What then can God do now? He can only hope for us to die. But the strange thing is that our relationship with Him begins with regeneration and ends with eternal life. Not only has God begotten us, He has also given us eternal life. If God had started the work but had been unable to complete it, we would be finished. In that case, we could not be saved. As far as the eternal life that we received from God is concerned, it is impossible for God not to save us. Thank the Lord that He has regenerated us and has given us eternal life, which is the life of His Son. If there is a man today who thinks that a Christian can perish again if he becomes weak and that only a good son will have eternal life, while a bad son will perish, this man does not know God's salvation. He may think that the Lord is a debt collector, coming to collect eternal life and redemption. If we do well, we can keep them. If we do not do well, He will take them back. This is not the salvation of God. The beginning has to be of Him. The continuation also has to be of Him. Since God has given us salvation, how can we lose our salvation? Since God has started this relationship, and the life we received is an eternal life which can never cease to exist, we can never perish again.

God gave us another type in the Bible to show us that we can never lose our salvation once we have received it from God. Genesis 3 is a familiar passage to us. It tells us how Adam sinned. After Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God drove him from the garden of Eden and guarded the way to the tree of life with the cherubim and the flaming sword that turned every way (v. 24). Why did God have to surround the entrance to the tree of life with the flaming sword and the cherubim? Why did He not allow Adam to eat of the fruit of the tree of life? Genesis 3:22 says, "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." Here we see a picture. We all know that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil signifies independence from God. The fruit of the tree of life, on the other hand, signifies life—the life given to us by the Son of God. After Adam sinned, God was afraid that Adam would eat of the fruit of the tree of life and that if he ate of it, he would not die. If Adam could still die after eating the fruit of the tree of life, then why did God have to do so much work? Why did He have to guard the way to the tree of life with the cherubim and the flaming sword? God did this because He was afraid that Adam would live forever if he ate of it.

We are those who have been redeemed. What we have eaten is not the fruit of the tree of life, which is a type only. We have eaten Life Himself. Can we still die? If Adam could not die after having eaten a symbolic fruit, how can we die after having been washed by the blood of the Lord Jesus, having eaten of the tree of life itself, and having received eternal life? Adam knew the tree of life as a type, whereas we have received what the tree of life typifies. How can we possibly die? Only those who do not know what regeneration is and what eternal life is can say that salvation can be lost. Thank the Lord that eternal life is a fact that can never be annulled. It is a history that can never be blotted out. This is why we can live before God. What grace God has bestowed upon us! The relationship between God and us is such that we can strongly say that no power on earth can separate us from Him. Even if God were to be unhappy about it, He cannot annul this relationship.