the Son, we might see the Father, whose likeness he was, and is, and ever will be.
But now, says St. John, we know what Gods eternal life is; for we know what Christs life was on earth. And more, we know that it is a life which men may live; for Christ lived it perfectly and utterly, though He was a man.
What sort of life, then, is everlasting life?
Who can tell altogether and completely? And yet who cannot tell in part? Use the common sense, my friends, which God has given to you, and think;If eternal life be the life of God, it must be a good life; for God is good. That is the first, and the most certain thing which we can say of it. It must be a righteous and just life; a loving and merciful life; for God is righteous, just, loving, merciful; and more, it must be an useful life, a life of good works; for God is eternally useful, doing good to all his creatures, working for ever for the benefit of all which he has made.
Yesa life of good works. There is no good life without good works. When you talk of a mans life, you mean not only what he feels and thinks, but what he does. What is in his heart goes for nothing, unless he brings it out in his actions, as far as he can.
Therefore St. James says, Thou hast faith, and I have works. Shew me thy faith without thy works, (and who can do that?) and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
And St. John says, there is no use saying you love. Let us love not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth; and againand would to God that most people who talk so glibly about heaven and hell, and the ways of getting thither, would recollect this one plain textLittle children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as God is righteous. And therefore it is that St. Paul bids rich men be rich also in noble deeds, generous and liberal of their money to all who want, that they may lay hold of that which is really life, namely, the eternal life of goodness.
And therefore also, my friends, we may be sure that God loves in deed and in truth: because it is written that God is love.
For if a man loves, he longs to help those whom he loves. It is the very essence of love, that it cannot be still, cannot be idle, cannot be satisfied with itself, cannot contain itself, but must go out to do good to those whom it loves, to seek and to save that which is lost. And therefore God is perfect love, and his eternal life a life of eternal love, because he sends his Son eternally to seek and to save that which is lost.
This, then, is eternal life; a life of everlasting love showing itself in everlasting good works; and whosoever lives that life, he lives the life of God, and hath eternal life.
What I have just said will help you, I think, to understand another royal text about eternal life.
For now we may understand why it is written, that this is life eternal, to know the true and only God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. For if eternal life be Gods life, we must know God, and Gods character, to know what eternal life is like: and if no man has seen God at any time, and Gods life can only be seen in the life of Christ, then we must know Christ, and Christs life, to know God and Gods life; that the saying may be fulfilled in us, God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
One other royal text, did I say? We may understand many, perhaps all, the texts which speak of life, and eternal life, if we will look at them in this way. We may see why St. Paul says that to be spiritually minded is life; and that the life of Jesus may be manifested in men: and how the sin of the old heathen lay in this, that they were alienated from the life of God. We may understand how Christs commandment is everlasting life; how the water which he gives, can spring up within a mans heart to everlasting lifeall such texts we may, and shall, understand more and more, if we will bear in mind that everlasting life is the life of God and of Christ, a life of love; a life of perfect, active, self-sacrificing goodness, which is the one only true life for all rational beings, whether on earth or in heaven.
In heaven, my friends, as well as on earth. Form your own notions, as you will, about angels, and saints in heaven, for every one must have some notions about them, and try to picture to himself what the souls of those whom he has loved and lost are doing in the other world: but bear this in mind: that if the saints in heaven live the everlasting life, they must be living a life of usefulness, of love and of good works.
And here I must say, friends, that however much the Roman Catholics may be wrong on many points, they have remembered one thing about the life everlasting, which we are too apt to forget; and that is, that everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle life, spent only in being happy oneself. They believe that the saints in heaven are not idle; that they are eternally helping mankind; doing all sorts of good offices for those souls who need them; that, as St. Paul says of the angels, they are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who are heirs of salvation. And I cannot see why they should not be right. For if the saints delight was to do good on earth, much more will it be to do good in heaven. If they helped poor sufferers, if they taught the ignorant, if they comforted the afflicted, here on earth, much more will they be able, much more will they be willing, to help, comfort, teach them, now that they are in the full power, the full freedom, the full love and zeal of the everlasting life. If their hearts were warmed and softened by the fire of Gods love here, how much more there! If they lived Gods life of love here, how much more there, before the throne of God, and the face of Christ!