What first demands our attention here is that it is through the Spirit alone that the blood has it's power. We read in the Epistle to the Hebrews ( 9:14 ) “ How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. “ The blood possess its power to cleanse and to make us fit to serve the living God by the Eternal Spirit who was in our Lord when He shed His blood. This does not mean merely that the Holy Spirit was in the Lord Jesus and bestowed on His person and His blood a divine worth. It is much more than that_it indicates that the shedding of His blood was brought about by the Eternal Spirit, and that the Spirit lived and worked in that blood. As a result, when the blood was shed it could not decay as a dead thing, but as a living reality could be taken up to heaven, to exercise its divine power from thence.
It is expressly for this reason that the Spirit is here called “ the Eternal Spirit.” “ Eternal” is one of the words of Scripture which everyone thinks he understands, but there are few who realize what a deep and glorious meaning it has. It is supposed that “eternal “ is something that has no end. This explanation is merely a negative one and tell us only what “ eternal is not “ , but it teaches us nothing about its nature and being. Everything that exists in time has a beginning and is subject to the law of increase and decrease, of becoming and decaying. What is eternal has no beginning and knows no change or weakening because it has in itself a life that is independent of time. In what is eternal there is no past which has already disappeared and is lost , and there is no future not yet possessed. It is always a glorious and endless present.
Now when Scripture speaks of “ eternal “ life , “eternal “ redemption, “eternal” joy it means much more that they will have no end. By that word we are taught that he who has a share in eternal blessedness possesses something in which the power of an endless life is at work. It is something in which there can be no change, nor can it suffer any diminution. And, therefore we may always enjoy it in the fullness of its life_bestowing blessings.
The object of Scripture in using that word is to teach us that if our faith lays hold of what is eternal , it will manifest itself in us a power superior to all the fluctuations of our mind or feelings, with a youth which never grows old and a freshness which for does not for a moment wither.
It is expressly for this reason that the Spirit is here called “ the Eternal Spirit.” “ Eternal” is one of the words of Scripture which everyone thinks he understands, but there are few who realize what a deep and glorious meaning it has. It is supposed that “eternal “ is something that has no end. This explanation is merely a negative one and tell us only what “ eternal is not “ , but it teaches us nothing about its nature and being. Everything that exists in time has a beginning and is subject to the law of increase and decrease, of becoming and decaying. What is eternal has no beginning and knows no change or weakening because it has in itself a life that is independent of time. In what is eternal there is no past which has already disappeared and is lost , and there is no future not yet possessed. It is always a glorious and endless present.
Now when Scripture speaks of “ eternal “ life , “eternal “ redemption, “eternal” joy it means much more that they will have no end. By that word we are taught that he who has a share in eternal blessedness possesses something in which the power of an endless life is at work. It is something in which there can be no change, nor can it suffer any diminution. And, therefore we may always enjoy it in the fullness of its life_bestowing blessings.
The object of Scripture in using that word is to teach us that if our faith lays hold of what is eternal , it will manifest itself in us a power superior to all the fluctuations of our mind or feelings, with a youth which never grows old and a freshness which for does not for a moment wither.
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