1. Life.-In a consideration of the subject of life as dealt with in the Acts and Epistles, three Gr. words-βίος, ψυχή, and ζωή-require to be distinguished. (1) βίος denotes life in the outward and visible sense-its period or course (cf. ‘the time past of our life,’ 1 Peter 4:3), its means of living (hence in 1 John 3:17 the Revised Version renders ‘goods’), the manner in which it is spent (cf. ‘that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life,’ 1 Timothy 2:2), its relation to worldly affairs (2 Timothy 2:4) and to the world’s love of pomp and show (1 John 2:16). (2) ψυχή (fr. ^[1] ψύχω, ‘breathe’) originally means the breath of life, and in such an expression as ‘his life is in him’ (Acts 20:10) would quite adequately be rendered ‘breath.’ But, as breathing is the sign of the presence in the body of an animating vital force, ψυχή (cf. Lat. anima) comes to mean ‘life’ in the sense of the animal soul, and especially the life of the individual as distinguished from other individual lives. This is the life that may be injured or lost through a shipwreck (Acts 27:10; Acts 27:22), counted dear or willingly surrendered (Acts 20:24, Revelation 12:11); the life which Jesus Christ laid down for His people (1 John 3:16), and which they should be prepared to lay down for Him (Acts 15:26) or for one another (Romans 16:4, Philippians 2:30, 1 John 3:16). From meaning the animal soul or life (anima), however, ψυχή comes to be used for the individualized life in its moral and spiritual aspects, the ‘soul’ in the deeper significance of that word (Lat. animus), the part of man which thinks and feels and wills (Acts 2:27, Romans 2:9, 2 Corinthians 1:23, etc). See, further, Soul. (3) But of the three words for life ζωή for the purposes of the present article is much the most important. Occasionally it is employed in a way that makes it practically equivalent to βίος (1 Corinthians 15:19, ‘If in this life only we have hoped in Christ’; cf. Luke 16:25, ‘in thy lifetime’ ^[2]), and more frequently in connexions not far removed from those of ψυχή in the sense of the vital energy or animal soul (e.g. Acts 17:25, James 4:14), though even in these cases it is noticeable that ζωή does not denote, like ψυχή, the life of the individual, but life in a sense that is general and distributed. Ordinarily, however, ζωή stands for a life which is not existence merely, but existence raised to its highest power; not a bare life, but’ life more abundantly’ (John 10:10), a life which St. Paul describes as ‘the life which is life indeed’ (ἡ ὄντως ζωή, 1 Timothy 6:19), a life, i.e., which in its essential nature is full and overflowing, and in its moral and spiritual quality is perfect and complete. In this employment of it, ζωή is very frequently characterized as ‘eternal (αἰώνιος) life’; but the epithet does not impart any real addition to the connotation of the word as elsewhere used without the adjective, much less restrict its reference to the life after death; it only expresses more explicitly the conception of that life as something so full and positive that from its very nature it is unconquerable by death, and consequently everlasting. See, further, Eternal, Everlasting. (a) In the usage of the NT this ζωή or ζωὴ αἰώνιος is first of all a Divine attribute-a view of it which finds its most complete expression in the Johannine writings. It inheres in God and belongs to His essential nature. ‘The Father hath life in himself’ (John 5:26), the life eternal is ‘with the Father’ (1 John 1:2). The Father, however, imparts it to the Son, so that He also possesses ‘life in himself’ (John 5:26), and possesses it in a manner so copious that this endowment with life is predicated of Him as if it were the most characteristic quality of His being (John 1:4). Thereafter this life which Christ possesses is communicated by Him to those who are willing to receive it, the record being that God gave unto as the eternal life which is in His Son (1 John 5:11), and that he that hath the Son, viz. by believing on His name, hath the life (1 John 5:12 f.) (b) The ζωή (αἰώνιος) thus becomes a human possession and quality; and it is with the manifestations in human character and experience of this life flowing from God through Christ that the apostolic writers are principally concerned in what they have to say about it. Their references bear chiefly upon the source from which it comes, the means by which it is obtained, its fruits or evidences, its present possession, and its completion in the world to come. (α) As follows from the fact that this life inheres essentially in God, its primal source is God the Father, from whom it comes as a gift (Romans 6:23, 1 John 5:11) and a grace (1 Peter 3:7). But this gracious gift is manifested and mediated only by Christ (1 John 1:2, 1 Timothy 2:5). According to St. John, the eternal life which men enjoy resides in God’s Son (1 John 5:11), and that in so absolute a sense that ‘he that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life’ (1 John 5:12). Similarly St. Paul writes that it is through the Son that the gift of life is bestowed (Romans 6:23), describes Christ as ‘our life’ (Colossians 3:4), and declares that this life of ours ‘is hid with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3). (β) But this gift of life is not bestowed arbitrarily or apart from the fulfilment of certain conditions. It is not thrust upon anyone, but needs to be laid hold of (1 Timothy 6:12; 1 Timothy 6:19). In the symbolic language of the Apocalypse the fruition of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God is promised to him that overcometh (Revelation 2:7). Various energies and attitudes of the soul are mentioned as conditioning the attainment of life, e.g. patience in well-doing (Romans 2:7), en durance of temptation (James 1:12), sowing to the Spirit (Galatians 6:8), But the fundamental conditions, on which all the others depend, are repentance (Acts 11:18) and faith (Acts 13:48, 1 Timothy 1:16, 1 John 5:10-12). The old life must be renounced if the new life is to begin; that is what is meant by the demand for repentance. And life cannot be self-generated, but can only be received from a living source; that is the explanation of the call for faith. (γ) Among the fruits or evidences of the possession of life St. Paul includes freedom from the bondage of sin (Romans 6:6) and a way of walking in the world which is new (Romans 6:4) and has God for its object (Romans 6:11). Inwardly the life reveals its presence in a daily experience of renewal (2 Corinthians 4:16), in the possession of a spiritual mind (Romans 8:6), in the consciousness of spiritual liberty (Romans 8:2). Outwardly its fruits are seen in holy living (Romans 6:22) and its signature written even upon the mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4:11). To St. John the great evidence of life is love to the brethren (1 John 3:14). Everyone that loveth is born of God (1 John 4:7); but the love which is the proof of this Divine birth and consequent Divine life must flow out towards the visible brother as well as towards the invisible God if there is to be any assurance of its reality (1 John 4:12; 1 John 4:20). In the mystical language of the author of the Apocalypse life has the evidence of a written record. The names of those who possess it are written in a book which is called ‘the book of life’ (Revelation 3:5; Revelation 17:8; Revelation 20:12; Revelation 22:19), or more fully ‘the Lamb’s book of life’ (Revelation 13:8; Revelation 21:27). With this may be compared St. Paul’s use of the same figure in Philippians 4:3. See Book of Life. (δ) To the apostolic writers life or eternal life is a present possession. While distinct from the ordinary forms of earthly existence, with which it is contrasted (1 Timothy 6:19), it is not separated from them in time, but here and now interfused dynamically through them all. This is a conception which is especially characteristic of the Johannine writings. In the Fourth Gospel it occurs constantly (John 3:36; John 17:3 etc.), and in the First Epistle we see it reappearing, as when the writer declares that he that hath the Son hath the life (1 John 5:12), and that those who possess eternal life may know that they possess it (1 John 3:14; 1 John 5:13). But it is evident that St. Paul also conceives of life as a present reality when he proclaims that Christ is out life (Colossians 3:4), and that our life is hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3), when he makes our baptism into Christ’s Death, and resurrection in His likeness, determinative of our present walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4), and declares that to be spiritually-minded is life and peace (Romans 8:6). (ε) And yet this life, though it is a present experience, is not realized in its totality in the present world. The promise given to godliness in 1 Timothy 4:8 is said to be for the life that now is and that which is to come. Similarly it is in ‘the time to come’ that ‘the life which is life indeed’ arrives at its completion (1 Timothy 6:19). St. Paul gives especial prominence to this future aspect of the life in Christ. He anticipates a time when what is mortal shall be swallowed up of life (2 Corinthians 5:4), co-ordinates eternal life with immortality (Romans 2:7; cf. 2 Timothy 1:10), and places it in direct antithesis with death (Romans 6:23) and corruption (Galatians 6:8). And yet, though life for its completeness must wait for the full revelation of the powers of the world to come, which are only tasted here (Hebrews 6:5), the present and the future life are essentially one and the same. It is because the Christian life is hid with Christ in God that it carries the assurance of immortality within itself. As, in St. Peter’s language, it was not possible that Christ should be holden of death (Acts 2:24), so it is impossible that those whose very life Christ is (Colossians 3:4) should not be sharers in His victory over death’s pains and powers. To all who abide in the Son and through Him in the Father there belongs this promise which He promised us, even the life eternal (1 John 2:24 f.). And in this promise there lies enfolded the hope not only of the immortality of the soul but of the resurrection of the body. It is the frailty and imperfection of the earthly body, its domination by the law of sin and death, that hinder the full enjoyment of eternal life in the present world (2 Corinthians 5:2; 2 Corinthians 5:4). But when mortality shall be swallowed up of life, Christ’s people, instead of being ‘unclothed,’ shall be ‘clothed upon’ (2 Corinthians 5:2; 2 Corinthians 5:4). To the natural body will succeed a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44), to the body of death (Romans 7:24) a body instinct with the Lord’s own life, to the house that must be dissolved a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1). 2. Death (θἀνατος, to which in its various senses correspond the vb. ἀποθνήσκω, ‘die,’ and the adj. νεκρός, ‘dead’).-Death is frequently used in the apostolic literature in its ordinary, everyday meaning of the end of man’s earthly course (βίος) or the extinction of his animal life (ψυχή) through the separation of the soul from the body (Acts 2:24, 1 Corinthians 3:22, Philippians 2:27). Much more important than this purely physical employment of the word are its various theological uses, the chief of which maybe distinguished as the punitive, the redemptive, the mystical, the spiritual and moral. (1) For the NT writers, and above all for St. Paul, death has a punitive significance as the judicial sentence pronounced by God upon sin. When St. Paul writes, ‘The wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23), or ‘Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned’ (Romans 5:12); or when the author of Hebrews links together the facts of death and the judgment and relates them to the Death and redeeming Sacrifice of Christ (Hebrews 9:26-28); or when St. James says, ‘He which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall cover a multitude of sins’ (James 5:20), death is used to denote the punitive consequences of sin and the state in which man lies as condemned on account of it. For, just as ζωή in the NT means not the earthly existence but the larger life of the Christian salvation, so θάνατος means not the end of the earthly existence merely but the loss of life in the full Christian conception of the word-the whole of the miserable results that flow from sin and constitute its penalty. Among these penal consequences certainly physical death is included, as passages like Romans 5:12; Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:21 f. make perfectly clear. More than this, the death of the body is treated as ‘the point of the punitive sentence, about which all the other elements in that sentence are grouped’ (H. Cremer, Bib.-Theol. Lex.3, 1880, p. 284). Death is the wages of sin (Romans 6:23), it is the recompense received by the servants of sin (Romans 6:16). Sin reigns in death (Romans 5:21); it is the sting of death (1 Corinthians 15:56). The saving significance of the Death of Christ is due to this same punitive relation between death and sin. He died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3); He bare our sins in His body upon the tree (1 Peter 2:24). And it is through the Death of His Son that we are reconciled to God (Romans 5:10). In including physical death among the penalties of sin, however, the apostolic writers are not to be held as meaning either that man was naturally immortal or that until he fell there was no natural law of death in the physical world. In neither the OT nor the NT is the assertion ever made that death entered into the natural world in consequence of the sin of man (the ‘world’ in Romans 5:12 is the moral world, as the context shows). And when man became liable to death because of sin (Romans 5:12; Romans 5:14; cf. Genesis 2:17), this does not imply that he was not created mortal (cf. Genesis 3:19). But it does imply that, mortal as he was, he differed from the rest of the animal world in a potentiality of exemption from the law of decay and death, owing to the fact that he was a spiritual being made in God’s image; and that by his transgression he lost God’s proffered gift of physical immortality (Romans 5:14, 1 Corinthians 15:21 f.). But, while physical death is the point of the punitive sentence, the sentence of death stretches far beyond it. Just as ζωή has a future and otherworldly as well as a present reference, so is it with θάνατος. Sometimes it plainly refers to a death that is not an earthly experience but a future state of misery which awaits the wicked in the world to come (Romans 1:32, 1 John 3:14; 1 John 5:16). In Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:6; Revelation 14; Revelation 21:8 this future condition of woe is called ‘the second death,’ in contrast, viz., with the first death by which the life on earth is ended (see Punishment). (2) At the other extreme from this punitive sense of death is the use of the word with a redemptive meaning. When St. Paul declares in Romans that we died to sin (Revelation 6:2), that we were buried through baptism into death (Revelation 6:4), that he that hath died is justified from sin (Revelation 6:11); or when in Galatians he says of himself, ‘For I through the law died unto the law’ (Revelation 2:19), the death he speaks of, as the last passage shows, is a legal or judicial death which carries with it a deliverance from the state of condemnation into which the sinner has been brought by his sin (Romans 6:7). And when he speaks of this death as a dying with Christ (Romans 6:8), and explains more fully that all died because one died for all (2 Corinthians 5:14), he reminds us that this redemptive death is possible for Christians only because a punitive Death was endured by Christ on their behalf. If they can reckon themselves to be dead unto sin (Romans 6:11), it is because ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:3). (3) Side by side with this redemptive death in Christ-a death to the penalty of sin-St. Paul sets a mystical dying-a dying to its power. The Christian’s union with Christ in His redeeming Death is not only the ground of his justification but the secret source and spring of his sanctification. If the transition from the one to the other is not very clearly marked, the reason is that for St. Paul the two were inseparably joined together. He passes at a bound, and as it were unconsciously, from the legal aspect of the Christian’s death in Christ to its mystical aspect, from a death in the eyes of the law against sin to a death to the principle of sin itself (2 Corinthians 5:14 f.). Baptism into Jesus Christ is the symbol and seal of a baptism into His Death, which means not only a dying to the retribution of the of offended law but a crucifixion of the old man, a destruction of ‘the body of sin,’ so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin’s power (Romans 6:2-7; cf. Galatians 2:12). It may be that St. Paul’s view of the body, not indeed as essentially sinful, but as the invariable seat and source of sin in fallen humanity (see article Body) helped him to think of the Crucifixion of Christ as carrying with it a destruction of the polluted flesh (cf. Romans 8:3) through which the way was opened for a new life of holiness. But in any case death to the law meant life unto God, because crucifixion with Christ meant the death of the former self and the substitution for it of a life of faith in the son of God (Galatians 2:19 f.). Nor is it only to sin that the Christian died in Christ, but to the world (Galatians 6:14), to the world’s doctrines and precepts (Colossians 2:20 f.), to the attitude and affections of the mind that is set on earthly things (Colossians 3:2). ‘For ye died,’ the Apostle writes, ‘and your life is hid with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3). And in this case, at least, it is plain that the death of which he thinks is not the judicial but the mystical dying, the dying which is at the same time the birth to a new life (cf. John 12:24 f.) that carries with it a putting to death of all that is earthly and evil in the natures of those whom Christ has redeemed (Colossians 3:5). (4) Once more, death is used to denote the spiritual atrophy and moral inability of fallen man in his unregenerate condition. This is the sense that belongs to it in the expression ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ (Ephesians 2:1; cf. Colossians 2:13), in the summons to the spiritual sleeper to awake and arise from the dead (Ephesians 5:14), in the description of true believers as those that are alive from the dead (Romans 6:13) and of false professors as having a name that they are living when they are really dead (Revelation 3:1), in the statements that the mind of the flesh is death (Romans 8:6) and that the woman who lives in pleasure is dead while she liveth (1 Timothy 5:6). This, especially on the side of moral inability, is the death which St. Paul describes so powerfully in Romans 7:14 ff., from which, conscious of his helplessness, he cries to be delivered (Romans 7:24), and from which he recognizes that no deliverance is possible except through the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). Literature.-I. Life.-S. D. F. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality3, 1895, p. 487ff.; E. White, Life in Christ, 1878; E. van Schrenck, Die johan. Auffassung von ‘Leben,’ 1898; the NT Theologies of B. Weiss (Eng. translation , 1882-83, 2 vols.) and W. Beyschlag (Eng. translation , 1895, 2 vols.), passim; J. R. Illingworth, Sermons preached in a College Chapel, 1882, p. 60; J. Macpherson, in Expositor, 1st. ser. v. ^[3] 72ff.; J. Massie, in do., 2nd ser. iv. ^[4] 380ff. II. Death.-J. Laidlaw, The Bible Doctrine of Man, 1895, p. 233ff.; J. Müller, The Christian Doct

1. Sources.-There are three sources for our knowledge of the idea of the tree of life: the OT, Jewish apocalypses and Jewish theology, and ethnic legends. (1) In the OT the tree of life appears neither in Psalms nor in the Prophets, but only in Genesis and Proverbs. The Genesis story (Genesis 2:9; Genesis 3:22) intimates that there are two objects which man would grasp at-knowledge and immortality. It has been maintained, however, that in Genesis 2:9 the tree of life is a later addition, and was inserted only when the idea of the under world had suffered such a change that immortality became an object of desire (K. Budde, Die biblische Urgeschichte untersuch?, Giessen, 1883, p. 53 f.; but cf. A. Dillmann, Genesis, Eng. translation , Edinburgh, 1897, i. 121 f.). In any case, by reason of his sin man was not permitted to eat of the fruit of this tree, which signified fullness of life. Driven out from the Garden of Eden, he was effectually debarred from this Divine good. In Proverbs (Proverbs 3:18; Proverbs 11:30; Proverbs 13:12; Proverbs 15:4) wisdom, the fruit of the righteous, desire fulfilled, and a wholesome tongue are each a ‘tree of life.’ The reference is not to the recovery of a lost, or to the winning of a future, but to the enjoyment of a present, good (cf. Budde, op. cit., p. 85f.). (2) In Jewish apocalyptic three constant factors are associated with the tree of life: it is in Paradise; the righteous have access to its fruit; it will be available only after the judgment. Its first appearance is in Enoch, xxiv. 1-6, xxv. 4-6, xxxi. 1-3 (cf. Slavonic Enoch, viii. 3-5, 4 Ezr_7:123; Ezr_8:52, Pss.- Son_14:3, Test, of Levi, xviii.-a Christian interpolation ^[1]). According to Jewish theology, its branches cover the whole of Paradise, and it has 500,000 kinds of taste and smell (F. Weber, Jüd. Theologie2, Leipzig, 1897, p. 346; A. Wünsche, Die Sagen vom Lebensbaum und Lebenswasser, Leipzig, 1905). (3) All Oriental religions which have risen above the nature stage have their legends of a tree of life. Sometimes it appears in a simple, at other times in a fantastic, form; but whoever, even a god, partakes of its fruit or its sap renews and preserves his life (cf. E. Schrader, Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie i. ^[2] 124 ff.; W. W. von Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, ii. ^[3] 189 ff.; Friedrich Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies?, Leipzig, 1881, p. 148 f.). In the Babylonian-Assyrian circle this tree was date-palm, cedar, or vine (F. R. Tennant, The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin, Cambridge, 1903, p. 49; T. G. Pinches, The OT in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia2, London, 1903, p. 71 ff.). In the Gilgamesh Epic the hero obtained a scion from the ‘plant of life’ which healed his mortal illness (cf. B. Meissner, Ein altbabylon. Fragment des Gilgamosepos, Berlin, 1902; A. Jeremias, Die babylonisch-assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode, Leipzig, 1887, p. 93). In the Zend-Avesta the tree of life is the white Haoma-death-destroyer-similar to a grape vine, with plentiful buds and jasmine-like leaves; whoever eats of the fruit becomes immortal (SBE ^[4] xxiii. ^[4]5 20; cf. Rigveda, X. xcvii. 17). The Hindu tree of life grows in the midst of water; whoever looks on it is made young. Much that is fantastic and unreliable has been written by Assyriologists concerning the tree of life. Two facts, however, stand out as incontestable: there was throughout the ancient world a worship of trees, and man’s dependence on particular trees for support of life offered the basis for a profound religious suggestion. ‘The tree had always been the seat of Divine life and the intermediary between Divine and human nature.… In the holy tree the Divine life is bringing itself closer to man’ (W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, London, 1904, p. 248). 2. In Revelation.-The dependence of the idea of the tree of life in Revelation (Revelation 2:7; Revelation 22:2; Revelation 22:14) upon earlier, especially Jewish, conceptions is evident. The legend has been traced to an Arabian or North African oasis, thence to Babylon, where the habitat of the tree became a garden; thence the Hebrews derived it (G. A. Barton, A Sketch of Semitic Origins, New York, 1902, p. 95 f.). With the shifting fortunes of Jerusalem, the garden was transformed into a city. The apocalyptists show this transformation under way. They picture the future as a garden (Enoch, xxiv., xxv.); then as a city-Jerusalem (Pss.- Solomon 17:33 f.; J. R. Harris, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, Cambridge, 1909); finally, it is a city indeed, but with a garden enclosed (Revelation 21; Revelation 22:2; cf. also R. H. Charles, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Oxford, 1912, p. 53). Ezekiel 47:12 has been influential here. In the prophet’s vision, on each side of the river grow all trees bearing new fruits according to their months, which shall be for food, and their leaves for healing. The picture in the Revelation is of a city, in the midst of which is a garden; through this flows a river, on each bank of which is the tree of life (a word used collectively)-a row of trees bearing either twelve manner of fruits (Authorized Version , Revised Version ) or twelve crops (Revised Version margin). In the garden of God, then, grows the tree of life. For those who have been purified by faith, the doom man brought on himself in Eden, of prohibition from its food, is repealed. All that Judaism had lost, or mythology dreamed of, or Christianity awakened in the soul in the way of immortal longing was restored and fulfilled in the world to come. Not only is the fruit for food, but even the leaves have healing virtue. How this therapeutic property of the leaves is to be available for the ‘nations’ (cf. Revelation 21:24-27, Isaiah 60:3; Enoch, xxv. 4-6)-those not yet belonging to the New Jerusalem-is problematic. It may suggest the present functions of the Church in respect of social ills, or imply that after the Parousia the citizens of the city will have a ministry towards those outside, or, yet again, indicate that the writer had not fully assimilated the ideal proposed by Ezekiel (cf. C. A. Scott, Revelation ^[6], London, n.d., p. 297). C. A. Beckwith.

