iii. CONCLUSIONS TO BE DRAWN FROM SCRIP- TURAL USE OF THESE WorDs.—(a) Doctrinal.— God isin Himself the source of all life, physical, moral, and spiritual. He has not only called it into being, but sustains it. Life is God’s gift, and can have no other origin. It is therefore a direct offence against God to destroy even physical life. This sentient life is, in the OT, represented as inhering in, and inseparable from, the blood of the animal. Hence blood becomes sacred. It is a symbol of the mystery of life with which it is identified. Blood thus becomes the most sacred and solemn sacrificial offering.
Sin is rebellion against God, and so involves separation from Him, which culminates in death. Thus death is the final punishment of sin. By death, then, can it alone be destroyed. Therefore sacrifice was necessary; and in the sacrifice the victim and offerer become identified, so that the latter’s sin is cleansed through the acceptance of the offered life of the victim. Not only so, but this sacrifice must be continual, in order to main- tain the fellowship that is being daily broken. Life is possible only through sacrifice. Yet ‘death is common to the race.’ What then? Death in the OT means a land of gloom and shadow, where intercourse with God isimpossible. The inhabitants
of that realm can neither pray nor praise. Their life is joyless and colourless. That this could not be the end forall gradually became clear, so there arose
It is frequently used in a figurative sense to! a doctrine of a double meaning both in ‘life’ and
LIFE AND DEATH LIFE AND DEATH
eat basis of Ezekiel’s appeal. One of the greatest essons of the Book of Jonah is to enforce the value of life in the eyes of God. He had pity on the great city of Nineveh because it had within it ‘sixscore thousand persons ... and also much cattle.’ Life, even that of animals, is precious ir His eyes, and all that is possible must be done to save it.
Life must be guided by moral precepts, and these are clearly set forth as the condition of a long and honoured career, e.g. Ps 15, which states the char- acteristics of the man ‘that shall never be moved’; Ps 16, which contains the assurance of flowy with God, continued after Sheol has been passe through; Ps 916 119, Pr passim, but specially 832-36 1016-25 198. 16. 20-23
When we turn to the NT we find these ideas much more clearly emphasized and enforced by additional considerations. Jesus in His teaching re-sets the moral law, and renders it more stringent by His interpretation. Murder is no longer con- fined to an outward act, but is an attitude of the soul; lust is in thought as well as in deed. And these standards are to be the guide of the new life He bestows. A man can live only by obeyin; these statutes in their spirit. To be an inheritor of the kingdom of God one need only keep the first and second commandments,—love God and love one’s neighbour ; but their interpretation and out- reach is very wide; they are not to be understood in the letter but in the spirit. If His conditions are understood, then His command gives the promise, _ ‘This do, and thou shalt live’ (Lk 10%). ‘ Eternal life’ is not only the gift of God, but the condition of maintaining it is to be in constant communion with God. ‘He that eateth me, he also shall live because of me,’ are Christ’s mystical words in Jn 6°”. And again, in Jn 10 we read, ‘I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly (καὶ περισσὸν ἔχωσιν). This links our Lord’s teaching closely with that of St. Paul, who is very clear on the ethical side of the doctrine of the divine life. Thus in Ro 5 he argues that ‘if we were recon- ciled to God through the death of his son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.’ From this thought springs the whole con- ception of the new life in Christ, with its powers,
rivileges, and responsibilities. It is not the man himself who lives, but Christ who lives in him. The controlling force is Christ. ‘To me to live is Christ,’ says the apostle. A new code of ethical conduct therefore emerges, ‘We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh ; for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the spirit x mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live’ (Ro 812.18)" Hence there is a mortal conflict in the man who is ‘alive unto God’ between the flesh] law and the spiritual. The tragedy of Calvary is re-enacted in eack individual soul, which has both to be crucified with Christ and to rise with Him. The evidence of this new life isin the production of the ‘fruits of the Spirit,’ of which we have a list, as contrasted with the ‘works of the flesh’ in Gal 519-93. Thus the great doctrine of the resurrec- tion becomes the central power in daily Christian living, and affords not ony. the assurance of a life beyond the grave, but renders possible the advance ἐν Boe! without which no man can see <he