Message Eight

The Eternal Life—
the Uncreated, Indestructible, Incorruptible Life
in Which We Are Saved and in Which We Reign

1. In our physical body we have a biological life (Gk. bios), in our soul we have a psychological life (Gk. psuche), but when we were regenerated we received another life, the eternal life (Gk. zoe):
   1. The eternal life is the life that is not only everlasting but also eternal both in time and in nature—John 3:16, 36; 1 John 1:2.
   2. The eternal life is the uncreated life of God, the indestructible life, and the incorruptible life—Eph. 4:18; Heb. 7:16; 2 Tim. 1:10.
   3. The eternal life is the life that is in the Son of God and that is the Son of God—1 John 5:11-12; 1:2; John 1:4; 14:6.
   4. The eternal life is the life with which the believers are regenerated and which becomes the believers' life, making the believers the children of God and the members of Christ—Col. 3:4a; John 1:12-13; Eph. 5:30.
   5. The eternal life is the life on which we should lay hold—1 Tim. 6:12.
2. The eternal life as a blessing from God to us is in three stages, and these three stages are in three ages:
   1. In the present age, the church age, we receive the eternal life as a free gift for us to enjoy and live by—John 3:15-16.
   2. In the coming age, the kingdom age, we inherit eternal life as a reward with an enjoyment of the eternal life that is fuller than the enjoyment in this age—Matt. 19:17; Luke 18:29-30; Rev. 2:7.
   3. In the eternal age in the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem as the center, we will enjoy the ultimate consummation of the eternal life in its fullest blessing—Rev. 22:1-2, 14.
3. God gives His chosen people repentance unto eternal life and has appointed, ordained, them to receive this life—Acts 11:18; 13:48.
4. Christ's righteous act of dying on the cross is unto justification of life to all men—Rom. 5:18:
   1. Life is the goal of God's salvation; thus, justification is "of life."
   2. Through justification we have come up to the standard of God's righteousness and correspond with it, so that now He can impart His life to us.
5. The believers walk in the newness of this life—Rom. 6:4.
6. The life of the Triune God is dispensed into the tripartite man to save the believers subjectively in this life through regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification—Rom. 5:10b:
   1. First, this life was the divine life in the Spirit—Rom. 8:2.
   2. Second, it became the life in our spirit through regeneration—Rom. 8:10.
   3. Then from our spirit it saturates our mind for the transformation of our soul, to which our mind belongs, and becomes the life in our soul—Rom. 8:6.
   4. Eventually, it will permeate our body and become the life in our body, ultimately issuing in the transfiguration of our body, that is, the redemption of our body—Rom. 8:11; Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:23.
7. The believers need to reign in life with grace over all things unto eternal life—Rom. 5:17, 21:
   1. God's complete salvation is for us to reign in life by the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness:
      1. The gift of righteousness is for God's judicial redemption; grace is for us to experience God's organic salvation:
         1. The gift of righteousness is God's judicial redemption applied to us in a practical way.
         2. Grace is God Himself as our all-sufficient supply for our organic salvation.
      2. Reigning in life is the full experience of the organic salvation of God.
   2. We have been regenerated with a divine, spiritual, heavenly, kingly, and royal life—Mark 4:26; 1 John 3:9.
   3. Reigning in life in Romans 5 is the key to everything in Romans 6—16:
      1. We need to see everything in Romans 6—16 in this light.
      2. If we reign in life, we are in all the matters presented in these chapters.
   4. In experience, to reign in life means to be under the ruling of the divine life:
      1. Christ is a pattern of reigning in life by being under the ruling of the divine life of the Father—Matt. 8:9.
      2. Paul is an example of one who, in his life and ministry, was under the ruling of the divine life—2 Cor. 2:12-14.
      3. There is the need for all the believers who have received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness to practice the restriction and limitation in the divine life.
   5. The issue of our reigning in life, living under the ruling of the divine life, is the real and practical Body life expressed in the church life.
   6. Each item of the living of the Body life in Romans 12—13 requires us to be ruled by the divine life:
      1. We need to be captivated by the compassions of God—12:1a.
      2. We must present our bodies a living sacrifice—12:1b.
      3. We should not be fashioned according to this age but be transformed by the renewing of the mind—12:2.
      4. We should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, but think so as to be sober-minded, as God has apportioned to each a measure of faith—12:3.
      5. We should consider that we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function—12:4.
   7. We need to live a life of the highest virtues for the Body life by reigning in life:
      1. We should love without hypocrisy and love one another warmly in brotherly love—12:9a, 10a.
      2. We should not be slothful in zeal but burning in spirit, serving the Lord—12:11.
      3. We should endure in tribulation—12:12b.
      4. We should rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep—12:15.
      5. If possible, as far as it depends on us, we should live in peace with all men—12:18.
   8. Reigning in life is "unto eternal life"—Rom. 5:21:
      1. Unto eternal life is a particular expression.
      2. John 4:14b says, "The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life":
         1. Into (unto in Rom. 5:21) speaks of destination and also means "to become" or "to be."
         2. The eternal life eventually will be the New Jerusalem.
         3. Into eternal life means into the New Jerusalem.
      3. The New Jerusalem is the totality of the divine life, the totality of the life of God.
      4. The issue and goal of our reigning in life is the New Jerusalem, the universal incorporation of the union and mingling of divinity with humanity.