A denomination assumed by a religious fraternity towards the end of the fifteenth century. They lived under the rule of St. Augustin, and were said to be eminently useful in promoting the cause of religion and learning.

Longfellow in his Hiawatha sings of: 'The pleasant watercourses, You could trace them through the valley, By the rushing in the Spring-time, By the alders in the Summer, By the white fog in the Autumn, By the black line in the Winter.' So traceable are the lives of really gracious men and women. They are not solicitous to be observed, but the gracious 'signs following' are sure to reveal them. Like their Master they cannot be hid.

Stood also in the midst of the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9 ; 3:22 ). Some writers have advanced the opinion that this tree had some secret virtue, which was fitted to preserve life. Probably the lesson conveyed was that life was to be sought by man, not in himself or in his own power, but from without, from Him who is emphatically the Life (John 1:4 ; 14:6 ). Wisdom is compared to the tree of life (Proverbs 3:18 ). The "tree of life" spoken of in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 2:7 ; 22:2,14 ) is an emblem of the joys of the celestial paradise.

The quality of life including the promise of resurrection which God gives to those who believe in Christ. This important term in the New Testament is emphasized in the Gospel of John, but also appears in the other Gospels and in Paul's writings. Eternal life in the New Testament eliminates the boundary line of death. Death is still a foe, but the one who has eternal life already experiences the kind of existence that will never end. Yet in this expression, the emphasis is on the quality of life rather than on the unending duration of life. Probably some aspects of both quality and duration appear in every context, but some refer primarily to quality of life and others point to unending life or a life to be entered into in the future. “Quality of life” involves (1) life imparted by God; (2) transformation and renewal of life; (3) life fully opened to God and centered in Him; (4) a constant overcoming of sin and moral evil; and (5) the complete removal of moral evil from the person and from the environment of that person. Eternal Life As Experience in the Present This term in John has important implications. The one trusting in the Son has eternal life; the one disobeying the Son has the wrath of God abiding on him (John 3:36 ). Trusting and obeying go together; they leave no room for neutrality. The one who hears Christ's message and believes or trusts in the Father who sent Him has eternal life. This person does not come into condemnation but has passed out of death into life (John 5:24 ). The perfect tense—one who has passed and remained in the state of having passed from death into life—emphasizes eternal life as a permanent, present reality. But no presumption is possible here. Eternal life is a present reality for the one hearing and trusting (John 5:24 ). The bold metaphors of eating and drinking point to active involvement with Christ. “The one eating my flesh and drinking my blood, has eternal life” ( John 6:54 ). (Translations in this article are the author's.) John 6:57 explains: “The one eating me will live because of me .” Since Christ is our life, we must make that life part of us by “sharing in Christ,” by actively coming to Him and drawing life-giving strength from Him. Eternal life is defined in Jesus' high priestly prayer: “Eternal life is this: that people be constantly knowing you, the only genuine God and Jesus Christ whom You sent” (John 17:3 ). The present tense of the verb “to know” indicates that this knowledge is by experience—not from intellectual facts. Genuine knowledge of God by experience brings eternal life. Such experience transforms life. Eternal Life as Experienced in the Present and Future John compared the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness to the lifting up of the Son of Man on the cross and His exaltation to heaven. People who respond to Christ by constant trust have eternal life (John 3:15 ). They have healing from something more deadly than snakebite—the destructive effects of sin. Here eternal life involves a present healing, a present reality. But John 3:16 refers both to the present and the future: “Now God loved the world in this fashion; as a result he gave his unique Son, that everyone believing or trusting in him should not perish but should be having eternal life.” Perishing is contrasted with having eternal life. “Eternal life” here is both present and future and is the alternative to “perishing.” Christ defined His true sheep as those who hear or listen to His voice and follow Him (John 10:27 ). To such disciples, He gives eternal life, and they will not perish (John 10:28 ). Again, no presumption is possible. Those are secure who persistently listen, hearken, and follow. For such people eternal life is both a present and a future reality. Eternal Life as a Future Experience “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” the rich young ruler asked. (Mark 10:17 ; compare Matthew 19:16 ; Luke 18:18 ). He saw eternal life as a final inheritance. His earnestness moved Jesus, and Jesus loved this young man (Mark 10:21 ). But he had to make a decision: Would he follow Jesus without his possessions? (Mark 10:22 ). He answered, “No.” He could not part with his possessions first and then follow Jesus. In Matthew 19:27 Peter asked Jesus, “What then shall be to us?” The disciples had left their dear ones and their possessions to follow Jesus. Jesus promised them loved ones and lands (possessions) with persecutions. Then He added: “And in the coming age, eternal life” ( Mark 10:30 ). Eternal life here refers to an unending future reality. John 12:20-26 tells of some Greeks who wanted to see Jesus. We do not know how Jesus interacted with these Greeks. We do know He spoke about His death and what it meant to be a disciple: “The one loving his life ^[1] will lose it; but the one hating his life ^[1] in this world will guard the soul unto eternal life ” (John 12:25 ). Jesus here contrasted eternal life with the present life. Believers are to guard their persons or souls by serving Christ and following Him (John 12:26 ). Such servants will be where Christ is, and the Father will honor them (John 12:26 ). To be where Christ is means to come into eternal life—a life freed from sin or moral evil. Paul declared that “the one sowing to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit” (Galatians 6:8 ). Eternal life is given by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This future reality, already experienced to some limited degree in the present, involves the Father, Son, and Spirit. Fellowship in life eternal means fellowship with the Triune God. A. Berkeley Mickelsen

The rule of living prescribed by the ancient clergy who lived in community. The canonical life was a kind of medium between the monastic and clerical lives.

There is a spot on the Lago Lugano, where the song of the nightingale swells sweetly from the thickets on the shore in matchless rush of music, so that the oar lies motionless and the listeners hushed into silent enhancement; yet we did not see a single bird, the orchestra was as hidden as the notes were clear. Such is a virtuous life, and such the influence of modest holiness; the voice of excellence is heard when the excellent themselves are not seen.

Economic life in ancient Palestine involved the simple desire to improve the condition of life and to expand contact with other peoples. The people's success in doing this was determined to a large extent by the environmental conditions in which they lived. Adequate rainfall or water sources, arable farm and grazing lands, and the availability of natural resources were the most important of these ecological factors. Once the nation was formed and the monarchy established, the demands of the local and international markets, government stability, and the effects of international politics also came into play. Throughout their history, however, the economic life of the people of Israel was at least in part governed by the laws of God which concerned the treatment of fellow Israelites in matters of business and charity. Like most of the rest of the Near East, the economy of ancient Palestine was primarily agricultural. However, unlike the major civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, Israel's economy was not as completely dominated by the concerns of palace or temple as they were in other nations. For instance, there was no state monopoly on the ownership of arable land. Private ownership of land and private enterprise were the rule during the early history of the tribes of Israel. This changed somewhat after the establishment of the monarchy when large estates were formed (Exodus 21:1-6 ) to support the kings and the nobility. Attempts were also made by the royal bureaucracy to control as much of the country's land and economic activity as possible (1 Kings 4:1-19 ). Further changes took place after the conquest of the nation by Assyria and Babylon. From that point on, the economic efforts (farm production, industry, and trade) of the nation were largely controlled by the tribute demands of the dominant empires (2 Kings 18:14-16 ) and the maintenance of international trade routes. This pattern continued into the New Testament period when Roman roads speeded trade, but also held the populace in submission. The economy, while relatively stable, was burdened with heavy taxes (Matthew 22:17-21 ) to support the occupation army and government. Environmental Conditions Many aspects of the economic life of the people were determined by the environmental conditions in which they lived. Palestine has a remarkably varied geographic pattern and huge shifts in climate. Within its environs are steppe and desert to the south and east in the Negev and the corresponding areas of the Transjordan. In these areas only dry or irrigation farming is possible, and much of the land is given over to pastoralists guiding their flocks and herds. A desolate wilderness region lies near the Dead Sea, while well-watered farm lands are found in the Shephelah plateau (between the coastal plain and the hill country) and in the Galilee area of northern Palestine. Rolling hill country dominates the center of the country where agriculture must be practiced on terraced hillsides and where water conservation and irrigation are necessary to grow crops. The semi-tropical climate of Palestine includes a hot, dry summer and autumn during which no rains fall for six months. The drought is broken in September or October with rains continuing throughout the winter and into March and April. Yearly amounts of rainfall, which may all come in torrents within a few days, average 40 inches a year in the north and in the western areas of the hill country and Shephelah. Under the influence of the desert winds and the barrier of the hill country, these amounts decrease to the south and east, with less than eight inches a year in the desert regions of the Judean wilderness and the Negev. Average temperatures also vary widely, again with the highlands and northern coastal strip remaining cooler while the desert regions and low lying areas see temperatures well into the 90 degree range. Uncertain climatic conditions often determined the economic activity of the local village, the region, and the nation. The fact that Abram's first experience in Palestine was a famine (Genesis 12:10 ) is not surprising. Drought, which destroyed crops (1 Kings 17:1 ; Jeremiah 14:1-6 ), had a ripple effect on the rest of the economy. Some people left the country for the more predictable climate of Egypt (Genesis 46:1-7 ) or went to areas in Transjordan unaffected by a famine (Ruth 1:1 ). Economic hardship brought on by climatic extremes also hurt the business of the local potter, tanner, blacksmith, and weaver. Local Village Economy Agriculture in ancient Palestine took three basic forms: grain production (barley and wheat), cultivation of vines and fruit trees, and the care of oleaginous plants (olive, date, sesame) from which oil was extracted for cooking, lighting, and personal care uses. Most of the energies of the village population were taken up with plowing fields (1 Kings 19:19 ) and the construction and maintenance of the hillside terraces where vineyards (Isaiah 5:1-6 ; Mark 12:1 ) and grain were planted. In the hill country, water sources were usually in the valleys, and thus it would have been too much work to carry water up to the hillside terraces. As a result, irrigation channels were dug to insure that the terraces were evenly watered by rain and dew. Roof catch basins and plastered cisterns were constructed to augment water supplies from the village's wells and springs during the dry summer months. The ideal situation for every rural Israelite was to spend his days “under his vine and under his fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25 ). To insure this possibility for his sons, a man's ownership of land was considered part of a family trust from one generation to the next. Each plot of land was a grant to the household by Yahweh and as such had to be cared for so that it would remain productive (Deuteronomy 14:28-29 ). Its abundance was the result of hard work (Proverbs 24:30-34 ) and was to be shared with the poor (Deuteronomy 24:19-21 ). Yahweh's grant of the land was repaid (Numbers 18:21-32 ) through the payment of tithes to the Levites and through sacrifices. The family's holdings were duly marked off. It was strictly against the law to remove the boundary stones (Deuteronomy 19:14 ; Proverbs 22:28 ). Inheritance laws were well defined with every eventuality provided for in the statutes. Normally, the oldest son inherited the largest portion of the lands of his father (Deuteronomy 21:17 ; Luke 15:31 ). Sometimes this was all a man had to pass on to his children. It thus became traditional that land not be permanently sold outside the family or clan (Leviticus 25:8-17 ). The tradition was so strong that Naboth could refuse King Ahab's request to purchase his vineyard saying he could not give him “the inheritance of my fathers” (1 Kings 21:3 ). In later periods, however, the prophets spoke of rich men who add “house to house, that lay field to field” (Isaiah 5:8 ), taking advantage of the poor farmer whose land has been devastated by invading armies (Micah 2:2 ) or drought. If a man died without a male heir, his daughters would receive charge of the land (Numbers 27:7-8 ), but they were required to marry within the tribe to insure it remained a part of the tribal legacy (Numbers 36:6-9 ). A childless man's property passed to his nearest male relative (Numbers 27:9-11 ). The tragedy of childlessness was sometimes resolved through the levirate obligation. In these cases the nearest male relative married the dead man's widow to provide an heir for the deceased (Ruth 4:1-6 ). The duty of the redeemer, or go'el, as the relative was called, also included the purchase of family lands which had been abandoned (Jeremiah 32:6-9 ). Since life was uncertain and disease and war often took many of the village's inhabitants, laws were provided to insure that the widow, the orphan, and the stranger would not go hungry. Each field owner was required to leave a portion of the grain unharvested and some grapes on the vine (Leviticus 19:9-10 ). This belonged to the poor and the needy who had the right to glean in these fields (Ruth 2:2-9 ). The land was also protected from exhaustion by the law of the sabbatical year which required that it be left fallow every seventh year (Leviticus 25:3-7 ). Despite the back-breaking work of harvesting fields with flint-edged sickles (Joel 3:13 ), the grain and the fruits meant the survival of the village and was cause for celebration (Judges 21:19 ). Following the harvest, the threshing floor became the center of the economic activity of the village and countryside (Joel 2:24 ). The sheaves of grain from the harvested fields of the district were brought here (Amos 2:13 ) to be trampled by oxen (1 Kings 10:11-12 ) and threshing sledges (2 Samuel 24:22 ; Isaiah 41:15 ). The grain was further separated from the chaff with winnowing forks (Ruth 3:2 ; Isaiah 41:16 ; Jeremiah 15:7 ), and finally with sieves (Amos 9:9 ; Luke 22:31 ). Once this process was complete, the grain was guarded (Ruth 3:2-7 ) until it could be distributed to the people. The village may have had a communal granary, but most kept their grain in home storage pits or private granaries (Matthew 3:12 ). Because of the importance this distribution held for the well-being of the people, the threshing floor gradually became associated with the administration of justice for the community. This is seen in the Ugaritic epic of Aqhat (dated to about 1400 B.C.) where the hero's father Daniel is said to be judging the cases of widows and orphans at the threshing floor. Similarly, Ruth's coming to Boaz as he lay on the threshing floor after the winnowing (Ruth 3:8-14 ) may have been an attempt to obtain justice regarding the ownership of her dead husband's estate. In another instance from the monarchy period, it can be seen how the threshing floor evolved into a symbolic place of judgment used by kings to augment their authority. 1 Kings 22:10 (NAS, NIV) portrays Kings Ahab and Jehoshaphat sitting enthroned before the gates of Samaria on a threshing floor as they judge the statements of the prophet Micaiah. Village economies also included the maintenance of small herds of sheep and goats. Nomadic pastoralism, like that described in the patriarchal narratives, was not a part of village life. The flocks were moved to new pastures in the hill country with the coming of the dry summer season (1 Samuel 25:7-8 ), but this would have required only a few herdsmen (1 Samuel 16:11 ). Only the shearing of the sheep would have involved large numbers of the community (Genesis 31:19 ; 1 Samuel 25:4 ; 2 Samuel 13:23-24 ). What little industry existed in Israelite villages was designed to complement agricultural production and provide both necessities and some trade goods. This activity included the making of bricks and split timbers for house construction, and the weaving of material for clothing. Some households (usually consisting of a group of related families—Judges 18:22 ) had the skill to shape cooking utensils and farm tolls from clay, stone, and metal. Few, however, had the ability to shape their own weapons, relying in many cases on clubs and ox goads (Judges 3:31 ) for protection. In exceptional cases village craftsmen may have set up stalls or business where they provided some of the more specialized items, especially fine pottery, bronze weapons, and gold and silver jewelry. Anything additional could either be done without or obtained in trade with other villages or nations who might possess a particularly fine artisan (1 Samuel 13:20 ). It is also possible that during a yearly visit to the city (Luke 2:41 ) to attend a religious festival the villager could visit the stalls of traders from all over the Near East and buy their wares. Urban Economic Life Local trade expanded beyond the sale of surplus commodities and hand-crafted items as the villages and towns grew in size. Population growth, sparked by the establishment of the monarchy and social stability, also increased the needs and appetites for metals (gold, tin, copper, iron), luxury items, and manufactured goods. A network of roads gradually developed to accommodate this economic activity and to tie together the villages and towns throughout the nation. More sophisticated road construction, designed to allow heavy vehicular traffic, was introduced by the kings who marshaled large numbers of corvee workers (persons who worked in lieu of paying taxes) to construct public works projects (1 Kings 9:15-22 ). Ezion-geber, a port on the Red Sea, was acquired from the Edomites and serviced a fleet of ships bringing gold from Ophir and rare woods and other luxury items to the royal court (1 Kings 9:26 ; Deuteronomy 25:4 ). Another fleet joined that of Hiram of Tyre in the Mediterranean trade (1 Kings 10:22 ). Within the walled cities and towns, most commercial activity occurred within the gate complex or its environs. This would have been the site of the heaviest traffic in any town and the most likely spot, other than private homes (Jeremiah 18:2-3 ), for stalls and shops to be set up for business. Since legal matters were also handled here (Deuteronomy 21:18-19 ), business contracts could be witnessed (Genesis 23:15-16 ), and disputes settled (Genesis 38:1 ). Shops may have also been established within the walls of those cities which had hollow-wall (casemate) construction. Since this was an economy without coined money until about 550 B.C., barter and specified weights (shekel, mina, talent) of precious metals were used as rates of exchange. Prices, as always, were determined by the law of supply and demand (2 Kings 6:25 ; Revelation 6:6 ), with an extra markup to cover the costs of transport, and, where applicable, manufacturing. For instance, luxury items such as spices and perfumes from Arabia and ivory and rare animals commanded high prices. They were portable enough to make the venture worthwhile. Weights and measures also fitted into the sale of commodities in the town marketplace. These weights varied from one district and time period to the next (2 Samuel 14:26 ; Ezekiel 45:10 ). However, the law required that Israelites provide a fair measure to their customers (Leviticus 19:35-36 ). The fact that the law did not prevent fraud in every case is seen in the prophets' cries against deceitful weights (Micah 6:11 ) and false balances (Amos 8:5 ). Archaeological evidence shows some attempt by the royal administration to standardize shekel weights. Hieratic symbols on these markers demonstrate a reliance on the Egyptian system of weights and measures. Slave labor was also an outgrowth of the urbanization of Israel and the constant military campaigns of the kings. The large number of military prisoners joined the levies of forced labor gangs (1 Kings 5:13 ; 1 Kings 9:20-22 ) building roads and repairing the walls of the fortresses which guarded the kingdom. Royal estates were managed by stewards (1 Chronicles 27:25-31 ) and worked by large bands of state-owned slaves and a levy of free men (1 Samuel 8:12 ). It is unlikely that private individuals held as many slaves as the monarchy or the social elite. Since the laws regarding slaves were quite stringent (Exodus 21:1-11 ,Exodus 21:1-11,21:20 ,Deuteronomy 15:12-145:26 ; Leviticus 25:39-46 ), it is more likely that day laborers were hired by most landowners (Matthew 20:1-5 ). The leasing of land to tenant-farmers was another alternative to the labor problem, but this was not common in Israel until the New Testament period (Matthew 21:33-41 ; Mark 12:9 ). Israelites could sell their families or themselves into slavery to resolve a debt (Exodus 21:7-11 ; Leviticus 25:39 ; Matthew 18:25 ). This was regulated by the law so that the normal term of slavery or indenture was no more than six years. Then the slave was to be released and given a portion of the flock and the harvest with which to make a new start (1618419304_36 ). Perpetual slavery was only to occur if the Israelite himself chose to remain a slave. This choice might be made because he did not want to be separated from a wife and children acquired during his term of enslavement (2 Samuel 9:10 ) or because he did not feel he would have a better life on his own (Deuteronomy 15:16 ). Urbanization and the imposed demands of foreign conquerors brought greater complexity to the economic life of the people of Palestine. Travel and trade increased, and the variety of goods and services was magnified by the increased demands of consumers and the influx of new ideas and technologies from outside the country. Agriculture remained the staple of the economy, but it was augmented by the public works projects of the kings and foreign rulers. The increase in commercial a

