Yet surely the bearing of the sentences is not wholly upon heaven. Life eternal, so to be developed hereafter that Scripture speaks of it often as if it began hereafter, really begins here, and develops here, and is already "more abundant" (John x. 10) here. It is, as to its secret and also its experience, to know and to enjoy God, to be possessed by Him, and used for all His will. In this respect it is "_the end_," the issue and the goal, now and perpetually, of the surrender of the soul. The Master meets that attitude with more and yet more of Himself, known, enjoyed, possessed, possessing. And so He gives, evermore gives, out of His sovereign bounty, life eternal to the bondservant who has embraced the fact that he is nothing, and has nothing, outside his Master. Not at the outset of the regenerate life only, and not only when it issues into the heavenly ocean, but all along the course, the life eternal is still "the free gift of God." Let us now, to-day, to-morrow, and always, open the lips of surrendering and obedient faith, and drink it in, abundantly, and yet more abundantly. And let us use it for the Giver.
We are already, here on earth, at its very springs; so the Apostle reminds us. For it is "_in Jesus Christ our Lord_"; and we, believing, are in Him, "saved in His life." It is in Him; nay, it is He. "I am the Life"; "He that hath the Son, hath the life." Abiding in Christ, we live "because He liveth." It is not to be "attained"; it is given, it is our own. In Christ, it is given, in its divine fulness, as to covenant provision, here, now, from the first, to every Christian. In Christ, it is supplied, as to its fulness and fitness for each arising need, as the Christian asks, receives, and uses for his Lord.
So from, or rather in, our holy bondservice the Apostle has brought us to our inexhaustible life, and its resources for willing holiness. But he has more to say in explaining the beloved theme. He turns from slave to wife, from surrender to bridal, from the purchase to the vow, from the results of a holy bondage to the offspring of a heavenly union. Hear him as he proceeds:
[Sidenote: Ch. vii. Ver. 1.] =Or do you not know, brethren, (for I am talking (λαλῶ) to those acquainted with law,= whether Mosaic or Gentile,) =that the law has claim on the man,= the party (ἄνθρωπος) in any given case, =for his whole lifetime?= [Sidenote: Ver. 2.] =For the woman with a husband (ἀνὴρ) is to her living husband bound by law,= stands all along bound (δέδεται) to him. _His life_, under normal conditions, is his adequate claim. Prove him living, and you prove her his. =But if the husband should have died, she stands ipso facto cancelled[103] (κατήργηται) from the husband's law,= the marriage law as he could bring it to bear against her. [Sidenote: Ver. 3.] =So, therefore, while the husband lives, she will earn adulteress for her name, if she weds another (ἑτέρῳ, "a second") husband. But if the husband should have died, she is free from the law= in question, =so as to be no adulteress, if wedded to another,= a second, =husband.= [Sidenote: Ver. 4.] =Accordingly, my brethren, you too,= as a mystic bride, collectively and individually,[104] =were done to death as to the Law,= so slain that its capital claim upon you is met _and done_, =by means of the Body of the Christ (τοῦ Χριστοῦ),= by "the doing to death" of His sacred Body for you, on His atoning Cross, to satisfy for you the aggrieved Law; =in order to your wedding Another,= a second Party (ἑτέρῳ), =Him who rose from the dead; that we might bear fruit for God;= "_we_," Paul and his converts, in one happy _fellowship_, which he delights thus to remember and indicate by the way.