188 The Fundamentals where the Lord Jesus states in the simplest language that the man who hears His Word and believes on Him who sent Him has everlasting life, and is passed out of death into life. Such a man receives the seed in his heart, and the seed is there quickened into life. Indeed, the great purpose of the Written Word is to impart life—even eternal (that is to say divine) lif®-to those who are dead through trespasses and sins. The Gospel of John, which is devoted largely to the great subject of eternal life, and from which a large part of our information concerning it is derived, was “written that ye might believe that' Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31). The same truth is declared in the familiar passage in Romans 10:9, which sets forth very definitely the special truth which constitutes the substance and marrow of God’s revela tion in His Word, and which He calls upon men to believe and obey through the preaching of the Gospel, namely that Jesus Christ, who died for sinners, has been raised from the dead, and that He is Lord of all, to the glory of God the Father. The main point to be apprehended in this connection is that a certain state of preparedness, of heart is necessary in order that the “good seed” of the Word may germinate and grow there. Such a prepared heart is described in Scripture as a believing heart. That prepared state is manifested when a man believes God, as Abraham did (Rom. 4:17); or, in other words, when a man is ready to receive the Word of God as the Word of God, as the Thessalonians did (1 Thess. 2:13). When a man has been brought, by the operation of the Spirit of God, who is the “Spirit of LIFE in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2, 10), into this state of preparation, then the Word of God, being received into the heart, acts as a seed falling into good soil. Though it be (as we might say) but the tiniest portion of God’s truth as revealed in His Word which is thus received by faith, yet it suffices through His power as the
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