Plant in Garden of Eden symbolizing access to eternal life and metaphor used in Proverbs. For the biblical writer the tree of life was an important consideration only after Adam and Eve disobeyed. Sin interrupted the quality of life God intended for them. They were to obey God (Genesis 2:17 ) in a family setting (Genesis 2:18-25 ) and perform their assigned tasks (Genesis 2:15 ). The implication is that they had access to all the trees in the garden, including the tree of life, but God gave an explicit command not to eat of the tree of knowledge. Their relationship to God changed radically when they disobeyed that command. Chief among the radical changes was that they no longer had access to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24 ). The “tree of life” appears in Proverbs four times (Proverbs 3:18 ; Proverbs 11:30 ; Proverbs 13:12 ; Proverbs 15:4 ) and in Revelation 2:7 ; Revelation 22:2 ,Revelation 22:2,22:14 . To lay hold of wisdom is to lay hold on “a tree of life” (Proverbs 3:18 ). “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life” (Proverbs 11:30 NIV). Yet another proverb has this comparison: “a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” ( Proverbs 13:12 NIV). The author of another proverb wrote, “The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life” ( Proverbs 15:4 NIV). None of these proverbs seems to refer to “the tree of life” mentioned in Genesis. All of the references in Revelation do. See Adam and Eve ; Eden ; Tree of Knowledge . Billy K. Smith

The book of life is the heavenly record (Luke 10:20 ; Hebrews 12:23 ) written by God before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8 ; Revelation 17:8 ) containing the names of those who are destined because of God's grace and their faithfulness to participate in God's heavenly kingdom. Those whose names are in the book have been born into God's family through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:23 ; Revelation 13:8 ); remain faithful in worship of God (Revelation 13:8 ; Revelation 17:8 ); are untouched by the practice of abomination and falsehood (Revelation 21:27 ); are faithful through tribulation (Revelation 3:5 ); and are fellow workers in the work of Jesus Christ (Philippians 4:3 ). The book of life will be used along with the books of judgment at the final judgment to separate the righteous and the wicked for their respective eternal destinies (Revelation 20:12 ,Revelation 20:12,20:15 ; Revelation 21:27 ). Christ Himself determines whether the names that are recorded in the book of life remain in that record and are supported by His confession that they belong to Him at the day of judgment or are blotted out (Revelation 3:5 ). The Old Testament refers to a record kept by God of those who are a part of His people (Exodus 32:32 ; Isaiah 4:3 ; Daniel 12:1 ; Malachi 3:16 ). As in Revelation, God can blot out the names of those in the book (Exodus 32:32 ; Psalm 69:28 ). In the Old Testament this may simply mean people not in the book die, leaving the list of the living. Those whose names are written in the book are destined for life in a restored Jerusalem (Isaiah 4:3 ) and deliverance through future judgment (Daniel 12:1 ). See Apocalyptic ; Book ; Eschatology ; Judgment, Books of. Jeff Cranford

The translation of several Hebrew words and phrases. The phrase denotes the capacity for life. In the Bible, God is the source of the breath of life (Genesis 1:30 ; Genesis 2:7 ; Genesis 7:15 ; Isaiah 57:16 ). Just as God gave the breath of life, so can He take it away (Genesis 6:17 ; Genesis 7:22 ; Isaiah 57:16 ). See Life ; Immortality .

The word translated as “prince” (Acts 3:15 ; Acts 5:31 , “author” and “leader” respectively in some modern versions) is also translated as “captain” (Hebrews 2:10 ; “pioneer” or “author” in some modern versions) and “author” (Hebrews 12:2 ; “pioneer” in modern versions). All of these references are to Jesus as the founder of a new life which His followers now share with Him.

The divinely bestowed gift of blessedness in God's presence that endures without end. This relates especially to the quality of life in this age, and to both the quality and duration of life in the age to come. Key to understanding the biblical meaning of these terms is the Bible's use of the word "eternal." Old Testament Teaching . God is eternal (Deuteronomy 33:27 ; Psalm 10:16 ; 48:14 ). Scripture does not provide philosophical reflection on this fact but assumes it. The Lord is the Rock eternal (Isaiah 26:4 ) and the eternal King (Jeremiah 10:10 ). God's word, rooted in his being and will, is likewise eternal (Psalm 119:89 ), as are his righteous laws (119:60), his ways (Habakkuk 3:6 ), and his kingdom or dominion (Daniel 4:3,34 ). Since God is eternal, so are his love (1 Kings 10:9 ), his blessings (2Col 5:18-21 ), and all his other attributes and benefits. They endure without end; as long as God exists, so do they. "His love endures forever" is repeated twenty-six times in Psalm 136 alone. Elsewhere in the psalms "forever" is used to describe God's reign (9:7), his protection (12:7), his plans (33:11), the inheritance of his people (37:18), his throne (55:19), his rule (66:7), his remembrance of his covenant (105:8), his righteousness (111:3), his faithfulness (117:2), his statutes (119:111,152), and his name (135:13). Other Old Testament books offer abundant additional affirmation of these and other never-ending aspects of God or his saving provisions. Some deny awareness of a personally significant eternity in most Old Testament Scripture and history. A prominent segment of modern biblical scholarship would concur that in Israel there was no belief in life after death. It is truth that many biblical characters, like some who study them, seem oblivious to their eschatological destiny. They show little awareness of a transcendent world order in which they will be personally involved, a divinely ordained future imposing imperatives on the present. It is likewise true that Old Testament awareness of eternal realities is less specific and complete than that of the New Testament. Yet the progressive nature of biblical revelation (as well as the necessarily restricted scope of each Old Testament book) should be borne in mind. Many central biblical doctrines (e.g., the Trinity, the incarnation, divine self-sacrifice for sin) are only adumbrated in earlier biblical history, to be fleshed out in the fullness of time. The numerous Old Testament references to the Lord's future and thus to the future of those who trust in him leave little room for insisting that the Old Testament contains no inkling of a life beyond the present world. Such insistence is understandable where Enlightenment or postmodern assumptions, methods, and conclusions are dogmatically embraced. The Old Testament does not seem to conceive of eternity in purely abstract terms, as a static state of timelessness. The Greek word aion ^[1] (age, era, lengthy time, eternity) in the Septuagint and New Testament corresponds to the Hebrew Old Testament's olam ^[2] (a long time, eternity); neither word as used in Scripture answers to the notion of "eternity" that shows up in the ancient philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. For Plato, eternity is a timeless and transcendent state totally outside the dimension of time. For Aristotle, as for Thomas Aquinas who followed him at this point, eternity "becomes known from two characteristics: first, from the fact that whatever is in eternity is interminable, that is, lacking beginning and end ; second, from the fact that eternity itself lacks successiveness, existing entirely at once ^[3]" (Aquinas, Summa, I, 10,1). In this view eternity is a motionless, changeless state, remote and qualitatively distinct from time. Time and eternity are antithetical, and eternity is accessible to human thought only by logical speculation that views God not as the personal, living, historically self-revealing being described in Scripture but as the inscrutable "unmoved first mover" of Aristotelian reasoning. This understanding has had great influence on Western theology and on the way many Christians even today understand "eternity" and "eternal life" when they encounter them in the Bible. The Old Testament, like the New, resists this time-eternity dualism. True, it speaks of a coming age from which evil will be banished and for which God's life and glory will be determinative for all that exists and takes place. This is quite different from the current world order. But that age has points of continuity with the present one because the God of that age is at the same time the God of the present age (allowing for the presence of Satan and evil in this "present evil age" ^[4]; until they meet their final end ). His reign extends for all time and over all times. This means that the temporal order has redemptive potential as the sphere in which God's Spirit, the Spirit of the incarnate and risen Jesus Christ, works out his will in human affairs. History, while it cannot fully contain the reality of the transcendent God, also is not incapable of receiving and responding to his presence. The incarnation offers abundant proof of this fact. And eternity, while it lies chronologically beyond temporal life in the here and now, is not in all respects qualitatively remote and aloof from it. We may thus look to biblical revelation as descriptive of God's presence in and intent for both the present world order and the coming one; we need not turn from Scripture to atemporal philosophical idealism for normative insight into the nature of eternity and its relation to present time. The Old Testament, then, encourages us to define eternity in terms of the duration of the revealed God's dealings with his people in times past, now, and always. This God has ever been solicitous for his name and for the people with whom he has deigned to share it. This past state of affairs will continue for eternity, so long as God who lives and loves endures. To define eternity more closely, the Bible would seem to call for laying hold of personal relationship with God. To trust him is to begin to realize what "eternal" signifies. To live responsively before him means to gain understanding, indeed induction, into "eternal life." Eternal Life . A dominant theme of the New Testament, though not without Old Testament grounding, is eternal (or everlasting) life. Eternal life is therefore one of the unifying themes of the New Testament. It is a term that describes the salvation that God bestows on those who trust and serve him. It denotes not only the length of time that God's favor extends to his people but also the quality of existence that they may enjoy as they worship and serve him. John's Gospel is rich with references to eternal life. Nicodemus' questions about Jesus' ministry and teaching lead Jesus to speak of it (3:15-16). It is a gift to all those who believe in the Son but will be withheld from all those who reject him (3:36). Jesus likewise speaks of eternal life during his brief early ministry in Samaria. He assures the woman at the well that trust in him will slake the thirst of her soul; she will receive "a spring of water welling up" within her "to eternal life" (4:14; cf. 4:36). In response to charges of Sabbath breaking in Jerusalem Jesus urges listeners to heed his message and trust God; to do so is to have "eternal life." This means escape from condemnation on judgment day and in the age to come. In the present it means a crossing over "from death to life" (5:24). Eternal life is available through study of the Scriptures as they relate to Jesus Christ (5:39). Jesus urges a crowd by Galilee's shores not to "work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you (6:27). God wills that "everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life." This will result in resurrection "at the last day" (6:40). Jesus' difficult statement that everyone "who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life" (6:54) is a summons for sinners to make the Father's will their meat and drink, by trusting in the Son, just as the Son made the Father's will his own daily fare (4:34). The Christocentric nature of eternal life is underscored by Jesus' own words in prayer on the night he was betrayed. First, he reminds the heavenly Father that he gave the Son "authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him" (17:2). Next he furnishes a succinct description of what eternal life involves: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" (17:3). Eternal life as presented in John's Gospel forms a solid core within apostolic preaching and teaching in the decades subsequent to Jesus' death and resurrection. Predictably, it receives repeated mention in John's own longest extant epistle (1 John 1:2 ; 2:25 ; 3:15 ; 5:11,13 , 20 ). Both Paul and Luke speak of it, too, in connection with Paul's first missionary journey (Acts 13:46,48 ). In Paul's earliest extant epistle he avows that whoever "sows to please the Spirit" will also "reap eternal life from the Spirit" (Galatians 6:8 ). Paul refers, of course, to the Spirit of the living God, the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:9-11 ). The Epistle to the Romans reveals that God grants eternal life "to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality" (2:7). Yet eternal life is won not by human effort but by divine self-sacrifice as Christ undoes the woe that Adam's fall helped unleash on the human race (5:12-21). Through Christ grace reigns "through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21; cf. 6:22,23). Far from treating eternal life as a rudimentary or unimportant matter, in Paul's last extant letter he is still extolling its glories. "The hope of eternal life" is in fact foundational to faith in and knowledge of God (Titus 1:1-2 ). Here, as elsewhere in Paul, "hope" denotes a sure, if not yet fully realized, reality (Romans 8:24 ). Paul, originally the arch-enemy of Christ, tells Timothy that his conversion serves "as an example for those who would believe on ^[5] and receive eternal life" (1 Timothy 1:16 ). He exhorts Timothy "to take hold of the eternal life" to which he was called (1 Timothy 6:12 ). It may have been in the same general span of time late in the apostolic era that Jude encouraged his readers, "Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life" (Jude 21 ). If in Jude eternal life seems to be a future possession, many other references speak of it as a present reality. Which is it? The answer seems to be both. Eternal life has both an "already" and a "not yet" dimension. Interpreters have sometimes erred in stressing one to the exclusion of the other. Biblical statements taken in their entirety counsel careful regard for both aspects of a two-sided truth: eternal life is a present possession in terms of its reality, efficacy, and irrevocability (John 10:28 ). Yet its full realization awaits life with the Lord in the age to come. "Eternal" Elsewhere in the New Testament . "Eternal" (Gk. aionios [ John 14:2-3 ). Paul speaks of the "eternal house" that awaits humans after death (2 Corinthians 5:1 ), but he has in mind the resurrection body rather than a heavenly dwelling place in terms of a building. Further, Paul uses this figure of speech to underline the temporary nature of life, not to speak of the Platonic release of the soul from captivity in the body. In the New Testament as in the Old, "eternal" carries a different connotation than it does in Greek philosophy. God's "eternal power" is evident even to nonbelievers from the grandeur of the created order (Romans 1:20 ). "Eternal" describes God himself, the King in his regal splendor who is at the same time "immortal, invisible, " and unique (1 Timothy 1:17 ). Paul speaks of the "eternal God" whose command undergirded the apostolic proclamation to the nations (Romans 16:26 ). God presides over an "eternal kingdom" (2 Peter 1:11 ), grants "eternal encouragement" (2 Thessalonians 2:16 ), works to effect his "eternal purpose" (Ephesians 3:11 ), and offers "eternal glory" (2Col 4:17; 2 Timothy 2:10 ; 1 Peter 5:10 ) to the elect who suffer for the sake of his kingdom and his Son. Enjoyment of "eternal glory" in the wake of suffering is explained elsewhere as one of the great privileges and assurances of union with Christ: Christians are "heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory" (Romans 8:17 ). The writer of Hebrews speaks of Jesus Christ as "the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (Hebrews 5:9 ). "The resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment" are rudimentary truths that mature believers should long since have learned (6:2). Christ's blood, in contrast to that of Old Testament sacrifices, won "eternal redemption" (9:12), and it was by "the eternal Spirit" that Christ offered himself up to God (9:14). By faith in Christ "those who are called receive the promised eternal inheritance" (9:15) by virtue of "the blood of the eternal covenant" (13:20). In the same sense that "eternal" describes the boon that those who seek the Lord receive, now and forever, eternal condemnation threatens the rebellious and indifferent. Jesus speaks of the "eternal sin" of blaspheming the Holy Spirit; for this there can be no forgiveness (Mark 3:29 ), in part perhaps because the perpetrator of such a heinous act cannot muster the will to seek it (Hebrews 12:17 ). The ultimate outcome of rejection of Jesus Christ is "eternal fire" (Matthew 18:8 ; 25:41 ; Jude 7 ), "eternal punishment" (Matthew 25:46 ) and "eternal [NIV: "everlasting"; the Greek word is aion ^[1]] destruction." While such bleak pronouncements seem hard for some to square with the idea of a loving God, there is no linguistically convincing or theologically satisfactory way to avoid the conclusion that just as joy in the Lord's presence will endure for all time—for eternityso will the experience of his hot displeasure. Yet "the eternal gospel" (Revelation 14:6 ) offers hope, the entré into an unending blessed future before the Lord rather than banishment from it. While the background assumption of both Old and New Testament is a coming judgment with eternal implications for every single soul, its prominent and urgent plea is for all people to heed the gospel, thereby being reconciled to God (cf. Psalm 21:6). Ethics and Worship . A major assumption of virtually all biblical writers is that the eternal has weighty and necessary implications for the temporal. They are aware that God is the "Everlasting Father" (Isaiah 9:6 ) who gives good gifts to all, just and unjust alike. But they also insist that he will one day appear as eternal judge of all the earth (Genesis 18:25 ; 1 Samuel 2:10 ; 1 Chronicles 16:33 ; Psalm 9:8 ; John 12:48 ; Romans 2:16 ). What lies in the futureeschatological judgmentshould be regarded as determinative for human thought and action in the present. "For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:14 ; cf. 1Col 4:5; 2 Timothy 4:1 ). "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken" (Matthew 12:36 ). If words will be so gravely assessed, how much more all human actions? Eternality is, then, not a philosophical category serving sheerly speculative ends. It is rather a dimension of God's established order that calls people to seek God's pleasure here, making it their highest priority to further his interests and kingdom in every way, so they may enjoy his favor in the hereafter. In this sense reflection on eternality and eternal life is never complete without sober contemplation of ethical corollaries. The Lord who is "our king" and "our judge" is also "our lawgiver" (Isaiah 33:22 ; cf. James 4:12 ). Unlocking the mysteries of eternity begins with careful attention and trusting response to the precepts and commands of the "righteous judge" (Psalm 7:11 ). Paul voices a fundamental if optimal Christian conviction regarding that day when God brings all things to light: "Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that dayand not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8 ). Eternitywith the assurance of vindication before the eternal judgerightly shaped Paul's present. If ethical focus is one corollary of a biblical theology of eternity, another is worship. Eternity is the basis for doxology. Already in Moses' hymn of victory, God's eternal reign is the basis for praise: "The Lord will reign for ever and ever" (Exodus 15:18 ). David picks up and continues the strain: "The Lord is King for ever and ever" (Psalm 10:16 ). The place of God's dwelling is "secure forever" (Psalm 48:8 ); his "praise reaches to the ends of the earth for this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end" (vv. 10,14). Sinners receive access to God's everlasting throne (Psalm 45:6 ; Hebrews 1:8 ), promised to David's descendants (2 Samuel 7 ) on behalf of Abraham's heirs (Luke 1:33,55 ), through the priestly ministrations of Jesus Christ, "a priest forever" (Hebrews 5:6 ; 6:20 ; 7:21 ). In keeping with the sober historical integrity of the four Gospels and Acts, the accounts of Jesus' life and ministry are not studded with lofty ascriptions of praise to Christ. His earthly rigors hid his eternal glory. But this alters perceptibly in the Epistles. Most of them well up in worshipful exclamation linked explicitly to God's, or Christ's eternality. He is praised "forever" or "for ever and ever." Other Epistles imply the same praise by extolling the Lord's eternal rewards: "a crown that will last forever" (1 Corinthians 9:25 ); life "with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:17 ; cf. Philippians 1:23 ). As John writes, the person "who does the will of God lives forever" (1 John 2:17 ) because of the gospel's "truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever" (2 John 2 ). But it is Scripture's last book that most sweepingly links God's eternality to worship. John's vision begins with praise to God "for ever and ever" (1:6). The exalted Jesus Christ declares that he is "alive for ever and ever" (1:18). The Lord's power, reign, and glory in their ceaseless duration dot the literary landscape of subsequent chapters. Also never ending is the torment of God's enemies, the smoke of whose "torment rises for ever and ever" (14:11; cf. 19:3; 20:10). Yet happier prospects await all who have received the grace of the eternal God through his Son in this present life: in worshiping the eternal King "they will reign for ever and ever" (22:5). Robert W. Yarbrough See also Faith ; Grace ; Heaven, Heavens, Heavenlies ; Salvation Bibliography . J. Auer and J. Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life ; O. Cullmann, Salvation in History ; G. Habermas and J. P. Moreland, Immortality: The Other Side of Death ; A. T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet ; O. O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order ; B. Witherington, Jesus, Paul, and the End of the World .

