2. Life

Shall we stop at forgiveness? Shall we stop at that grace which follows us to the end of our earthly journey? Is the Christian only like a ransomed prisoner with a fund of riches to meet all his wants to the day of his death? Far be the thought; we are much more than forgiven; we are the possessors of everlasting life. “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23.) Jesus not only died for our sins; He rose for our justification. His blood blotted out our countless crimes; He is our life. Bad as it is to be in debt, it is worse to be dead. And we are by nature “dead in trespasses and sins.” If we are saved by God’s salvation, it is both forgiveness and life for us.
The fond mother of Shunam had death in her house; the child of her desires lay upon his bed lifeless. Who could meet this extremity? Who but the living God could give life? Life is God’s gift. When Adam was formed out of the dust, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7.) Not the hardest strivings, the bitterest tears, could give back her son’s life, and this she knew full well; but she knew more, ―she knew that Elisha, Jehovah’s servant, if it were Jehovah’s will, could bring back her child to life. She had faith in God.
Have you faith, dear reader? Can you say, while looking into your dead nature, “It is well?” knowing that God raiseth the dead. The Shunammite went straight to Jehovah’s prophet. “Drive, and go forward,” she said; “slack not thy riding for me.” This was the energy of faith. And when Elisha inquired how it was with her, she said, in the calmness of faith, “It is well.”
The prophet came to her child, as God’s salvation comes to us, down to the very place where he was. Elisha lay upon the dead child; his mouth, his hands, touched the lifeless body. But Jesus has taken our place actually, our, very place; He died on the cross, He went down into the grave for us. Have you considered His stoop―from the glory to the grave? Have you pondered His work―the maker of all worlds as a man lying dead in the tomb? It is only by Him that we’ obtain life: “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” His blood cleanses all our sins away; His death ends our sinful nature.
We see the little chamber where the dead child lies, and our God alone can raise him up. Why should it be so difficult to believe that God alone gives dead sinners new and everlasting life? The answer is not far off; it lies in the hardness of our hearts, that find it so difficult to believe that we are dead in trespasses and sins.
Beloved soul, if you only felt what your nature is—a dead thing in the sight of God; therefore hopelessly beyond repair—you would, like the Shunammite at Carmel, have but one cry, “Life, life!”
But how am I to obtain life, do you ask? We get life from God Himself; He gives us life by His Spirit, and the life is Christ. If you believe, you have life; as it is written, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life.” (John 5:24.) And again, “He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1 John 5:12.) Oh, beloved reader, if thou knewest the love of God! (John 4:17.) May His Spirit by the word quicken your dead soul! Would to God you knew what salvation is! ―absolute and everlasting forgiveness by the precious blood of Christ; life everlasting; Christ Himself being your life.
The joy of the mother, when she clasped her child―the living, the living―in her bosom, was deeper than the rich joy of her who had the money in her hand to pay her debts, and deliver her sons from bondage; and surely there is a fuller joy when we know the gift of God, which is eternal life, than even when we know that we are forgiven all our sins by the precious blood.
It is quite true that we may have to lay down these bodies in the grave; still it is only the body that falls asleep: those who believe in the Lord Jesus “never die.” (John 11)