This is the true God, and eternal life.' Now, let us distinctly and emphatically put first that what is here declared is primarily something about God, and not about His gift to men; and that the two clauses, the true God,' and eternal life,' stand in precisely the same relation to the preceding words, This is.' That is to say, the revelation which John would lay upon our hearts, that from it there may spring up in them a wondrous hope, is that, in His own essential self, the God revealed in Jesus Christ, and brought into living fellowship with us by Him, is eternal life.' By eternal life' he means something a great deal more august than endless existence. He means a life which not only is not ended by time, but which is above time, and not subject to its conditions at all. Eternity is not time spun out for ever. And so we are not lifted up into a region where there is little light, but where the very darkness is light, just as the curtain was the picture, in the old story of the painter.
That seems to part us utterly from God. He is eternal life'; then, we poor creatures down here, whose being is all cribbed, cabined, and confined' by succession, and duration, and the partitions of time, what can we have in common with Him? John answers for us. For, remember that in the earlier part of this epistle he writes that the life was manifested, and we shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us,' and we declare it unto you; that ye also may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son.' So, then, strange as it is, and beyond our thoughts as it is, there may pass into creatures that very eternal life which is in God, and was manifested in Jesus. We have to think of Him because we know Him to be love, as in essence self-communicating, and whatsoever a creature can receive, a loving Father, the true God, will surely give.
But we are not left to wander about in regions of mysticism and darkness. For we know this, that however strange and difficult the thought of eternal life as possessed by a creature may be, to give it was the very purpose for which Jesus Christ came on earth. I am that Bread of Life.' I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.' And we are not left to grope in doubt as to what that eternal life consists in; for He has said: This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.' Nor are we left in any more doubt as to that bond by which the whole fulness of this Divine gift may flow into a man's spirit. For over and over again the Master Himself has declared, He that believeth hath everlasting life,'
Thus, then, there is a life which belongs to God on His throne, a life lifted above the limitations of time, a life communicated by Jesus Christ, as the waters of some land-locked lake may flow down through a sparkling river, a life which consists in fellowship with God, a life which may be, and is, ours, on the simple condition of trusting Him who gives it, and a life which, eternal as it is, and destined to a glory all undreamed of, in that future beyond the grave, is now the possession of every man that puts forth the faith which is its condition. He that believeth hath'--not shall have, in some distant future, but has to-day--everlasting life,' verily here and now. And so John lays this upon our hearts, as the ripe fruit of all his experience, and the meaning of all his message to the world, that God revealed in Christ is the true God,' and as Himself the possessor, is the source for us all, of life eternal.