At one of the late grand reviews in Eastern Prussia, says a German paper, a brigade of artillery was ordered to pass at full gallop over a piece of uneven ground, intersected by a ditch full of water. One of the guns, from the horses not making a sufficient spring, got stuck in the ditch. The first gunner, a man of great strength, jumped down into the water and, setting his shoulders to one of the wheels, lifted it out of the mud, and, resuming his seat, the gun crossed the ditch. Prince Augustus, of Prussia, who came up at the moment, cried, 'Bravo, my lad,' and tearing off a strip from his sash, gave it to the artilleryman, telling him to fasten it to his sword-belt in remembrance. In the evening, the soldier, when in his barracks, was surprised by receiving a gratuity of 150 golden crowns. A short time afterwards, another artilleryman having heard this anecdote, wished in his turn to display his strength. Prince Augustus, when one day at the arsenal of Berlin, ordered a 24-pounder to be mounted on its carriage. The man in question immediately raised the piece from the ground, and, unassisted, put it on its carriage. The prince, however, said, 'This man is a fool: he has risked his limbs, and wasted his strength without any necessity. Let him be under arrest for three days.' Thus, Galignarn's Messenger furnishes us with a warning against being mere copyists. An action may from the tim e and circumstances be noble and praiseworthy in one man, but another would render himself ridiculous who, forgetting the surrounding circumstances, should merely repeat the action itself. True grace, like a truly soldierly spirit, guides its possessor as emergencies arise, but that mimicry of religion which only follows precedents is to be despised.

John Mackintosh thus writes to his biographer, Norman Macleod:: 'May it not be said that the movement of our age is towards life? I sometimes fancy that I can discern three epochs in the Reformed Churches, corresponding in the main to those three weighty epithets: via, yenta:, vita. The Reformers themselves, no doubt, laid the stress chiefly upon the first (via). It was on this Popery had gone most astray, obscuring the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The epoch following was essentially dogmatic (veritas), when the doctors drew up 'systems' of the truth. It was now, indeed, Christ as veritas! but the dogma taken alone led to coldness, dogmatism, sectarianism, and formality. Happy will it be for the church, if, not forgetting the other two, she shall now be found moving on to the third development of Christ as vita: the life, which will regulate the two former aspects, while it consummates and informs them. This l must develop the individual, and on individuals the church depends; for in God's sight it is no abstraction.'

ONE of our party greatly needed some elder-flower water for her face upon which the sun was working great mischief. It was in the Italian town of Varallo, and not a word of Italian did I know. I entered a chemist's shop and surveyed his drawers and bottles, but the result was nil. Bright thought, I would go down by the river, and walk until I could gather a bunch of elder-flowers, for the tree was then in bloom. Happily the search was successful: the flowers were exhibited to the druggist, the extract was procured. When you cannot tell in so many words what true religion is, exhibit it by your actions. Show by your life what grace can do. There is no language in the world so eloquent as a holy life. Men may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.

(n.) Life for one's self; living solely or chiefly for one's own pleasure or good.

BOOK OF LIFE . The legalistic conception of morality which existed among the Jews involved a record of the deeds of life on the basis of which the final judgment of God would be given. Allied with this was another conception, derived from the custom of enrolling citizens ( Jeremiah 22:30 , Nehemiah 7:5 ; Nehemiah 7:64 ; Nehemiah 12:22 f.; cf. Exodus 32:32 ), of a list of those who were to partake of the blessings of the Messianic Age. A second natural step was to conceive of God as keeping two sets of books, a Book of Life ( Daniel 12:1 ff., Malachi 3:16 , Psalms 69:28 ) for the righteous, and a Book of Death for the wicked (Jub xxx 20 22). To have one’s name blotted out from the Book of Life was equivalent to complete condemnation (Eth. Enoch 108:3). In the Apocalyptic writings of Judaism the Final Judgment was to be based upon the records contained in the books supposedly kept by the archangel Michael. In some cases Rabbinical thought elaborated the figure until each man was to read and sign his record. The judgment of God was thus supposed to be based upon absolute justice, and determined by the balance of recorded good and evil deeds. In the NT are to be found references both to the books of records (Revelation 20:12 ; Revelation 20:15 ; cf. Daniel 7:10 , Eth. Enoch 89:61ff.), and to the books containing a list of those who were to enjoy eternal life ( Luke 10:20 , Philippians 4:3 , Hebrews 12:23 , Revelation 3:5 ; Revelation 13:8 ; Revelation 17:6 ; Revelation 21:27 ). Shailer Mathews.

LIFE I. In the OT The term ‘life’ in EV ^[1] is used, with a few unimportant exceptions, as the equivalent of one or other of two Heb. expressions: (1) chai , or mostly in plur. chayyim; (2) nephesh . The LXX ^[2] makes a general distinction between these two, by usually rendering the former as zôç and the latter as psychç . The former term occurs more frequently than the latter. The notion of life and the terms used to denote it belong, like ‘death,’ to the primitive elements in human thought and speech. Roughly speaking, we may explain (1) as primarily = what is fresh, new, in active existence; and (2) as primarily = breath. 1. Self-originated movement, especially as seen in locomotion and breathing, were naturally the earliest criteria of life. So still, scientists are investigating life as merely a ‘mode of motion.’ Life, however, has not yet yielded up its secret to human inquiry; not yet has life, by any experiment, been produced from purely inorganic origins. Meantime those who do not stumble at a theistic view of creation hold an entirely worthy and satisfactory position in following the Genesis Creation narratives, and ascribing the origin of all life to God, who ‘giveth to all life and breath and all things’ ( Acts 17:25 ). The mystery of life abides, but it is not in the least likely that any results of scientific investigation will ever really conflict with this position. Life as a physical phenomenon is pre-eminently associated with animals the living creatures of the sea, the land, and the air (Genesis 1:21 ff.). Plant-life is hardly recognized as such. OT writers do not go so far as to predicate life of trees in much the same way as of animals, as is the case with some of the early Greek philosophers ( e.g . Aristotle, Eth. Nic . i. 7, 12). Still ‘green’ and ‘dry,’ as applied to plants, correspond to ‘living’ and ‘dead.’ There is the feeling that trees possess ‘a sort of’ life; and such references to trees as that concerning the fresh sprouting of a stock or root ( Job 14:7 ff., Isaiah 11:1 ) are very significant. Notice also the way in which the prosperity of man is likened to that of a flourishing tree ( Psalms 1:3 etc.), and other frequent illustrative uses. Physical life is not only primitively connected with the breath, but also with the blood. The effect of the draining away of the blood (as from a wound) in the lessening vitality of the body and finally death a matter of early observation naturally explains this. A certain sacredness thus attaches to the blood ( 1 Samuel 14:33 ff.), and definite prohibitive legislation relating to the eating of flesh with the blood becomes incorporated in the laws of Israel ( Leviticus 3:17 ; Leviticus 7:25 etc.). This primitive conception of blood as the seat of life lies at the root of the whole OT system of sacrifices and of all the Scripture Ideas and teachings based thereupon. The sacredness of life as such is strongly emphasized. The great value ascribed to human life is indicated by the numerous laws relating to manslaughter and to offences which interfere in any way with a man’s right to live and with his reasonable use and enjoyment of life. The feeling extends to other creatures. See the suggestive words ‘and also much cattle’ in Jonah 4:11 . The beasts are associated with man’s humiliations and privations ( Jonah 3:7 f., Joel 1:18 ; Joel 1:20 ); their life is a thing to be considered. We find the ground of this feeling in the view that God is not only the original Creator or Source of life, but directly its Sustainer in all its forms ( Psalms 36:6 , Psalms 104:1-35 ; Psalms 145:1-21 passim ). This seems also to be the fundamental significance of the very common expression ‘the living God’ (lit. ‘God of life’). 2 . Life is predominantly set forth as man’s summum bonum . Life and death are respectively ‘the blessing and the curse,’ and that uniquely ( Deuteronomy 30:19 ). ‘Choose life’ is the appeal pointing to the one desirable boon. Every man should answer to the description in Psalms 34:12 . The language which disparages life and praises death ( e.g . Job 7:16 , Ecclesiastes 4:1 ff. etc.) is the expression of an abnormal state of feeling, the outcome of man’s experience of misery in one form and another. But it is not mere existence that is in itself desirable. As Orr points out, life in its Scripture use has ‘a moral and spiritual connotation’ ( Christian View ^[3], p. 393); and it is only the godly and righteous life that is a boon from the Scripture point of view. Such is the burden of the Wisdom books, when they speak of ‘finding life,’ and describe wisdom as a ‘tree of life’ ( Proverbs 3:18 ; Proverbs 8:35 ). 3. The idea of a life to come is in many portions of the OT conspicuous by its absence. There is nothing anywhere that will compare with the NT conception of ‘ eternal life. ’ The latter expression, it is true, is found in the OT, but only once, and that in the late-Hebrew Book of Daniel ( Daniel 12:2 ). It is to be remembered that, though this book is in EV ^[1] numbered among the Major Prophets, its affinities are not with that group but rather with later post-Biblical Jewish writings. In these writings the use of this expression is best illustrated. Enoch, Ps.-Sol., 4 Mac. furnish examples. See also in Apocrypha, 2Ma 7:9 ; 2Ma 7:36 . ‘Life’ alone in this later use comes to be used as = ‘life eternal.’ (See, e.g ., 2Ma 7:14 ; cf. in NT, Matthew 7:14 ; Matthew 19:17 ). Later Jewish use, however, prefers the clearer phrase, ‘life of the age to come’: and along this line the genesis of the term ‘eternal life’ must be explained. (Cf. the last clause in the Nicene Creed: ‘the life of the world to come’). Jewish eschatological hopes, first for the nation and afterwards for the individual, contributed largely to the development of this idea. At the same time, though in some parts of the OT the hope of life hereafter seems expressly excluded (see, e.g ., Isaiah 38:11 ; Isaiah 38:18 , Ecclesiastes 9:5 ; Ecclesiastes 9:10 ^[5]), and this world alone is known as’ the land of the living,’ the very asking of the question in Job 14:14 is significant, and the language of Psalms 16:1-11 concerning ‘the path of life’ lends itself readily to an interpretation looking to life beyond death. II. In the Apocrypha. Chs. 1 5 of Wis. yield much that is of interest relating to contemporary Jewish thought; e.g . God is the author of life but not of death ( Wis 1:13 f., Wis 2:23 f.). The wicked live in harmony with the saying, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die’ (ch. 2). The righteous have immortality as their inheritance, whilst the wicked shall be brought to judgment and shall be destroyed (chs. 3 5). For an impressive presentment of a foolish appreciation of life, see also Wis 15:7 ff. In Sir 15:17 ‘Before man is life and death,’ we have an echo of Deuteronomy 30:19 . The conception of life (‘soul’) as a loan that can be recalled is found in Wis 15:8 ; Wis 15:18 , a close parallel with Luke 12:20 . Such phrases as ‘the fountain of life’ ( Sir 21:13 ) and ‘the tree of life’ ( 2E Esther 2:12 ; 2Es 8:52 ) recall their use in both OT and NT. For the former, see Psalms 36:8 , Proverbs 10:11 , John 4:10 ; John 4:14 ; for the latter Genesis 2:9 , Revelation 2:7 ; Revelation 22:2 etc. 2Es 7:1-70 furnishes a notable and picturesque view of life beyond death, with the judgment of the righteous and the unrighteous. See especially the long passage beginning at v. 75. The return of the spirit ‘to him who gave it,’ v. 78, has none of the limitations that attend a similar reference to death in Ecclesiastes 12:7 . (See above.) III. In NT The term ‘life’ is the Eng. equivalent of three terms used in the original (1) zôç . This is of most frequent occurrence; generally corresponding to chayyim in OT; = life in the absolute: vitality: full, active existence. It is the term capable of embodying all progressive conceptions as to what constitutes life, and so regularly occurring in the phrase ‘eternal life.’ (2) psychç , generally = OT nephesh , but the fluctuation between ‘life’ and ‘soul’ (see, e.g ., the well-known passage Matthew 16:25 f.) as its rendering in English is significant. The primary notion is that of the animating principle (in contrast to the ‘body’). It further denotes the specific life or existence of any individual. By an easy transition it comes to stand for a man’s ‘self’ (roughly ‘soul’). (3) bios , occurring only a few times. = the present state of existence, this life; as in Luke 8:14 , 1 Timothy 2:2 , 2 Timothy 2:4 , 1 John 2:16 ; 1 John 3:17 ( zôç , however, is sometimes used in this sense, with ‘this’ or ‘the present’ qualifying it, e.g . 1 Corinthians 15:19 ); also = means of subsistence; and so = ‘living’ ( Luke 8:43 ; Luke 15:12 etc.). 1. The teaching of Jesus . As regards the present life we gather from the Gospels that Jesus never bewailed its brevity and vanity. The mournful notes of some of the OT Scriptures, the pensive commonplaces of so much of man’s thoughts and moralizings, find no echo here. On the contrary, in His own life He graciously exemplifies the joie de vivre . This in one respect was made even a ground of complaint against Him ( Matthew 11:19 ). The sacredness of life is insisted on, and the Sixth Commandment is accentuated ( Matthew 5:21 ). The preciousness of life, even in its humblest forms (‘sparrows,’ Matthew 10:29 || Luke 12:6 ), appears in connexion with our Lord’s arresting doctrine of Divine Providence, which stands in such unhesitating defiance of the sterner features of the world of life ( In Memoriam , lv. f.). Very conspicuously Jesus condemns over-anxiety about this life and its ‘goods.’ Simplicity and detachment in regard to these things are repeatedly insisted on (see, e.g ., Matthew 6:19 ; Matthew 6:31 , Luke 12:15 ). Certainly the accumulation of a superabundance of the ‘goods’ of life at the expense of others’ deprivation and want is in direct opposition to the spirit of His teaching. The deep, paradoxical saying ( Matthew 16:25 f.) about losing and finding one’s life is of significance here a saying found not only in the three Synoptics (see Mark 8:35 , Luke 9:24 ), but also in its substance in John 12:25 . Eternal life figures conspicuously in the teaching of Jesus. He did not originate the expression: it was already established in the Rabbinical vocabulary. The subject was, and continued to be, one greatly discussed among the Jews. The phrasing of Jesus as when He speaks of ‘inheriting’ ( Matthew 19:29 ), ‘having’ (Jn. passim ), ‘receiving’ ( Mark 10:30 ), ‘entering into,’ or ‘attaining’ ( Matthew 19:17 ), eternal life, or life simply is also that of the Jewish teachers of His own and a later day. (Note even the significance of the wording in Mark 10:17 ||). ‘Life’ alone as = ‘eternal life’ is used in Matthew 7:14 , Mark 9:43 etc.; also in John’s Gospel (as John 3:36 ; John 10:10 etc.). (See above.) The Johannine Gospel conspicuously gives ‘eternal life’ as a chief topic of Christ’s teaching; whilst in the Synoptics ‘the kingdom of God’ holds the corresponding place. The connexion between the two conceptions is intimate and vital. The primary characteristic of eternal life is that it is life lived under the rule of God. The definition found in John 17:3 (with which Wis 15:3 invites comparison) shows how essentially it is a matter of moral and spiritual interests. The notion of ever-lastingness rather follows from this: the feeling that death cannot destroy what is precious in God’s sight. Cf. Tennyson: ‘ Transplanted human worth Shall bloom to profit otherwhere.’ But the life is a present possession, an actual fact of experience (John 3:35 ; John 5:24 ; John 6:47 etc.). We have, however, the indication of a special association of eternal life with the hereafter in Mark 10:30 (‘in the world to come’) Matthew 25:40 . Cf. also p. 490 a . It is the teaching of Christ that has caused the words ‘eternal life’ to be written, as it were, across the face of the NT. Still more are we to notice the unique claim made as to His relation to that life. The keynote of the Johannine presentation is ‘in him was life’ (John 1:4 ), and throughout He is consistently represented as giving and imparting this life to His people. Note also, it is eternal life as predicated of these that is principally, if not exclusively, in view in the Evangelical teaching there is little or nothing on human immortality in the widest sense. 2. The rest of the NT. The leading theme of. l Jn . is ‘eternal life,’ and it is handled in complete accord with the Fourth Gospel. St. Paul is in agreement with the Johannine teaching on the cardinal topic of eternal life. His Epistles throb with this theme, and he conspicuously presents Christ as the source of this life in its fullest conception, or the One through whom it is mediated. See Romans 6:23 , and note his strong way of identifying Christ with this life, as in Galatians 2:20 , Philippians 1:21 , Colossians 3:3-4 . Christ is also presented as author or mediator of life in the widest sense, the life that moves in all created things ( Colossians 1:16-17 ; cf. John 1:3 ). St. Paul, again, uses ‘life’ alone as containing all the implicates of ‘eternal life’ ( Romans 5:17 , 2 Corinthians 5:4 , Philippians 2:16 ). The supremely ethical value associated with life is seen in the definition given in Romans 8:6 , with which cf. John 17:3 . The new life of the Spirit as a dynamic in the present and as having the promise of full fruition in eternity, is central in the Apostle’s exposition of Christianity. For the rest, the Apocalypse should be noticed for its use of such images as ‘crown of life,’ ‘book of life,’ ‘fountain,’ ‘river,’ and ‘water of life,’ and the ‘book of life’ (which we also meet with elsewhere) all embodying the Christian hope of immortality. J. S. Clemens.

