LIFE
What is life?
<ANSWER>--To live is to possess sentient being; to be
capable of consciousness, joy or sorrow, pleasure or pain. Life,
in its highest sense, is known as immortality. Immortality signifies
inherent life, a life not sustained by outside supplies, conditions
or influence, but life possessed in one's self. Life possessed
in this sense belonged originally to God alone, but it has been
given by the Father to the Lord Jesus Christ; and He promises
this life to His faithful Church, His Bride, His companions
in Kingdom glory. However, life in an inferior sense is the
possession of the angels through the grace of the Creator, who
is pleased that they shall enjoy it everlastingly in harmony
with His will. Eternal life is preferred to mankind in general;
it will be granted to so many of Adam's race as shall ultimately,
under the blessings of the Messianic Kingdom, be recovered completely
from the imperfections of sin and death, and who shall maintain
that perfection by continued obedience to the Divine requirements.
All who sin after receiving full light, shall not live.
Would not the teaching of a future
probation tend to make the people careless and sinful in this
life, and knowing that they were to have a second chance in
the life to come? (Dubious)
<ANSWER>--Not nearly as much as to teach that a hardened
wretch by a deathbed confession would immediately be ushered
into Heaven! Besides, a future probation would not signify a
"second chance," save for a limited few, the Church
of Christ, now being selected out of the world (`Acts 15:14`)
to be the Bride, the Lamb's Wife. Most of the criminals inhabiting
the jails and prisons of our land are, or were, members of some
religious system that taught the sinner-hardening doctrine of
eternal torment. Did the false teaching defer them from committing
crime? Those who believe that the Creator is a God of love,
and mercy, and justice, and that He has arranged seasons of
blessings for the world in the coming age, when mankind is to
have its only chance of salvation, are invariably ennobled,
and elevated to a higher plane of morality, with greater reverence
for their Creator, a God, whom to know, is to love. The truth
sanctifies, while the error debases.
