1901

June 10, 1901

“The Power of Life” The Bible Echo 16, 24 pp. 370, 371.

ATJ 

THE righteousness of God is the very essence of His character; and that is the source of the power of the gospel. It is the power of God, because therein—in the gospel—is the righteousness of God. The ministry of the gospel is the ministry of the character of God. To you and me, as ministers of the gospel, God has given by His grace that commission to preach the gospel, to preach the power of God, to preach the very essence of the character of God, unto men; so that they shall find the essence of the character of God; and in that find the salvation which God works in the lives of men, in human flesh. BEST June 10, 1901, page 370.1

In the way of righteousness is life. It is the life of God. Is it not true that He has said that in former times we, as Gentiles, were alienated, separated from the life of God? But in Christ we are joined to the life of God: and that is eternal life. And so it is written, in John 5:24: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that hearth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life.” Hath it—not shall have it, but hath it. As to the future it is: “Shall not come into condemnation.” “But is“—now it swings back to the present—”but is passed from death unto life.” And now we are with Him in life—the life of God. Joined to Him, even as it is written, “With Thee is the fountain of life.” And when we thus find His life, those connected with His life, joined to it, so that this life is our life, and there is the revealing of His power. For Jesus Christ is made an High Priest, after the power of an endless life. BEST June 10, 1901, page 370.2

I call your attention now to just that thought. There is power in life. In endless life there is more power. Our every-day life, the natural life, that is but a vapour, which appeareth for a time, and then vanisheth away. We let it go, and receive the endless life, which never vanishes away. Then since there is power in this life, power in life itself, what power is it that is of an endless life?—Only an endless power. BEST June 10, 1901, page 370.3

So I say, the gospel is the power of God, because that in it the righteousness of God is revealed, and in the way of righteousness is life. And there is the hiding of His power, the endless power. And this endless life of God that comes in the boundless righteousness of God, is revealed in the gospel which He has given to us to preach. BEST June 10, 1901, page 370.4

Now another word about that life. Oh that I could—and I pray God that He will cause it to be so—enable you to see this thought that I now call your attention to, of being joined to the life of God. That life of God is in Jesus Christ. He is the source of life. Brethren, there is a higher calling for us than to think that we as Christians get our life through the breath which we breathe here, as all men breathe, and the food which we eat, as all men eat. We had all that before we were Christians at all. We would have had all that if we had never been Christians. We would have breathed, ate, drank, and lived; but when God calls us to Him, to become connected with the life of God, we are lifted above the place we were before, and are joined to that boundless sea of the life of God. And there is the source of our life as Christians. God proposes so to connect us with Himself that we shall be conscious day by day, and all the time, that there is an inflowing of life from the throne of the living God to the heart and life of the believer in Jesus. Then when we have allowed ourselves to be lifted up to that place, and to receive that flow of the life of God into our lives day by day,—Oh, then the power of God will be upon us! Then the power of God will be manifested in our ministry, even the endless power that belongs to the endless life of God. BEST June 10, 1901, page 370.5

But why is that given to us?—Oh, for the work of the ministry. But to whom do we minister?—To mankind. What do we minister?—O, Jesus Christ has thus brought us to the fountain of life, and connected us therewith, that we may be indeed those who shall stand between the dead and the living, to convey to the dead the life that shall cause them to live. That is what we are in the world for. It is that Jesus Christ, the living, may, by us, reach the dead with the life that measures with the life of God. BEST June 10, 1901, page 370.6

So we are ministers of life. We are called, correctly, truly, ministers of Christ. But what is Christ? Let us turn and read that beautiful passage in first John: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.” And that should be all true of you and me to-day. True, John spoke of the time when they looked upon Him in the flesh; but John did not stop with that. John looked upon Jesus Christ in the Spirit after He had left the flesh and gone to heaven; and it belongs to you and me to look upon Jesus Christ, to behold Him with our eyes as He is to-day at the right hand of God, to give forth repentance, remission of sins, to shed life to the dead. BEST June 10, 1901, page 370.7

A. T. JONES.