God (Yahweh) as the Source and Sustainer of Life . According to Genesis 2:7 , "the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." This "breath of life" does not distinguish human beings from other animals, nor perhaps even plant life, as can be seen in Genesis 1:29-30 . When God declared his judgment against Noah's generation, all creation in which there was the "breath of life" would suffer the destruction of the flood (Genesis 6:17 ; 7:15,21-23 ). The breath of life distinguishes the living from the dead, not human beings from animals (Ecclesiastes 3:18-19 ). Consistently throughout Scripture God is portrayed as the giver of life, which distinguishes living organisms from inanimate things (Romans 4:17 ). Life is contingent upon the continuing, sustaining "breath" of God. When God ceases to breathe, life is no more, "How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures When you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust" (Psalm 104:24,29 ). Death is frequently described as the cessation of this divine activity (Ecclesiastes 9:9-10 ; Mark 15:37 ). It is for this reason that the psalmist concludes, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" (Psalm 150:6 ; cf. Romans 1:20-21 ). The Quality and Duration of Life . Between birth and death, creation and cessation of life, the living experience varying qualities of life and length of days. On the one hand, the Creator is the sovereign Lord of the days of one's life. He sends poverty and wealth, humility, and exaltation, makes paupers to be princes and princes to be paupers (1 Samuel 2:6-9 ). For this reason, those who live by faith are not to worry, for they rest in the assurance that God cares about their life (Matthew 6:25-34 ; Luke 12:22-31 ). One cannot add a single hour to the span of life by worrying (Matthew 6:27 ). "The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away" (Psalm 90:10 ). Long life is viewed as the evidence of divine favor (Exodus 20:12 ; Deuteronomy 5:16 ; Psalm 21:4 ; 91:16 ; Proverbs 10:27 ; Joshua 24:14-15 ), so to die in the midst of one's years was a calamity (Isaiah 38:10-14 ; Genesis 4:10-116 ; Lamentations 2:21 ). On the other hand, the situation and quality of life may be diminished and even destroyed by chance, circumstances, and the conduct of unrighteous or negligent persons. In such circumstances, the lowly pray for divine mercy and help. Worries, riches, and pleasures (Mark 4:19 ; Luke 12:15 ), as well as hunger, sickness, sorrow, and sin can choke and even destroy life. Life as a Choice . In Moses' third address to Israel (Deuteronomy 29:1-30:20 ), he calls them to reaffirm their covenant with God. A choice, not a difficult one, must be made (Deuteronomy 30:11 ), for God had set before them "life and prosperity, death and destruction blessings and curses. Now choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:15,19 ). In a similar manner. Joshua appeals to the next generation after the settlement in the promised land (Isaiah 65:20 ). The choice is not always one of obedience and disobedience, but rather one of wisdom that results in health, prosperity, honor, and a better quality of life (Exodus 15:26 ; Proverbs 3:22 ; 4:13,22 ; 6:23 ; 8:35 ; 10:17,28 ; 19:23 ; 21:21 ; 22:4 ; Mark 10:17-31 ). Such a Person experiences the shalom and peace of God ( Proverbs 14:30 ; Galatians 1:3 ). This choice is inherent in the psalms and the Beatitudes of Jesus. The promised blessed life is contingent upon the community and/or individual response of obedience to the will of God (Matthew 7:24-27 ). The Sanctity of Life . In a physical sense, life is associated with the blood of an animal (Leviticus 17:11-14 ; Deuteronomy 12:23 ). As long as there is blood, there is life. When the blood is drained from the body, so is life. The connection is so strong that the law forbade the consumption of blood or meat with blood in it (Genesis 9:4 ; Leviticus 17:12,14 ; Deuteronomy 12:23 ; Acts 15:20,29 ). Also, the blood of an animal could make atonement for the transgressions and sins of the people of God (Leviticus 16:14-19 ). The life-blood of the sacrifice was substituted for the life-blood of the worshiper, although inadequate and creating a longing for the perfect sacrifice of Christ (Psalm 49:7-9 ; Hebrews 10:1-4 ). God demands a reverence for human life (Psalm 139:13-14 ), and forbids murder (Exodus 20:13 ; Deuteronomy 5:17 ; Matthew 5:21 ). Where violence has shed blood, there must be an accounting and a just penalty (1618419304_27 ; 9:5-6 ; Exodus 21:23 ; Leviticus 24:17-22 ; Deuteronomy 19:21 ; Matthew 5:38 ). Jesus enlarges this understanding of life to include more than physical life, proscribing angry words, insults, and name calling (Matthew 5:22 ), for these wound and kill the spirit, self-esteem, and well-being of another. The perpetrator becomes subject to judgment. The gospel of God extends a special invitation to the poor, the disabled, the weak, the oppressed, and the children, offering hope and new life. Sin and Spiritual Death . Mortal humanity was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27 ), and given the opportunity of eternal life in relationship with the Creator (Genesis 2-3 ). Central and vital to life in paradise was access to the tree of life in the midst of the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9 ). There was one commandment, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." When Eve and Adam listened to the tempter and disobeyed the commandment, eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, they brought a curse upon themselves (Genesis 3:16-19 ), their descendants (Romans 5:12-14 ; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 ), and upon all creation (Genesis 3:17 ; Romans 8:19-22 ). The human race lost innocence, knowing right from wrong, and, even more, the disobedience abolished a continuing privileged access to the tree of life (Revelation 2:7 ; 22:2,14 , 19 ), and thus eternal life. Spiritual death, separation from the tree of life, and a broken relationship with God resulted. The human race was destined to die, as were all living creatures, but now without hope beyond the grave. Spiritual death reigned from Adam to Christ (Romans 5:14,21 ; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26 ). The Good News of the Gospel . Life is a central motif of the four Gospels. John summarizes his purpose in writing the Fourth Gospel: "These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (20:31). Jesus announced that he alone is the narrow gate or entrance into the way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14 ; John 10:7,9 ; 14:6 ). As the Son of God, he had been active in creation (John 1:1-4 ), and came to give new life or birth (3:3,5, 7; 6:33,51) to all who believe in him (3:16). Those who experience the new birth are described as having been formerly dead (Luke 15:32 ; John 5:21 ). Thus, Jesus stands alone at the center of history as "the Author of Life" (John 5:40 ; Acts 3:15 ). This life is nearly synonymous with entering into the kingdom of God and experiencing the restoration of the divine-human relationship intended in creation. When Jesus healed the sick, exorcised demons, and cleansed lepers, he was restoring life to its intended, physical wholeness (Luke 4:18-19 ; 6:9 ). When he proclaimed the good news of God, he was seeking to save and restore the spiritual life lost in Adam's sin. Eternal Life . There is only an embryonic understanding of eternal life in the Old Testament. The psalms frequently reveal a deep longing to be permitted entrance into the presence of God, which goes beyond earthly, temporal worship in the sanctuary or temple. In Psalm 71:9 the psalmist prays in his old age, not that he might escape death, but rather that the Lord would not forsake him as his strength fades and death approaches. It is pious Job who becomes the champion of eternal hope ( Job 19:25-27 ). This hope, which seems to burst through the boundaries of death, is expressed in more apocalyptic terms in Isaiah 65:17-19 . Daniel envisions a resurrection and judgment assigning those raised to everlasting life or everlasting shame and contempt (Daniel 12:1-3 ). To die, however, generally meant that one entered the mysterious underworld beyond of Sheol or Hades. Life in the New Testament, beginning with Jesus, predominantly has a metaphysical and spiritual meaning, an indestructible quality, which supersedes physical death and the grave. This life is more important than eating, drinking, and clothes (Matthew 6:25 ; Luke 12:22-33 ), and more valuable than physical wholeness and health. The distinction becomes clearer when Jesus commands disciples to deny themselves, take up the cross daily, and follow him (Mark 8:34 ; par. ). There is a tension, even a conflict, between the present physical existence with its passions, and the spiritual life that will continue beyond physical death. Whoever loses or denies the present life for the sake of Christ, finds eternal life, life in the age to come (Mark 8:35-37 ; 10:30 ; par. John 12:25 ). The rich young ruler desired to inherit eternal life, but to him the cost of denying his present life by selling all that he had and giving to the poor in order to gain the eternal was too great (Genesis 25:8 ; par. ). "Eternal life (zoen aionion )" becomes a common phrase in the Johannine writings. Jesus is life (1:4; 5:26; 11:25; 14:6; 1 John 1:2 ) and the giver of life (John 5:40 ; 6:33,35 , 48,51 , 63 ; 10:10 ; 17:2 ; 1 John 5:11-12 ) to all who believe in him (John 1:7 ; 3:15,16 , 36 ; 6:40 ; 11:26 ; 12:46 ). The beginning of life as a child of God is likened to a new birth (John 3:3-8 ; 1 John 2:29 ; 3:9 ; 4:7 ; 5:1,4 , 18 ), which is not of human decision, but the result of the divine, spiritual action of God (John 1:13 ; 3:5-8 ; 6:63 ). It is a transformation from death to life, becoming a present reality. This life is available to "all who believe" in Jesus, the Son of God. According to Paul, the death of Jesus on the cross opens the way to reconciliation with God, and it is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ that gives life to those who believe (Romans 5:10 ; 6:3-4 ; Galatians 2:20 ). Those who have experienced the free gift of life from God (Romans 5:15 ; 6:23 ) are led in triumphal procession spreading the knowledge of the gospel of Christ everywhere (2 Corinthians 2:14 ). They walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4 ; 7:6 ), and the righteousness of God reigns in their mortal bodies to eternal life through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:21 ; 6:13,22 ). The Spirit of God at work in them gives life, peace, and freedom (Romans 8:6,11 ; 2 Corinthians 3:6 ), which is witnessed by the present world in their love for one another. Melvin H. Shoemaker See also Eternal Life, Eternality, Everlasting Life ; New Life Bibliography . G. R. Beasley-Murray, SJT 27 (1974): 76-93; G. Bornkamm, Early Christian Experience ; F. F. Bruce, SJT 24 (1971): 457-72; R. Bultmann, G. von Rad, and G. Bertram, TDNT, 2:832-75; J. C. Coetzee, Neot 6 (1972): 48-66; C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel ; A. J. Feldman, The Concept of Immortality in Judaism Historically Considered ; G. E. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament ; J. Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture ; H. H. Rowley, The Faith of Israel ; R. Schnackenburg, Christian Existence in the New Testament ; V. Taylor, ExpT 76 (1964-65): 76-79; H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament .

God has brought his people salvation in Jesus Christ, a gift that is described throughout the Scriptures as new life. Two words are used in the New Testament to describe newness. The first, neos ^[1]. It, and its derivatives, describe that which is new in nature, different from usual, better than the old, and superior in significance. Used in conjunction with zoe ^[2], kainos ^[3]describes the essence of what God has done through Jesus Christ: he has given his children new life. Believers begin a new life when they are born again by the Spirit (1 Peter 1:3 ). Regeneration places believers on the road of faith whereby they become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17 ) and enjoy a new life in Christ (Romans 6:4 ). In spite of that reality, believers wrestle with the old nature and old self. They must seek to put on the new self (Ephesians 4:24 ) and to follow the new commandment of Christ (1 John 2:8 ). The gift of new life was foretold by the prophets in the Old Testament. Ezekiel prophesied the gift of a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26 ). Jeremiah told of a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31 ). Isaiah spoke of a new name (Isaiah 62:2 ). The new age promised by the prophets came in Jesus Christ, the new Adam. Yet that which is presently realized by believers is only a foretaste of that which is yet to come in fullness. The apocalyptic Book of Revelation tells us that God will make everything new (21:5). He will create a new heaven and new earth (21:1), a new Jerusalem (3:12), where the saints enjoy a new name (2:17) and sing a new song (5:9). Sam Hamstra, Jr. See also Eternal Life, Eternality, Everlasting Life ; Life

See New Life

ETERNAL LIFE.—This phrase occurs more than forty times in the New Testament. In many passages it denotes primarily a present possession or actual experience of the Christian believer, while in others it clearly contemplates a blessed life to come, conceived as a promised inheritance. The Greek expressions are ζωὴ αἱώνιος, ἡ αἰώνιος ζωή (John 17:3, 1 Timothy 6:12), ἡ ζωὴ ἡ αἰώνιος (1 John 1:2). The word ‘life,’ or ‘the life’ (ζωή, ἡ ζωή), without the qualifying adjective ‘eternal,’ is often employed in the same general meaning. There are passages in the Synoptic Gospels in which the phrase ‘eternal life’ is used synonymously and interchangeably with ‘the kingdom of God’ (Mark 9:45; Mark 9:47, Matthew 7:14; Matthew 7:21). The Kingdom of heaven and the life eternal are very closely related in the teaching of Jesus. Compare also the suggestive language of Romans 5:17 ‘shall reign in life through Jesus Christ.’ But it is especially in the writings of St. John that we find ‘eternal life’ presented as a heavenly boon which may become the actual possession of believers in the present life. God Himself is the source of all life, and ‘as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself’ (John 5:26). In the Word ‘which became flesh and dwelt among us’ there was a visible manifestation of the life eternal: ‘In him was life; and the life was the light of men’ (John 1:4); so that He Himself declares, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6). In accord with these statements the very life of God is conceived as begotten in the believer by the Holy Spirit, so that he is ‘born anew,’ ‘born from above’ (John 3:3-7). Thus begotten of God, the children of God become distinctly manifest, and God’s ‘seed abideth in them’ (1 John 3:9-10). That is, in these Divinely begotten children of God there abides the imperishable germ (σπέρμα) of life from above, the eternal kind of life which the twice born possess in common with the Father and the Son. Hence it is that the believer ‘hath eternal life’ as an actual possession (John 3:36). He ‘hath passed out of death into life’ (John 5:24, 1 John 3:14). In John 17:3 we read what has to some extent the manner of a definition: ‘This is life eternal, that (ἵνα) they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.’ So far as this text furnishes a definition, it seems clearly to imply that ‘eternal life’ consists in such a knowledge of God and of Christ as involves a personal experience of vital fellowship. It carries with it the love and obedience which, according to John 14:23, bring the Father and the Son into the believer’s inmost life, so that they ‘make their abode with him.’ In view of the use of ἵνα in John 4:34, John 15:12, John 18:39 we need not refine so far as (with Westcott on this passage) to maintain that the connective here retains its telic force and indicates an aim and an end, a struggle after increasing knowledge rather than the attainment of a knowledge already in possession. But it should not be supposed that any present knowledge of God and of Christ is inconsistent with incalculable future increase. While the essence of this Divine life consists in the knowledge of the only true God and His anointed Son, such knowledge is not the whole of eternal life, for other ideals with their additional content are also set before us in the teaching of Christ and of His Apostles. Whatever else is true touching this saving knowledge of the true God, its present possession is one of the great realities in the personal experience of the believer. In 1 John 5:11-13 the gift and actual possession of this eternal kind of heavenly life are made emphatic: ‘God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.’ This language is incompatible with the thought that the ‘eternal life’ spoken of is merely a promise, a hope or an expectation of such life in a future state, as some of the older expositors maintained. This heavenly kind of life in Christ, conceived as a present experience of salvation, is further confirmed and illustrated by what Jesus said of Himself as ‘the bread of life’ and the giver of the water that springs up into eternal life. We have, no doubt, the enigmatical words of profound mysticism in John 6:35-58. Jesus declares that He is ‘the bread of life,’ which ‘giveth life unto the world.’ ‘I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day.’ ‘He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.’ ‘He that eateth me shall live because of me.’ ‘He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.’ These emphatic repetitions of statement would seem to put it beyond all question that their author meant to teach that the Son of God, sent by the living Father, ‘lives because of the Father,’ and imparts the eternal life of the Father to every one who believes in Him. Of this living bread the believer now partakes, and ‘hath eternal life’ (John 6:47; John 6:54). This life also is conceived as attaining a certain goal, or receiving a definite consummation ‘at the last day.’ For it is a permanent possession, and of a nature to advance from strength to strength and from glory to glory. The eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man have been thought by some expositors to refer to the partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; but such a reference to an institution not yet established, and utterly unknown to His Jewish opponents, would have been strangely irrelevant. The life eternal into which the believer enters involves, as matter of course, all due allowance for Divinely appointed conditions, aids, provisions and means of nourishing the life itself; but to exalt these unduly is to divert the thought from the more central and profound mystic conception of Christ Himself as the life of the world. So the remarkable sayings of Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum, recorded in John 6:32-59, are but another form and a mystic expression of His emphatic declaration in John 5:24 ‘He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life.’ The exact meaning of the word ‘eternal,’ when used to qualify ‘the life,’ is best understood when the life is conceived as issuing from the eternal Father, and so partaking of His Divine nature (cf. 2 Peter 1:4). Having life in Himself, and giving to His Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26), He imparts the same life to all who believe in the Son; and that life is in its nature eternal as God Himself. It is an eternal kind of life which belongs to the unseen and imperishable things (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:18). In the Johannine writings the word ‘life’ or ‘the life,’ and the phrase ‘eternal life,’ are used interchangeably. The latter is the more frequent form of expression, but it is evident that the writer often employs ‘the life’ in the same sense. This life is spoken of in contrast with ‘death’ and ‘perishing.’ The believer ‘shall not perish, but have eternal life’ (John 3:16), ‘hath passed out of the death into the life’ (John 5:24), ‘shall never see death,’ nor ‘taste of death’ (John 8:51-52), ‘shall never perish’ (John 10:28). He who has not the life is in a condition of spiritual death, and must perish unless he receive the life of God, the eternal kind of life, which has been manifested in Christ. In these and other similar passages life and death are not to be understood as identical in meaning with existence and non-existence. The person who has passed out of death into life had existence before the new life came, and such existence, in estrangement from God and in disobedience of the gospel, may be perpetuated in ‘eternal destruction from the face of the Lord’ (2 Thessalonians 1:9). So the ‘death,’ which those who ‘perish’ taste, need not be understood as annihilation, or utter extinction of being. As ‘the death’ is a condition of moral and spiritual destitution in which one has no fellowship with God, so ‘the life’ is the blessed experience of fellowship and union with Christ as vital as that of the branch and the vine. And this participation in the very nature of the Eternal God is the essence of the ‘life eternal.’ In the writings of St. Paul we also find a mystic element in which we note the concept of eternal life as a present possession. The exhortation to ‘lay hold on the life eternal,’ and the designation of it as ‘the life which is life indeed’ (ἡ ὄντως ζωή, 1 Timothy 6:12; 1 Timothy 6:19), may refer either to the present or the future; but when the Apostle speaks of believers as made alive and risen with Christ, and sitting with Him in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:5-6), he implies a fruition that was already realized. It involved a positive experience like that in which ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made him free from the law of sin and of death’ (Romans 8:2). He also has a wonderful appreciation of the heavenly illumination which ‘shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:6). This surpassing light is conceived by the Apostle as a product of the Spirit of the Lord, and a reflexion of the glory of Christ as seen in the mirror of His gospel. In that mirror the believer beholds the glory of his Lord reflected, and by the power of the heavenly vision he is ‘transformed into the same image’ (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). The Johannine doctrine of ‘passing out of death into life’ is conceived by St. Paul as a dying unto sin and being made alive unto God in Christ Jesus. The believer is ‘alive from the dead’ and ‘walks in newness of life’ (Romans 6:1-13). He has been ‘crucified with Christ: and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, which is in the Son of God’ (Galatians 2:20). And so in Pauline thought the spiritual life of faith, enjoyed in fellowship with God and Christ, is a ‘life hid with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3), and ‘the free gift of God’ (Romans 6:23). This conception is in essential harmony with the doctrine of St. John. Eternal life is in its inmost nature the free, pure, permanent spiritual life of Christlikeness. It is a present possession, a glorious reality, a steadfastness of conscious living fellowship with the Eternal Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. But in all the Gospels and in the Epistles we also find eternal life contemplated as a future glorious inheritance of the saints. In St. John’s Gospel the ‘eternal life’ which the believer now ‘hath’ is destined to attain a glorious consummation in the resurrection ‘at the last day’ (John 5:40; John 5:45). For Jesus is Himself the resurrection as well as the life, and declares: ‘He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die’ (John 11:25-26). Such a life must needs abide in eternal permanence. Jesus spoke of ‘the water of life’ which becomes in him who drinks it ‘a fountain of water springing up into eternal life’ (John 4:14). He spoke of food ‘which abideth unto life eternal,’ and of ‘gathering fruit unto life eternal’ (John 4:36, John 6:27). In all the Gospels He is represented as teaching that ‘he that loveth ^[1] his soul loseth it; and he that hateth ^[2] his soul in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.’ We read in Mark 10:29-30 ‘There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, … or lands, for my sake and for the gospel’s sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, … and in the age to come life eternal’ (cf. Matthew 19:29 and Luke 18:29-30). These Gospels also speak of eternal life as an inheritance to be received at a future day (Matthew 19:16, Mark 10:17, Luke 10:25; Luke 18:18). Such contrast of ‘this time,’ ‘this world,’ ‘on the earth’ with ‘the age to come,’ and ‘in heaven,’ implies possessions in some other age or world beyond the present. In the picture of the Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46), the righteous who go ‘into eternal life’ are said to ‘inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world,’ and to enter into the joy and glory of the King Himself. This idea of eternal life as a glorious future inheritance finds also frequent expression in the Epistles. Those who ‘by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality’ shall receive eternal life as a reward of the righteous judgment of God (Romans 2:7). All who are made free from sin and become servants of God ‘have their fruit unto sanctification, and the end life eternal’ (Romans 5:21; Romans 6:22). In the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 1:14; Hebrews 9:15) we read of ‘them that shall inherit salvation,’ and of them that ‘receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.’ In 1 Peter 1:4 the writer tells his readers that God has begotten them unto a living hope, ‘unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved for them in heaven.’ According to all these scriptures, eternal life is begotten in the Christian believer by the Holy Spirit of God, and is to be perpetuated through the ages of ages. It is eternal in quality as being a participation in the Divine nature of the Eternal One, and eternal in duration as continuing for ever and ever. It is a possession of manifold fulness, and is conditioned in a character of god-likeness, which ‘has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come’ (1 Timothy 4:8). There can be no living this life apart from God, for it is begotten in the soul by a heavenly birth, and must be continually nourished by the Spirit of God. Such vital union with the eternal Spirit brings unspeakable blessedness in this life and in this world; but it is as permanent and abiding as the nature of God, and is therefore appropriately called an incorruptible inheritance. Each individual life, whose ‘fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3), is conceived as continuing eternally in that heavenly fellowship. In this age and that which is to come, in this world and in any other, on the earth or in the heavens, the child of God abides in eternal life. See art. Eschatology ii. 2, and so far as this subject relates to the Future State, artt. Heaven, Immortality, Resurrection. Literature.—Gueder in Herzog, Real-Encyclopadie (ed. Plitt, 1881), vol. viii. pp. 509–517, also Kahler in same Encyc. (ed. Hauck, 1902), vol. xi. pp. 330–334; M‘Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopaedia, vol. iii. pp. 313–317; Charles, Crit. Hist. of Doctrine of Future Life, pp. 368–370; Dalman, Words of Jesus, pp. 156–162; Drummond, Relation of Apostolic Teaching to Teaching of Christ, pp. 193–198; Hort, The Way, the Truth, the Life (Hulsean Lectures for 1871), Lect. iii.: Titius, Jesu Lehre vom Reiche Gottes, pp. 29–39; Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, vol. i. pp. 242–255; Westcott, The Epistles of John, pp. 214–218; Beyschlag, New Test. Theology, vol. i. pp. 266–268, vol. ii. pp. 429–430; Holtzmann, Neutest. Theologie, vol. ii. pp. 516–518; Immer, Theol. des NT, pp. 512–515; Stevens, Johannine Theology, pp. 312–327, also Theology of the NT, pp. 224–233; Weiss, Bibl. Theol. of the NT, vol. ii. pp. 347–352. M. S. Terry.

