ir reward,
And the care for them with the Most High.
Therefore shall they receive the crown of royal dignity
And the diadem of beauty from the Lord's hand.[235]
The happiness of the kingdom of heaven is in Scripture termed "life,"
because it constitutes the life for which man was created. Being made in
the likeness of God, his nature can obtain full satisfaction, and his
powers will expand into fruition, only when he enters upon a life which
resembles, in proportion to its measure and capacity, the life of God.
Jesus spoke of regeneration as entering into life. Those who receive the
Gospel message and walk in the footsteps of Christ are said to be born
again--to receive in their conversion the beginning of a new existence,
of which the entrance of the infant into the world is a fitting emblem.
They possess now not only a natural life, but a life hid with Christ in
God, which is a pledge to them that "when he who is their life shall
appear, they also shall appear with him in glory."[236] Knowledge of God
the Father and of Jesus Christ, imparted by the Holy Spirit, is said by
our Lord to be Life Eternal. "This is life eternal, to know thee the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."[237]
Standing at the end of the Creed, this article expresses the
consummation of the work accomplished for man by the Three Persons of
the Godhead. The Father created man and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, that he might glorify God and enjoy Him for ever; and
when, through the fall, man had forfeited the gift of life, God spared
not His own Son, that, through His dying, pardon and blessed life might
be brought within the reach of the fallen; the Son assumed human nature
and suffered and died, that He might deliver men from death, temporal
and eternal, and procure for them everlasting life; the Holy Ghost, the
Giver of life, sanctifies the believer and makes him meet for the
inheritance of the saints. All the means of grace were given for the
purpose of convincing and converting men, and of preparing them for
entrance into and enjoyment of the blessed life in eternity.
The _Everlasting Life_ of the Creed covers more than the immortality of
the soul. Even heathens grasped in some measure the fact that the spirit
of man survives separation from the body; but life for the body in
reunion with the soul is a doctrine of revelation. In the Pagan world
various conflicting beliefs were held as to the con
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