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p16 [To the same.] F Rowan, Metaphysics will never save souls. The real point is do we receive something new? I am not aware that scripture speaks of life in Christ. We have "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ." But it is said, "Christ is our life." I suppose that is something new for a sinner, or even for Adam innocent. The point in John 3:6 is not born of the Spirit, but what is "born of the Spirit is Spirit." I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." I believe fully in the immortality of the soul, but that has nothing to do with eternal life That "was with the Father and was manifested unto us." It is Christ the Son. And as to us, it is something in us which springs up as a well of water.

Your speaking of 'being' is unconsciously a sophism, because 'a being' in English means something having life. Life constitutes in ordinary English an existing thing, a being of which the manifestation is spontaneity. But this does not touch this question, but whether, the soul being supposed which gives personality, I do not receive something positive in receiving Christ that I had not before: "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son;" "he that hath the Son hath life: Christ is life. It is never said we have life in ourselves, even when Christians, but in Christ. Of course, born of the Spirit is in contrast with born of the flesh, but born of the flesh is beginning to be, or to have life. Life is not a condition of being; it constitutes it: a material substance without life is not called a being. 'A being' supposes personal spontaneity; only life in scripture goes further than mere power of personal spontaneity: but life is not what affects the state of a being where personal spontaneity already is, but is the source of it: and this for the Christian is Christ, and not what we have from Adam In virtue of that I reckon myself dead to sin, the body is dead," I am not in the flesh. In your system it is merely a modification of the state of a living being. Now that is being born of water, hence the other is added, born of the Spirit. It is not said 'is water,' but it is said "is spirit." Is life in God a mere condition of His being? 'Being' means what has life. Hence to say life is a condition of what has life has by itself no sense. "In himself" may characterise it in God, "in the Son" may characterise it in us not in ourselves. To this is added the presence of the Holy Ghost: "the Spirit is life because of righteousness." He is as the perennial spring to the stream, so livingly united, that "because I live ye shall live also:" we are "created in Christ Jesus." It does not change our personality, even when death affects the body, or present constituted organisation, and we live in our souls for God, though the organised vessel may be turned to dust, but, if Christ be our life, with Him.

As to your reasoning, you contradict yourself in saying life is 'being' in a given condition, and yet that you cannot have being without a thing's having life already: death is a change in our condition of being, not in our circumstances of life. Having the Son as life so that we live by Him is not merely a circumstance of our life. Scripture never speaks so, but says Christ is our life so thoroughly so that because He lives we shall live. What is scripturally defective in your mind is the real reception of the Son as life, the source of a new spontaneity in the soul. And this is a very grave matter.

[53015E]

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