Here is a good searching question for a man to ask himself as he reviews his past life:: Have I written in the snow? Will my life-work endure the lapse of years and the fret of change? Has there been anything immortal in it, which will survive the speedy wreck of all sublunary things? The boys inscribe their names in capitals in the snow, and in 'the morning's thaw the writing disappears; will it be so with my work, or will the characters which I have carved outlast the brazen tablets of history? Have I written in the snow?

How like to a Christian a man may be and yet possess no vital godliness! Walk through the British Museum, and you will see all the orders of animals standing in their various places, and exhibiting themselves with the utmost possible propriety. The rhinoceros demurely retains the position in which he was set at first, the eagle soars not through the window, the wolf howls not at night; every creature, whether bird, beast, or fish, remains in the particular glass case allotted to it; but we all know that these are not the creatures, but only the outward semblances of them. Yet in what do they differ? Certainly in nothing which you could readily see, for the well-stuffed animal is precisely like what the living animal would have been; and that eye of glass even appears to have more of brightness in it than the natural eye of the creature itself; there is a secret inward something lacking, which, when it has once departed, you cannot restore. So in the churches of Christ, many professors are not living believers, but stuffed Christians. They possess all the externals of religion, and every outward morality that you could desire; they behave with great propriety, they keep their places, and there is no outward difference between them and the true believer, except upon the vital point, the life which no power on earth can possibly confer. There is this essential distinction, spiritual life is absent.

I heard a gentleman assert that he could walk almost any number of miles when the scenery was good; but, he added, 'When it is flat and uninteresting, how one tires!' What scenery enchants the Christian pilgrim; the towering mountains of predestination, the great sea of providence, the rocks of sure promise, the green fields of revelation, the river that makes glad the city of God, all these compose the scenery which surrounds the Christian, and at every step fresh sublimities meet his view.

It fareth with most men's lives, as with the sand in a deceptive hour-glass; look but upon it in outward appearance, and it seemeth far more than it is, because it riseth up upon the sides, whilst the sand is empty and hollow in the midst thereof:, so that when it sinks down in an instant, a quarter of an hour is gone in a moment. Thus many men are mistaken in their own account, reckoning upon threescore and ten years, the age of a man, because their bodies appear strong and lusty. Alas! their health may be hollow, there may be some inward infirmity and imperfection unknown to them, so that death may surprise them on a sudden, and they be cut down like the grass.'

LIFE (ζωή).—The term applied by Jesus, alike in the Synoptic and the Johannine records of His teaching, to the supreme blessing mediated by Him to men. Certain elements in the conception are common to the two records, but their differences are so marked that it will be necessary to consider them separately. 1. The idea of Life in the Synoptic teaching is substantially that of the OT, unfolded in all its potential wealth of meaning. Hebrew thought, averse to metaphysical speculation, conceived of life as the sum of energies which make up man’s actual existence. The soul separated from the body did not cease to be, but it forfeited its portion in the true life. It either departed to the shadowy world of Sheol, or, according to the later view of Ecclesiastes, was reabsorbed (?) into the Divine Being,—‘returned to God who gave it’ (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Thus the highest good was simply ‘length of days,’—the continuance of the bodily existence right on to its natural term. Two factors, however, were latent in the OT conception from the beginning, and became more and more prominent in the course of the after-development. (1) The radical element in life is activity. Mere physical being is distinguished from that essential ‘life’ which consists in the unrestricted play of all the energies, especially of the higher and more characteristic. In the loftier passages of the Psalms, more particularly, the idea of ‘life’ has almost always a pregnant sense. It is associated with joy, peace, prosperity, wisdom, righteousness; man ‘lives’ according as he has free scope for the activities which are distinctive of his spiritual nature. God Himself is emphatically the ‘living One,’ as contrasted with men in their limitation and helplessness. (2) Since God alone possesses life in the highest sense, fellowship with Him is the one condition on which men can obtain it. ‘By every word of God doth man live’ (Deuteronomy 8:3). ‘With thee is the fountain of life’ (Psalms 36:9). In the higher regions of OT thought, life and communion with God are interchangeable ideas. The belief in immortality is never expressly stated, but, as Jesus Himself indicates, it was implicit in this conception of a God who was not the God of the dead but of the living. See art. Living. Jesus accepted the idea of life as it had come to Him through the OT. To Him also life is primarily the physical existence (cf. Matthew 6:25 ‘Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat and drink,’ etc.), and He advances on this conception along ethical and religious lines, in the same manner as the Psalmists and Prophets. (1) He distinguishes between the essential ‘life’ and the outward subsidiary things with which it is so easily confused. ‘The life is more than meat’ (Luke 12:23). ‘A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth’ (v. 15). ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his life?’ (Mark 8:36). (2) Thus He arrives at the idea of something central and inalienable which constitutes the reality of life. This He discovers in the moral activity. The body with its manifold faculties is only the organ by which man accomplishes his true task of obedience to God. Meat, raiment, and all the rest are necessary, ‘but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.’ (3) In this way He is led to the conception of a higher, spiritual life, gained through the sacrifice of the lower. ‘If a man hate not his own life, he cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14:26). ‘He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it’ (Matthew 10:39; Matthew 16:25). Here, however, we become aware of the difficulty which meets us under different forms throughout our Lord’s teaching. In His account of the supreme blessing for which lower things must be sacrificed, He seems to pass abruptly from ethical to eschatological ideas. ‘Life’ is a reward laid up for the righteous in the world to come. It is regarded sometimes as a new state of being (Matthew 25:46), sometimes as a sort of prize that can be bestowed in the same manner as houses and goods and lands (Mark 10:30). The precise meaning to be attached to ‘the world to come’ in which this ‘life’ will be imparted, depends on our interpretation of the general conception of the Kingdom of God. Our Lord would appear to waver between the idea of a world beyond death and that of a Messianic age or aeon, apocalyptically revealed on earth. In either case, however, He thinks of ‘life’ as of something still in the future, the peculiar blessing of the realized Kingdom of God. This future possession is defined more particularly in several passages as ‘eternal life,’ and the epithet might appear at first sight to imply a distinction. We find, however, on closer examination that the term ‘life’ itself usually involves the emphatic meaning. ‘This do and thou shalt live’ (Luke 10:28) is our Lord’s reply to the inquiry concerning ‘eternal life.’ So when He says, ‘It is better to enter into life halt or maimed’ (Matthew 18:8, Mark 9:43), or ‘Narrow is the way that leadeth unto life’ (Matthew 7:14), it is evidently the future blessing that is in His mind. There is good ground for the conjecture that Jesus Himself never used the expression ‘eternal life.’ Since the ethical and eschatological ideas are denoted by the same word, we are justified in assuming that in the mind of Jesus they were bound up with one another. The ‘life’ which is projected into the future and described figuratively as a gift bestowed from without, is in the last resort the life of moral activity. This becomes more apparent when we take account of certain further elements in our Lord’s teaching. (a) The condition on which the future reward is given is faithful performance of the moral task in the present. Those shall ‘live’ who keep the commandments. The narrow way that leads to life is the way of obedience and sacrifice. By voluntary loss of earthly things in the cause of Christ, the disciples will gain ‘life’ (Mark 10:30). The apocalyptic imagery does not conceal from us the essential thought of Jesus, that the promised ‘life’ is nothing but the outcome and fulfilment of a moral obedience begun on earth. (b) Life is not only a future fulfilment, but has a real beginning in the present. Thus in the saying, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead’ (Matthew 8:22 = Luke 9:60), Jesus implies that the disciples even now enter into possession of a new and higher life. They are the ‘living’ as opposed to the children of this world, who are spiritually dead. The same thought appears in the parable of the Prodigal Son: ‘he was dead and is alive again’ (Luke 15:32). Life in its full reality is the blessing of the world to come, but it will be different in degree, not in kind, from the present life of true discipleship. (c) One element is common to the two types of ‘life,’ and marks their ultimate identity. The future consummation, described by Jesus in vivid pictorial language, is in its substance a closer fellowship with God. In the Kingdom which He anticipated, the pure in heart were to see God (Matthew 5:8); those who hungered and thirsted after righteousness were to be satisfied with God’s presence (v. 6). This perfect communion with God is the supreme reward laid up for the believer. It constitutes the inner meaning and content of the future Life. In like manner the present life of moral obedience is in its essence a life of fellowship with God. The aim of Jesus is to bring His disciples even now into such a harmony with the Divine will that they may be children of their Father who is in heaven, resembling Him and holding real communion with Him. The eschatological idea of life thus resolves itself at its centre into the purely ethical and religious. The Kingdom is already come when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is Himself the Mediator of the new life. He imparts to His disciples His own consciousness of God’s presence and Fatherhood. He inspires in them a faith and obedience which without Him would have been for ever impossible. Through knowledge of Him and participation in His spirit, they enter into that fellowship with God which is eternal life. See Mediator. 2. In the Fourth Gospel the idea of Life is much more prominent than in the Synoptics. The Evangelist expressly states (John 20:31) that he has ‘written these things that believing ye may have life,’ and this statement of his main intention is fully borne out by the detailed study of the Gospel. The teaching of Jesus, as he records it, centres wholly on the subject of Life. This in itself need not be regarded as a breach with the authentic tradition. We have seen that in the Synoptics also the idea of Life lies at the heart of our Lord’s teaching, since life is the peculiar blessing of the Kingdom of God. St. John, after his manner, detaches the essential thought from the eschatological framework. The future ‘kingdom’ becomes simply ‘life.’ The idea of Life as a present possession (already implicit in the Synoptic teaching) becomes in the Fourth Gospel central and determinative. ‘He that believeth on the Son hath (even now) everlasting life’ (John 3:36). ‘He that heareth my word … is passed out of death into life’ (John 5:24). The whole purpose of the work of Christ, as conceived by the Evangelist, was to communicate to His disciples, here and now, the eternal life. To those who have received His gift the death of the body is only a physical incident, a ‘falling asleep’ (John 11:11). The true death is the state of sin and privation, out of which they have been delivered, once and for all, in the act of surrender to Christ. Isolated passages in the Gospel might seem to conflict with this, the characteristic and prevailing view. In the 6th chapter more especially, the conception of Life as a spiritual possession in the present appears side by side with repeated allusions to a resurrection ‘at the last day’ (John 6:39; John 6:44; John 6:54). These allusions are partly to be explained as reminiscences of an earlier type of doctrine, not completely in harmony with the writer’s own; such ‘concessions’ to a traditional belief meet us continually in this Gospel. At the same time, they serve to emphasize a real, though secondary, aspect of John’s own teaching. He anticipates in the future world a full manifestation of the Life which under earthly conditions is necessarily hidden. For the believer, as for Christ Himself, the escape from this world and its limitations marks the entrance into a larger activity and ‘glory’ (cf. John 14:2-3). The Evangelist nowhere attempts to define his conception of Life. The great saying, ‘This is life eternal,’ etc. (John 17:3), cannot be construed as a definition. It only declares that the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ carries with it the assurance of life (cf. ‘His commandment is life everlasting’ ^[1]). The nature of the life is indicated only in vague and half-figurative terms. It is indestructible (John 6:58, John 11:26), satisfies all spiritual thirst and hunger (John 6:35, John 4:14), is the source of light (John 1:4, John 8:12). But, while little is said by way of express definition, the general import of the Johannine conception is sufficiently clear. The Life which Christ communicates is the absolute, Divine Life. ‘As the Father has life in himself, so he hath given the Son to have life in himself’ (John 5:26., cf. John 1:4). It is assumed that in God and in the Logos, who is one with Him, a life resides which is different in kind from that of men, and is the real, the ‘eternal’ Life. The conception arises from the blending in the Fourth Gospel of Hebrew and early Christian with Greek-philosophical influences. Hebrew thought did not concern itself with questions regarding the ultimate nature of God. He was the ‘living’ God, who could be known only through His activity in the creation and moral government of the world. The Greek thinkers, on the other hand, tried to get behind His activity to His essential Being. He was the absolute and self-existent, over against the world of phenomena. His Life, so far as Life could be predicated of Him, was an energy of pure thought, abstracted from every form of sensible manifestation (cf. Arist. Metaph. xii. 7). The Fourth Evangelist, carrying out more fully the suggestion of Philo, combines the Hebrew and Greek ideas. He thinks of God as the ‘only true’ (John 17:3), the absolute Being who is eternally separate from the world which He has created. Nevertheless He is a living and personal God. The Life which He possesses is analogous to the life in man, but of a higher order, spiritual instead of earthly. It follows from this attempt to combine Hebrew with Greek ideas, that the ethical moment falls largely out of sight. The difference between the human and the Divine Life is one of essence. Till man has undergone a radical change, not in heart merely but in the very constitution of his being, there can be no thought of his participating in the life of God. St. John thus involves himself in a conception which may be described as semi-physical. The Divine life is regarded as a sort of higher substance inherent in the nature of God. How can man, who is ‘born of flesh’ (John 3:6), become partaker in this substance, and so experience a new birth as a child of God? This is the religious problem as it presents itself to St. John. The solution is afforded by the doctrine of the Incarnate Word. Jesus Christ, as the eternal Logos, possessed ‘life in himself,’ and yet assumed humanity and entered into our lower world. He therefore became the vehicle through which the life of God is imparted to men, or at least to those elect natures who are predisposed to receive it. He not only possesses, but is Himself the Life. To impart His gift He must also impart Himself, since life is inalienable from the living Person. This idea, which lies at the very centre of St. John’s thinking, determines his theory of the communication of Life through Christ. The subjective condition, apart from which the gift cannot be bestowed, is belief in Jesus as the Son of God. This belief is primarily an act of intellectual assent to the claim of Christ; but such an act implies a religious experience which has led up to it and gives it value. It runs back in the last resort to the ‘drawing by the Father’ (John 6:44), the work of God’s Spirit in the heart. Through the act of belief a man is brought into such a relation to Christ that His power as Life-giver becomes operative. Three means are indicated by which Christ imparts the gift to those who have believed. (1) It is conveyed through His word, regarded not simply as the medium of His message, but in the Hebrew sense as active and creative. The words spoken by Jesus are of the same nature as the quickening word of God. They are ‘spirit and life,’ carrying with them some portion of His own being. He can say indifferently, ‘My word shall abide in you’ and ‘I shall abide in you’ (John 15:7). It is this imparting of Himself through His words that renders them ‘words of eternal life.’ (2) The gift is conveyed likewise in the Sacraments, more especially in the Lord’s Supper. The Eucharistic reference in the 6th chapter appears to the present writer unmistakable, and, while the Supper is interpreted in a spiritual sense, its real validity is also emphasized. Ignatius, writing in the same age, describes the Eucharist as the φάρμακον ἀθανασίας (Ephes. 20), and St. John accepts this current belief, and harmonizes it with his own doctrine of Life: ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you’ (John 6:53). Since Jesus in His own Person is the Life, it can be given only through an actual incorporation of His ‘flesh and blood,’ and this is offered in the mystery of the Eucharist. The idea of Life as a semi-physical essence here comes to its sharpest expression. (3) In this same chapter, however, we have the indication of another and still more mysterious means by which the Life is imparted. The Eucharist, while it possesses in itself a real validity, is typical of an abiding union of the believer with Christ. He is like the vine (John 15:1 ff.), out of which the several branches draw their nourishment. He is united with His disciples in a relation so profound and intimate that they feel themselves to be one with Him. They abide in Him and He in them, and the life which He possesses becomes their life, springing up within them like a perennial well (John 4:14). This doctrine of a mystical union with Christ in which He imparts His Divine life to the believer, contains the central and characteristic thought of the Fourth Gospel. Thus far we have considered the Johannine idea of Life as it is determined by the Logos theory. It becomes apparent, however, the more we study the Gospel, that the writer is working throughout with two conceptions, essentially different from each other and never completely reconciled. The incarnate Logos is at the same time the historical Jesus, who revealed God and drew all men to Himself by the moral grandeur of His personality and life. Doctrines which are presented theologically on the lines of the Logos hypothesis are also capable of a purely religious interpretation. They require to be so interpreted if we are not to miss their underlying and vital import. Life regarded from this other side bears a meaning substantially the same as in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus was the Living One, inasmuch as He realized in His own Person the love and goodness and holiness which constitute the inmost nature of God. The life He sought to communicate was nothing else than His own Spirit, as it was revealed in the scene of the feet-washing (John 13), and in the subsequent discourse with His disciples. Even in the Eucharistic chapter in which the theological view of Life is expressed most forcibly, we can discern this other view in the background. To partake of Christ’s flesh and blood is to become wholly conformed to Him, absorbing into oneself the very spirit by which He lived. We cannot read the chapter attentively without feeling that St. John is always passing from the metaphysical conception to this moral and religious one. Both are present in his mind, and he endeavours to fuse them, though such a fusion is in the nature of things impossible. The cardinal doctrine of union with Christ assumes a new meaning in the light of this other aspect of St. John’s thought. What is elsewhere described as a mystical indwelling becomes a moral fellowship. ‘Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends’ (John 15:15). The disciples are to enter into a perfect harmony of mind and will with their Master. His spirit is not to act on them from the outside, through set commandments, but inwardly and spontaneously. The relation of discipleship thus passes into one of ‘friendship,’—a friendship so close that they lose all sense of separateness between themselves and Christ. He ‘abides in them,’ and replaces their will with His own. To the Synoptic teaching St. John adds one element of priceless value. He perceives that the new Life proclaimed by Jesus was bound up indissolubly with His living Person. ‘In him was life’ (John 1:4), and it is not enough to render some vague obedience to His teaching. There must be a real and personal communion with Christ, so that He may impart His very self to His disciple. In his presentation of this truth, John avails himself of metaphysical modes of thinking which are not wholly adequate to the Christian message. The conception of Christ as Logos obscures the true significance of His Person and of the higher life imparted through Him. But the essential thought of the Gospel is independent of the form, borrowed from an alien philosophy, in which it is expressed. Jesus Christ is not only the Life-giver, but is Himself the Life. He imparts His gift to those who know Him by an inward fellowship, and become one with Him in heart and will. See also Living. Literature.—H. Holtzmann, NT Theol. i. 293 ff. (1897); Schrenck, Die johan. Anschauung vom ‘Leben’ (1898); Titius, Die NT Lehre von der Seligkeit (esp. the Johannine section, 1900); Grill, Untersuchungen über die Entstehung des vierten Evang. 206–327 (1902); G. Dalman, Words of Jesus, 156; G. B. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 241, 312; P. Brooks, More Abundant Life; B. F. Westcott, Historic Faith, 142; F. J. A. Hort, The Way, the Truth, the Life (1893); E. Hatch, Memorials, 181; J. G. Hoare, Life in St. John’s Gospel, (1901). E. F. Scott.

On a winter's day I have noticed a row of cottages, with a deep load of snow on their several roofs; but as the day wore on, large fragments began to tumble from the eaves of this one and that other, till, by-and-by, there was a simultaneous avalanche, and the whole heap slid over in powdery ruin on the pavement, and before the sun went down you saw each roof as clear and dry as on a summer's eve. But here and there you would observe one with its snow-mantle unbroken, and a ruff of stiff icicles around it. What made the difference? The difference was to be found within. Some of these huts were empty, or the lonely inhabitant cowered over a scanty fire; whilst the peopled hearth and the high- blazing fagots of the rest created such an inward warmth that grim winter melted and relaxed his gripe; and the loosened mass folded off and tumbled over on the trampled street. It is possible by some outside process to push the main volume of snow from the frosty roof, or chip off the icicles one by one. But they will form again, and it needs an inward heat to create a total thaw. And so, by sundry processes, you may clear off from a man's conduct the dead weight of conspicuous sins; but it needs a hidden heat, a vital warmth within, to produce such a separation between the soul and its besetting iniquities, that the whole wintry incubus, the entire body of sin, will come spontaneously away. That vital warmth is the love of God abundantly shed abroad: the kindly glow which the Comforter diffuses in the soul which he makes his home. His genial inhabitation thaws that soul and its favourite sins asunder, and makes the indolence and self-indulgence and indevotion fall off from their old resting-place on that dissolving heart. The easiest form of self-mortification is a fervent spirit.: James Hamilton, D.D.

See Book of Life.

See Eternal and Life and Death.

Standing by the telegraphic wires one may often hear the mystic wailing and sighing of the winds among them, like the strains of an Aolian harp, but one knows nothing of the message which is flashing along them. Joyous may be the inner language of those wires, swift as the lightning, far- reaching and full of meaning, but a stranger intermeddles not therewith. Fit emblem of the believer's inner life; men hear our notes of outward sorrow wrung from us by external circumstances, but the message of celestial peace, the divine communings with a better land, the swift heart-throbs of heaven-born desire, they cannot perceive: the carnal see but the outer manhood, but the life hidden with Christ in God, flesh and blood cannot discern.

The upper galleries at Versailles are filled with portraits, many of them extremely valuable and ancient. These are the likenesses of the greatest men of all lands and ages, drawn by the ablest artists. Yet most visitors wander through the rooms with little or no interest; in fact, after noticing one or two of the more prominent pictures, they hasten through the suite of chambers and descend to the other floors. Notice the change when the sight-seers come to fine paintings like those of Horace Vernet, where the men and women are not inactive portraits but are actively engaged. There the warrior who was passed by without notice upstairs, is seen hewing his way to glory over heaps of slain, or the statesman is observed delivering himself of weighty words before an assembly of princes and peers. Not the men but their actions engross attention. Portraits have no charm when scenes of stirring interest are set in rivalry with them. After all, then, let us be who or what we may, we must bestir ourselves or be mere nobodies, chips in the porridge, forgotten shells of the shore. If we would impress we must act. The dignity of standing still will never win the prize, we must run for it. Our influence over our times will arise mainly from our doing and suffering the will of God, not from our office or person. Life, life in earnest, life for God, this will tell on the age; but mere orderliness and propriety, inactive and passionless, will be utterly inoperative.

The way is good, says Chrysostom, if it be to a feast, though through a dark and miry lane; if to an execution not good, though through the fairest street of the city. Non qua sed quo. Not the way but the end is to be mainly considered.

There is a talk of giving fixity of tenure in Ireland; can they find it in England, or for the matter of that, in all the world? No, we are all tenants, liable to be ejected without an hour's notice. How death must laugh at our leases and our bonds! Cobwebs are not more frail. A bubble has as sure a tenure as a man. 'What boots your houses and your lands? In spite of close-drawn deed and fence, Like water, 'twixt your cheated hands, They slip into the graveyard's sands, And mock your ownership's pretence.'

WE visited two palaces in Venice, and realized the contrast of life and death. The first was tenanted by a noble family, who delighted to maintain it in good repair, to adorn it with fresh beauties, and to furnish it in the most sumptuous manner. Everything was fresh, fair, bright, and charming. From the paving of mosaics in the hail one looked up to ceilings glowing with the creations of the artist's pencil, and in every chamber paintings, statues, ormolu, tapestry, and all things else of the richest kind surrounded you. The other was a palace, too, with marble pillars, and carved work, but the stones were loosening, and the columns shifting, grass grew in the halls, and the roofs let in the rain, decay was there and desolation, and yet the palace was as noble in its architecture as the first. Thus when God dwells in a man, all his powers and faculties are bright with a sacred light, and joy and peace and beauty adorn his entire manhood; but if the Holy Spirit depart, the heart being empty and void becomes a ruin, everywhere decaying, and alas! too often haunted by the demons of vice and iniquity.

Hymn for Lauds on November 1, the feast of All Salnts. It is attributed to Rabanus Maurus and has eight translations; the English title given is by E. Caswall.

See Prince of Life .

Registry of persons' names as living. One (also called simply God's book,) may be a book of those who only have a name to live, and consequently whose names may be blotted out. Exodus 32:32,33 ; Psalm 69:28 ; Revelation 3:5 ; Revelation 22:19 . Another is a book of the saved, from which none will be erased. Philippians 4:3 ; Revelation 13:8 ; Revelation 17:8 ; Revelation 20:12,15 ; Revelation 21:27 . A third (called simply 'the book,') contains the names of the remnant of Israel. Daniel 12:1 .

This is one of the characters of the Lord Jesus Christ. In him, saith the apostle John, "was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4) And elsewhere Jesus saith himself, "I am the life and the light of men. I am the resurrection and the life. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." It is most essential to our happiness, that we should have clear conceptions of this most blessed truth, so as to see and know from whence and in whom all the springs of life are. It is not, in my view of things, sufficient to understand that Christ gives life to his people, but that he is himself the life of his people. He saith himself, "Because I live, ye shall live also." So that Jesus is, to the soul of his redeemed, the very life of the soul, as our soul is the life of the body. When the soul departs from the body, the body dies; and could it be supposed that Christ was to depart from the souls of his redeemed, the soul would die also. But this is impossible; for it is said, that he hath quickened them, who were by nature dead in trespasses and sins. And the apostle to the church of the Colossians saith, "Your life is hid with Christ in God; so that when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." What a world of blessedness there is in this one consideration of the Lord Jesus as the life of his people! Precious Lord, I would say, thou art indeed both the life and the light of men! Thou art in thyself the whole of their spiritual and eternal life. Keep alive, I beseech thee, the renewed life thou hast given me in thyself; and cause me to enter into the full apprehension and enjoyment of that most glorious proclamation of thine in which thou hast, said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were deadly, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in, me shall never die."

COMMON LIFE.—The teaching of our Lord upon this subject is no more restricted and definite than it is upon any other of life’s relations. It was never His purpose to draw up anything like a code of laws for the regulation of human life. Indeed, it is just this indefiniteness, this liberty, this leaving all detail to the spiritual guidance which He promised, that has made the religion of Jesus so far transcend every other religion that has been given to men. Christ left His teaching unrestricted, that by its inner and spiritual power it might be able to adapt itself to the ever-changing needs and thoughts of men. That doctrine which makes itself particular, which binds itself up with the peculiar circumstances of a definite people, a definite clime, a definite era, must of necessity pass away with those circumstances to which it specially applied. Our Lord, in that He laid down principles, not rules, has given us that which will apply to all peoples and climes and eras. Christianity is the universal faith, because it is founded upon the universal needs of the human heart (John 8:31-32; John 14:12-13). It is, of course, true that Christianity is particular to this extent, that its Founder faces and combats those particular evils which chanced to be most prevalent at the time when He lived on earth. Had renunciation of the world in the monastic sense been as widespread as it became two centuries after His death, we should certainly have had more definite teaching upon our subject. But it was Pharisaism that He had to oppose, not asceticism. There were, indeed, the Essenes at the time of Christ, but that community was never a large one, nor were their tenets so opposed to the truths He taught as to demand His special attention. The Baptist, it is true, was an ascetic (Matthew 3:4 || Mark 1:6, Matthew 11:18 || Luke 7:33); but we never find him commanding others to lead his life. John preached repentance, but a repentance that did not entail renunciation of the world. Even the publicans and the rough soldiery of Herod, when they came seeking his advice, were not required to give up professions so fraught with temptation. All that be asked of them was that they should perform the duties of their callings honestly and honourably (Luke 3:10-14). It was therefore in opposition to the ritualism of the Pharisees alone that Christ had to develop His teaching as to common life. Purity and holiness in the eyes of the Pharisees were matters of ceremonial observance far more than of heart and life; and to such an extent had they elaborated the Mosaic ritual, that it was no longer possible for the poor man and the toiler to attain to holiness in the sense which they had rendered popular. Only the wealthy and the leisured could win their esoteric righteousness. It is for this reason that we so continually find our Lord in strenuous opposition to all externalism. It is ever the religion of heart and life, not that of ceremonial, that He demands of His followers. Consider, for example, His fulfilling of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount. Throughout it is the Law’s moral requirements that He treats of; and the discourse is prefaced by the assertion that the righteousness of the new kingdom must start by exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). He speaks of least commandments, the breaking of which does not exclude from the kingdom (Matthew 5:19); and which He accounts the greater and which the less is manifested by His saying—‘First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift’ (Luke 18:9-142). From a similar standpoint He treats the observance of the Sabbath, subordinating all external and ceremonial requirements to those spiritual commands of love to God and to our neighbour which He made all-important (Mark 2:23-28, Luke 6:1-12; Luke 13:10-17). In regard to the question of washing the hands before eating, He comes into open conflict with the Pharisees, upbraiding their hypocrisy, and contending that defilement comes not from external things, but from within the heart (Matthew 15:1-20, Mark 7:1-23). All this tends towards the placing of a higher value upon common life. He is thus clearing the way for the reception of the thought that God may be as truly served in the round of daily life and toil as in those observances distinctively called religious. We have the boldest assertion of this truth in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (1618419304_55), wherein He points out that the strictest—nay, the supererogatory—performance of ritual cannot win justification in the sight of God, while simple repentance, utterly without these things, is assured of pardon and peace. We are not told whether the repentance of this publican entailed the giving up of his profession; but in the case of Zacchaeus there is evidence that it did not (Luke 19:1-10). Apparently, then, in the eyes of our Lord, even this, the most despised of callings, could be followed by a member of the kingdom. Levi, it is true, was called to leave all and follow (Luke 5:27 f.); but his case we must regard as an exception. He showed a special aptitude, and was called to a special office. But it is rather the whole tendency of the teaching and example of Jesus, than any explicit statement, that in Christianity assigns to common life a dignity which it receives in no other religion. That Christianity so early developed monkish asceticism cannot be adduced as an argument against Christ’s teaching. The life of Jesus is throughout a clear admission of the value of that probation which God the Father and Creator has allotted to mankind. Jesus as the universal Man, the Example for all the world, assumed for Himself the most universal experience. For thirty years He lived the common life of a labouring man, working like any one of His brethren in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. We have Him described as a carpenter, as one well known to His fellow-townsmen, as one but little distinguished from His brothers and sisters (Matthew 13:55 f., Mark 6:3). Commonplace daily toil and family intercourse, and that throughout a period of thirty years, were thus the training which the Heavenly Father accounted the best for His Son who was to be the Saviour of the world. In this lowly sphere the Son of God grew ‘in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man’ (Luke 2:52). Than this there could be no stronger argument for the value and the nobleness of common life in the eyes of the Father and the Son. It is impossible to conceive that He who thus honoured the common lot could desire any renunciation of it on the part of those who wished to be His followers. Those who were called to be His missionaries must of necessity give up all to do a higher work, but not to attain a higher life. It is to be noted that when for a time that work is in abeyance, His chief disciples return to their old calling (John 21:3). The whole attitude of Jesus towards the world of nature and of man is in accordance with His claim to be the Son of the Creator. He clearly recognized the wisdom and the beauty and the love that shine forth in Creation and Providence. The lilies of the field and the fowls of the air, the sunshine and the rain, are used by Him as evidences of the goodness of the Father. His teaching is bound up in closest harmony with the things of earth and time. For Him the family ties are types of Heaven. His kingdom is far more a family than a nation. The names of father, mother, brother, sister, wife, are ennobled by His use of them. From all the callings of men He draws images of Divine things. The physician, the sower, the reaper, the fisherman, the vinedresser, the shepherd, the king at war, the housewife at her baking, the commonest incidents of daily life, the simplest phenomena of nature,—all have a place in His doctrine; all are used to illustrate the character and development of His kingdom. He did not, it is true, enlarge upon the relations of life. That was not His mission. His reformation was to proceed from within, not from without. But everywhere there is the manifest acceptance of the order, alike social and natural, which God has ordained. Even the civil order, with which He came into contact in no ideal form in the Roman domination, receives His sanction. ‘Render unto Caesar,’ He says, ‘the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s’ (Matthew 22:15-22, Mark 12:13-17, Luke 20:20-26). There is duty to God and duty to civil order, and these must not conflict in religion’s name: the former should include the latter. Marriage is recognized by Him as a holy tie, an indissoluble Divine institution, and thus obtains a position more honourable than it had ever held before (Matthew 19:3-9, Mark 10:2-12). His presence and first miracle at the wedding at Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-11)—a miracle which shows His deep sympathy with even trivial human needs—is in itself a consecration of marriage. That episode strikes the keynote of His life,—a life lived amid His fellows, sharing their joys and sorrows, their trials and temptations, their feastings and their mournings. The Son of man came eating and drinking, with no ascetic gloom; came to live in, and thus to sanctify, the whole round of common life. Yet in the view of our Lord all these things had but a transitory value. They were but means to something higher. They were the temporal and seen, from which the unseen and eternal was to be extracted. In so far, then, as they conflicted with that higher good, that eternal treasure, Christ demanded renunciation in regard to them. His treatment of the young ruler (Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-27, Luke 18:18-27) illustrates well this attitude. Wealth is not in itself an evil, but it is a great danger, and in certain cases it may destroy the life of the soul. For some, therefore, it is wiser and safer to discard it. It has an engrossing power that deprives the soul of its proper nourishment (cf. the parable of the Rich Fool, Luke 12:16-21). It tends to harden the heart against compassion and charity, to make the man self-sufficient, to give a physical delight so great as to close the eyes to that which is spiritual (cf. the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19-31). But there are other blessings far more innocent that possess a like danger. Things as precious and as natural as the hand and eye and foot may yet lead to sin and obstruct the passage to the higher life (Matthew 5:29 f., Mark 9:43-48). In such cases, too, these must be renounced. Even the family ties, if they become so binding as to come between the soul and its true weal—the service of God in Christ—must be broken; for the kingdom of God is the one aim and purpose of the spiritual man, and nought must be permitted to interfere therewith (Matthew 10:37 || Luke 14:26, Matthew 6:33). Even life itself must be laid down for the sake of Christ (Matthew 10:39, Luke 17:33, John 12:25). Christ’s teaching as to worldly good is particularly revealed in the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-12). There He calls the command of wealth and natural advantage by the name of ‘the unrighteous mammon,’ thus pointing to its seductive power and contrasting it with the true spiritual good. He calls it also ‘that which is another man’s’ in distinction to ‘that which is your own.’ Of earthly good we are but the stewards. Wealth is never really our own. We may use it or abuse it, but sooner or later we must resign its control. The spiritual gifts of God are of a nature totally different. They become truly ours, a part of our true self. Yet the unrighteous mammon can be so employed as to win us spiritual advantage. By its means we can make us friends who will receive us into everlasting habitations. As the unjust steward employed his power to his own worldly advantage, so must we with the wisdom of light use to our highest advantage the worldly power which is ours which is always one with the service of God. There is a remarkable passage in Mark 10:29 f. (cf. Matthew 19:29 and Luke 18:29), which promises that earthly loss suffered for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s shall receive an hundredfold reward ‘now in this time’ in the same kind in which the loss was suffered. That the Christian in his profession and practice of love to all men must have the family ties strengthened and extended an hundredfold, is readily to be understood: but the promise of lands is not so simple. To the mind of the present writer it suggests the great truth, which Christ’s own life exemplified, that only the child of God is capable of the pure and perfect enjoyment of all that God has made. Only to the eyes of him whose heart is filled with the Father’s love, is all the beauty of the Creator’s work displayed. As one with the Father through Christ, as sharing the purposes of God, as beholding the Divine plan and submitting to and working for it, the Christian possesses the world in a sense in which no other can. It is his to rejoice in and to use for God’s glory. (Cf. Expositor 1st ser. iv. ^[1] 256 ff.). To sum up the whole, we may say that there are two great ideas which underlie all Christ’s teaching:—(1) The inestimable value of the human soul (Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36 f., Luke 9:25), to the salvation of which all must be subordinated, for the sake of which all things, if necessary, must be renounced: the Gospel, therefore, which gives this salvation is all-important, and its service must have no rival; and (2) the recognition of common life and daily toil, with all that these terms include, as the ordinances of a loving Father by whose Providence they are designed to be the chiefest elements in fitting men for citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven. He who uses well the talents which God gives, in the sphere in which his lot is cast, who is faithful in a little, shall have his reward hereafter in the obtaining of a larger sphere wherein to exercise for God’s glory those very qualities, purified and ennobled, which his earthly diligence has made his own (Matthew 23:14-30, Luke 19:11-27). Work that is the expression of love to God and man is always noble; and there is no work on earth that may not be performed to God’s glory. Literature.—Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, ii. 250 ff.; Weiss, New Testament Theology, ii. 347 ff.; the standard Commentaries on the Gospels, and works on the Parahles; Stoplord Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, p. 1 ff.; R. W. Dale, Laws of Christ for Common Life, esp. chs. i. xi. xii. xiv.; J. T. Jacob, Christ the Indweller, ch. ix; R. Glaister, ‘Christ’s Sympathy in Life’s Commonplace,’ Exp. Times, x. 360 ff.; J. W. Diggle, Short Studies in Holiness, 197. W. J. S. Miller.

See LIFE, ETERNAL.

The actual phrase occurs in six passages only of the NT: Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 17:8; Revelation 20:12; Revelation 20:15; Revelation 21:27 (in Revelation 22:19 the evidence for the reading ‘book of life’ ^[1] instead of ‘tree of life’ ^[2] is negligible). Of these passages the most important for the purpose of determining the meaning is Revelation 20:12; Revelation 20:15, because there the book of life is distinguished from certain other books: ‘and the books were opened, and another book was opened which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things that were written in the books, according to their works … and whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire,’ The natural implication here is that the other books were records of works, but that the book of life was simply a register of the names of those destined for life-an interpretation which fits all the above-noted passages. An interesting exegetical point comes up in connexion with Revelation 13:8. The words ‘from the foundation of the world’ may grammatically refer either to ‘written’ or to ‘the Lamb which hath been slain.’ But in Revelation 17:8, where the same phrase occurs, the only natural way to take it is as referring to ‘written’; and this is practically decisive for Revelation 13:8 also (so Swete, Apoc. of St. John 2, London, 1907, and Revised Version ). The phrase thus carries a suggestion of predestination; but this is not thought of as absolute, since the idea of blotting out a name from the book of life occurs quite freely. With the above-noted passages there fall into fine a number of others where the same conception is clearly implied: Luke 10:20, Daniel 12:1, Psalms 69:28, Exodus 32:32-33. The conception of a register found in all these passages seems to be based on the analogy of citizen-lists, registers of the theocratic community, such as are referred to in Isaiah 4:3 : ‘He that is left in Zion shall be called holy, every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem’ (cf. Nehemiah 12:22-23, Ezekiel 13:9) To be written in the heavenly counterpart of such a list meant to be assured of being a sharer in the blessings destined for the true Israel. Other passages which associate themselves more or less closely with this conception are 1 Samuel 25:29, Psalms 87:6; Psalms 139:16, Isaiah 48:19, Jeremiah 22:30, Hebrews 12:23. The conception of a heavenly record of man’s actions, which we found clearly distinguished from the above in Revelation 20:12; Revelation 20:15, appears equally distinct in Daniel 7:10 as compared with Daniel 12:1. See also Psalms 56:8, Isaiah 65:6, Malachi 3:15. Different again is the conception of the Book with the Seven Seals in Revelation 5, for that is thought of as the book of destiny-the prophetic history of the world. All three conceptions appear in the Book of Enoch. When the Head of Days ‘seated Himself on the throne of His glory, and the books of the living were opened before Him’ (En. xlvii. 3), the context makes it clear that the purpose of the opening of the books is not a great assize, it is a vindication of the righteous that is at hand, and ‘the living’ means, not all living, but the righteous. Charles remarks that ‘books of the holy ones’ in En. cviii. 3 has practically the same meaning. The complementary conception ‘The book of those that shall be destroyed’ appears in Jub. xxx. 22.* ^[3], p. 87).] The second conception, that of a record, appears in En. lxxxix. 70ff., where the evil deeds of the shepherds are recorded and read before the Lord; cf. xc. 17, 20, xcviii. 7, 8, civ. 7 (a daily record). The idea of a book of fate or prophetic history, is represented by the ‘heavenly tablets,’ lxxxi. 1, 2, xciii. 1ff.; but this should be kept separate. See, further, following article. As regards the origin of the conception, if we take the heavenly book in the wider sense of a record of men’s actions or a prophetic world history, it is obviously one of those conceptions for which it is not easy to establish a relation of dependence between one religion and another, since it is likely to arise independently in various places. A. Jeremias (Babylonisches im NT, Leipzig, 1905, p. 69ff., and article ‘Book of Life.’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics ) has pointed to the Bab. ^[4] New Year’s Festival, at which it was conceived that an assembly of the gods determined the events of the year, and especially the duration of men’s lives, which was written down in a ‘tablet of life.’ For the narrower conception of the book of life as set forth above, the most interesting literary parallel is that cited by Jeremias from the Akhmim fragments of the Coptic Apoc. of Sophonias (Zephaniah), translation L. Stern, in Zeitschr. für ägypt. Sprache, xxiv. ^[5], There the seer inquires about two angels whom he sees, and is told by his angel guide: ‘These are the angels of the Lord Almighty who inscribe all the good works of the righteous in His scrolls, sitting at the gate of heaven. They give these scrolls to me, to take them to the Lord Almighty, in order that He may write their name (sc. names of the righteous) in the Book of the Living,’ This passage is not of any value as evidence for the source of the conception, for the work shows in many places dependence upon Rev., but it probably indicates correctly how the relation of the book of life to the other books in Revelation 20:12 is to be conceived. As Alford there explains it, on internal grounds, the other books are, so to speak, the ‘vouchers’ for the book of life. In the Apostolic Fathers the conception occurs in 1 Clem. xlv. 8: ‘Those who remained faithful, inherited glory and honour, were exalted and were inscribed by God in His memorial for ever’; Hermas, Vis. i. 3, 2: ‘Cease not to admonish thy children, for I know that if they shall repent with their whole hearts they shall be inscribed in the books of life with the saints,’ and Sim. ii. 9: ‘He that does these things shall not be abandoned by God, but shall be inscribed upon the books of the living’; cf. Mand. viii. 6: ‘Refrain thyself from all these things, that thou mayest live to God, and be enrolled with those who exercise self-restraint therein.’ Among homiletic expositions of the passage Revelation 20:12 one of the moat impressive is that of St. Augustine in de Civ. Dei, xx. 14. Taking the book of life as a record of men’s deeds, he observes that it cannot be understood literally, since the reading of such a record would be interminable. ‘We must therefore understand it of a certain Divine power by which it shall be brought about that every one shall recall to memory all his own works, whether good or evil, and shall mentally survey them with a marvellous rapidity, so that this knowledge will either accuse or excuse conscience, and thus all and each shall be simultaneously judged.’ Literature.-R. H. Charles, The Boot of Enoch2, Oxford. 1912, note on xlvii. 3; H. Zimmern, KAT ^[6] 3 ^[7] Berlin, 1903, p. 401ff.; A, Jeremias, article ‘Book of Life’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics ; W. Bousset, Com. (Göttingen, 1896) on " translation="">Revelation 3:5; B. Duhm, Com. (Göttingen, 1902) on " translation="">Isaiah 4:3; A. Bertholet, Stellung der Israeliten u. der Juden zu den Fremden, Freiburg and Leipzig, 1896. W. Montgomery.    

The type of moral and religious life which was lived by the Christians of the Apostolic Age had already been so far fixed as to be described in the phrase κατὰ χριστιανισμὸν ζῆν by Ignatius (Magn. x. 1) towards the close of that period; and the Didache (xii. 4), possibly at an earlier date, used the title Χριστιανός, showing that the name which Antioch invented (Acts 11:26; cf. Acts 26:28 and 1 Peter 4:16) was now accepted as specifying a person whose life was distinctive alike in ideal and practice. If we take the year a.d. 100 as marking the extreme limit of the Apostolic Age, our authorities for determining the characteristics of Christian practice and of the Christian life in its inner and outer aspects are but meagre, consisting of the NT writings, the Didache, 1 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistles of Ignatius, some fragments of Papias and Hegesippus preserved by Eusebius, and a few contemporary references in pagan writers like Tacitus and Suetonius. There is a difficulty in using and classifying the information of these authorities, inasmuch as the chronology of the NT writings is a subject of inquiry and even of controversy; while the traditional origin and authorship of writings like the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles, of the Johannine writings and several others, are disputed by competent critics (see article Dates). Some scholars (e.g. Gwatkin) regard the Didache as one of the earliest works of Christian literature; while others, like von Dobschütz, place it beyond the limits of the Apostolic Age. Nevertheless, in spite of the various opinions on questions of chronology and authorship, it is possible to arrive at some definite conclusions on universally accepted premisses, and to form a clear, if in details an incomplete, conception of the practice of the Christian life exhibited by Christian communities from the death of Christ to the close of the 1st century. One general principle may be laid down by way of preface. The earliest witnesses of Christianity are more concerned with Christ than with a system of Christian morals. It is not primarily a new code of ethics which they unfold; it is a new Personality. Not the teaching, but the Teacher is their theme. The summum bonum had been realized in the life of Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount, indeed, entered into the apostolic consciousness, as we see from the precepts of Romans 12; but the Law-giver, as on the occasion of its utterance, is more than His precepts (Matthew 7:29). The devotion to a living historical Person, the Son of God and Redeemer of the world, who was capable of communicating His Spirit to all mankind-this is the note of the earliest preaching of the gospel.* ^[1] the apostles preach ‘Christ and him crucified.’ ‘They seem to think that if they can only fill men with true thankfulness for the gift of life in Christ, morality will take care of itself’ (Gwatkin, Early Church Hist. i. 55). What results did such a presentation of truth produce on the age to which it was given? This question can be answered only by a study of moral conditions within the Christian Church. We must go for our enlightenment, not to any general studies of Christian ethics, but to the extant authorities of the age, which treat of the Christian life in: (1) the Jewish-Christian period; (2) the Pauline period; and (3) the post-Pauline period. In the evolution of the Christian communities, there is a direct connexion between ethical conditions and the official or institutional organization of the churches, which grew naturally out of these conditions; but it will be necessary to narrow our survey to religions and moral aspects, and to disregard in detail problems of a historical and institutional character, e.g. Baptism, Lord’s Supper, ritual and worship in general, bishops and elders, the relation of St. Paul to the Jerusalem Council, and the like (see articles Church, Baptism, Eucharist, Bishop, etc.). 1. Jewish Christianity.-The followers of Christ at the time of His death were distinguished from the majority of their fellow-Jews by their conviction that Jesus was the Messiah. They were thus to their contemporaries a Messianic sect within the pale of Judaism, conforming to the rites and moral code of their religion. Their Master, while condemning the defects of representative leaders of religion, like the Pharisees, had never rejected the observances of the Jewish religion-true to the spirit of His mission, which, was rather to fulfil than to destroy. Weizsäcker seems to go too far when he suggests (Apostol. Age, ii. 341) that there is disharmony between the evidence of the Synoptics and the Acts, on the ground that the latter shows the primitive Church more bound up with Judaism than Jesus Himself was, and the Pharisees actual patrons of the apostolic community. The fact is that both Jesus and the early Church accepted the outward symbols of Judaism, e.g. the Temple and national festivals, while in spirit they had already advanced beyond the national faith (cf. Acts 2:40). The primitive Christians of Jerusalem, while following the rules of the Jewish religion for everyday life (Acts 15), and for worship and devotion observances (Acts 3:1), come before us in the early chapters of the Acts as a distinctive community, given to prayer (Acts 1:14). Prayer was at once the source and seal of that unity or spirit of brotherhood which was to find further expression in a common social life characterized by ἀγαλλίασις καὶ ἀφελότης καρδίας, and in a community of goods (Acts 2:44-46). The latter feature represented merely the socialism of self-sacrifice, its real motive being not a desire for social innovation, but the support of the poor; and it may have been suggested by Essene models (see Community of Goods). The Christians lived a happy family life; the members were ‘brethren’; new converts were received into the fellowship by baptism (Acts 2:41); the practice of charity produced noble examples of generosity like that of Barnabas (Acts 4:36), and incidentally provoked unworthy ambition, of which the deceit of Ananias and Sapphira (ch. 5) was a dark and memorable result. Women such as Mary, the mother of John Mark, and Sapphira held an independent position in the community, and slowly the influence and aims of the brotherhood broadened out. They were known as ‘disciples,’ men ‘of the Way’ (Acts 9:2; Acts 24:14), and ‘saints.’ The appointment of the seven Hellenists (Acts 7) which quelled the internal differences between the Hebrews or pure Jews and the Hellenists, their Greek-speaking brethren of the Dispersion, indicates not only the large-hearted charity of the Christian apostles, but their gradual alienation from the narrowness of Judaic legalism. This spirit of alienation came to a head in the extreme views of St. Stephen, the leader of the Hellenists, who paid the penalty of his undisguised anti-Judaism in martyrdom. It is easy to see that the ideas of St. Stephen anticipated the essential principles of Pauline Christianity, and further, that they were in advance of minds like that of St. Peter, who still maintained a loyal observance of Jewish law and felt scruples about entering a Gentile house (Acts 10) and joining St. Paul, Barnabas, and other Gentile Christians (Galatians 2:11). Thus, while the Hellenists were scattered abroad, being found in Samaria and as far north as Antioch, the Petrine section remained at Jerusalem to find a new head in St. James, who in a.d. 51 is associated with St. Peter and St. John and in 58 is sole leader of the Church. The Apostolic Decree (Acts 15), which was intended to solve the differences of Jewish and Gentile Christianity, was a compromise which shows at once the strength and the weakness of the Jewish-Christian position: its strength lay in its jealousy for pure morality-Gentile Christians are to abstain from meat offered to idols, blood, things strangled, and fornication; its weakness lay in its ceremonialism and in its distrust of the Gentile per se. The later factors of Jewish Christianity represented by the Johannine literature and such writings as the Epistle of James are treated below. Palestinian Christianity, in spite of its reverence for Jewish law, did not escape persecution. The Christian Jews fled to Pella before a.d. 70, and refused to join the Bar Cochba rebellion, and finally became a sect beyond the Jordan, known as Ebionites or Nazarenes. The saint of Palestinian Christianity is undoubtedly James, the Lord’s brother, already referred to (see the glowing account of him by Hegesippus, preserved in Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.)ii. 23); he was ‘the Just,’ a Nazirite in practice, but consecrated to God, a typical priest of righteousness to the Jewish-Christian mind. The martyrdom of St. Stephen and that of St. James in their several ways indicate the undying influence of Christ’s example and teaching. It is probable that in this community the oral teaching of our Lord had a wider vogue than in Pauline circles. His sayings were circulated and known in the sphere of His earthly ministry, and produced a new type of personality and conduct (see Dobschütz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, 156f.). We may sum up the features of Christian life in its earliest environment as a moral ideal, coloured and modified by loyalty to the tenets of Judaism; but issuing, under belief in the Messianic Jesus and by the power of His Spirit, in brotherliness, sympathy, love of enemies, heroic confession of faith, and purity of life. 2. Pauline Christianity.-The conversion of St. Paul was a new departure in the Christian witness, and opened a new epoch for Christianity. His own Christianity was not in essence so much a negation of or a revolt from Judaism as a fresh inspiration, the result of a moral crisis in his inner life. One of the results of the crisis, it is true, was to reveal to him what he calls τὸ ἀδύνατον τοῦ νόμου (Romans 8:3), and to bring about his rejection of the Jewish ideal of salvation; but his conception of Christianity was based on the positive conviction rooted in experience that newness of life consisted in a personal union with Christ. Faith in Christ transfigured a man’s personality, and thereby gave him a new ethic, together with the power to carry it into practice. The Pauline morality is the offspring of the Apostle’s doctrine of salvation by faith. ‘He who was united to Christ could not help practising the Christian virtues’ (Gardner, Religious Experience of St. Paul, 159). His insistence on ethics reveals his abhorrence of antinomianism, even when that abhorrence is not as expressly stated as it is in Romans 6:15 and Galatians 5:18 f. The difference between Pauline morality and the morality of the Judaizers who were found all over the Greek-speaking world, lay in the fact that Gentile Christianity formed an independent ethic, while the ethic of the Jewish Christian ‘merely looked like an addition to the commandments, an ennobling and purifying of the rule of the pious, law-abiding Jew’ (see Weizsäcker, ii. 346). This distinction arose naturally from the exalted view which St. Paul held as to the Person of Christ; wherever the Deity of our Lord is proclaimed, as in the Fourth Gospel and 1 John, 1 Peter, and the Ignatian Epistles, we find, as McGiffert notes (see article ‘Apostolic Age’ in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics ), that the Pauline idea of moral transformation by the indwelling of the Divine becomes prominent. On the other hand, elsewhere in the NT and in Clement’s First Ep. to Corinthians, where the Jewish type of theology prevails, salvation is placed in the future as the reward of the faithful. for the message of the Pauline Epistles and the ethical life and problems of the Christian communities as portrayed therein the reader is referred to articles on the individual Epistles, but a general summary of the evidence of his writings may be added here. We may often infer from St. Paul’s warnings the general perils to which the Christians were liable. We see that the Christian standard is not attained at once (Philippians 3:12); there are express references to flagrant examples of moral failure necessitating a ban of excommunication; and the ‘saints’ are good men and women still in the making; hence the hortative form so largely adopted by this Apostle. True to his essential convictions, the Apostle assigns to the direct action of the Spirit the transforming of human character. He appeals not to Scripture or law, but to the Christian consciousness. Christ is the fulfilment and end of the Law (Romans 10:4) and the founder of a new law of love (Galatians 6:2, 1 Corinthians 9:21), in that His Spirit is a new vital power. With the truth of the Incarnation several of his greatest precepts are allied (2 Corinthians 8:9, Philippians 2:5, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:13, Romans 15:7), and there is often a direct connexion between his ethics and his theological and christological doctrine. His distinction between ‘flesh’ and ‘spirit’ colours all his thought regarding personal morality. His insistence on sexual chastity (in 1 Cor. he reveals his preference for celibacy, and his sympathy with the ascetic ideal, while he denounces its excesses), and his warnings against sins of the flesh are everywhere prominent. The body is a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19). His memorable indictment of pagan vice in Romans 1:21 ff. is pointed by the actual life of Corinth, the city from which he wrote the Epistle, and there is hardly an Epistle in which reference is not made to sexual vice (cf. Colossians 3:5 ff.). The famous ‘hymn of love’ (1 Corinthians 13) places love at the head of his ethical system, and is indirectly an indictment against all forms of self-seeking elsewhere specified: e.g. covetousness (Colossians 3:5), the spirit of faction and the love of pre-eminence (Philippians 1:15; Philippians 1:17), and dishonesty (1 Thessalonians 4:6). In Romans 12:1 f. we have the moral life set forth as a λογικὴ λατρεία, and its motive the fulfilment of God’s will. The duty of prayerfulness* ^[2] is frequently proclaimed (Romans 12:12, 1 Corinthians 7:5, Philippians 4:6, Colossians 4:2). The spirit of revenge is condemned, the love of one’s enemy (Philippians 1:10) and returning of good for evil are expressly inculcated. Ordinary conversation is to be wholesome and yet pleasing (Colossians 4:6). The gentler virtues which found no place in pagan ethics, such as sincerity, humility, reasonableness (Philippians 4:5), patience, meekness, brotherly love, kindness (Galatians 5:22), are united with love and temperance or self-control; while joy, peace, and thankfulness (cf. Philippians 4:6, εὐχαριστία) are the resultant graces of Christian conduct. The domestic and social virtues are frequently urged on the Christian convert-love of husband for wife, of wife for husband, of children for parents, of slave for master, of master for slave (cf. Romans 3:18, Colossians 3:18-22). In all social relations St. Paul is conscious of the need of Christian tactfulness and discretion (Colossians 3:21 and Philippians 1:9). ‘To walk worthily of the gospel of Christ’ (Philippians 1:27) is his comprehensive formula for Christian conduct. The Christian’s relation to the heathen outsiders and to his less strict or ‘weak’ brother, and to heathen practices and use of heathen tribunals, is set forth in 1 Cor., which is a manual of social Christianity. He did not attack the slave-system or proclaim a social revolution: he sought to Christianize the relationship of master and slave by Christianizing both master and slave (see article Philemon). In 1 Thess. he warns men against the moral perils of ‘an overstrained Parousia-expectation’; in 2 Thess. he proclaims the dignity and duty of labour. Finally, there is the duty of the ‘strong’ to help the weak (Galatians 6:1), the care for and liberality towards the poor (see 1 Corinthians 16), and, above all, obedience to civic and Imperial authorities (Romans 13:1-10). In dealing with social and civil responsibilities, the ethics of Pauline Christianity are opposed to revolt or agitation. The sanctification of the individual and the community is their aim and object. For his views with regard to the subordination of women (1 Corinthians 7), St. Paul has frequently been criticized, but on the whole they made for domestic purity and the strengthening of the marriage tie, in an age when the matrimonial relationship was losing its binding and sacred sanctions. His doctrine of the solidarity of society-a sin against a brother is a sin against Christ (1 Corinthians 8:12)-and of the equality of all men in Christ (Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11) prepared the way for the up-lifting of the masses, and identified Christianity with the spirit of brotherhood, even though the references to love of the brethren are more frequent than to love of mankind as a whole (see article Fellowship). In fact, Christianity, as we find it set forth by St. Paul and exemplified however imperfectly by the Pauline churches, already exhibits the new ethical passion and power which were eventually to win the Empire and the world. 3. Post-Pauline Christianity.-For this period our chief authorities are the later writings of the NT. These include, in addition to the Pastoral Epistles and the Epistle to the Ephesians (now widely regarded as sub-Pauline), the Epistle to the Hebrews, 1 Peter, the Johannine writings, Revelation, James, and Jude. We have also the Ignatian Epistles, 1 Clement, and the recently discovered Odes of Solomon (q.v. ^[3] ), to which Harnack assigns the date of c. ^[2] a.d. 100. The interest of the Odes is doctrinal and ceremonial rather than ethical, although it appears that they were associated with the teaching of the catechumens. 1 Peter, Revelation, and Hebrews belong to the time of the persecution under Domitian, in which Christians and Jews alike suffered. The Pastorals apparently have reference to the earlier or Neronian persecution (a.d. 64), in which a large number of the Christians perished because they were convenient scapegoats (Tac. Ann. xv. 44) for Nero’s unreasoning anger. Both Ephesians and the Pastorals give us the Pauline type of morality, Ephesians being influenced by and modelled on Colossians. In fact, the influence of St. Paul is manifest not only in those Epistles traditionally assigned to him, but generally in the later literature, which is really the offspring of a Jewish-Christian type of thought, e.g. 1 Peter, Hebrews, and the Johannine writings. For the special characteristics of this post-Pauline literature, see articles on the several books. In 1 Peter, Hebrews, and the Epistle of the Roman Church to the Church of Corinth (1 Clem.) we find ourselves in touch with the Church at Rome. In Hebrews the Christians addressed had already passed through the Neronian persecution and became a ‘gazing-stock’ (Hebrews 10:33) to the world. The didactic purpose was to show the preparatory character of the Jewish religion; but throughout we find the hortatory element prominent: it was a λόγος παρακλήσεως (Hebrews 13:22). The peril was shrinking from confession of Christ, a failure of παῤῥησία (Hebrews 10:19), their lack of Christian knowledge (Hebrews 6:1); on the other hand, good works are praised (Hebrews 6:10)-brotherly love, hospitality, care for the sick and imprisoned; the great need is πίστις, not intellectual belief, but the moral assurance of a future reward-‘a better country.’ 1 Peter similarly lays stress on the consolatory power of ἐλπίς-the ‘living hope’ of a future life-in the midst of sufferings. 1 Clem. shows that the Church at Rome had not lost its stability, nor forgotten the duty of intercession especially for captive fellow-members. On the other hand, at Corinth since the 40 years when St. Paul wrote, there is little change; there are the defects of licentiousness and rebellion against authority. Throughout the Epistle we are conscious of St. Paul’s influence; ch. 49, e.g., is an imitation of the ‘hymn of love.’ 1 Peter, while sent from Rome, is addressed to the Churches of Asia Minor. Possibly Ephesians belongs to the same period. While emphasizing knowledge (Life, the