Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/213

 The Three Ways. 20*?

them a new way which has been opened up, by which con- secrated believers may go beyond the human nature and be changed to a higher nature the spiritual. This new way "consecrated for &r" the royal priesthood (Hebu 10 : 20) our Lord called

"THE NARROW WAV TO LIFE."

Our Master tells us that it is because of the narrowness of this way that the many prefer to remain on the broad road to destruftion. "Strait [difficult] is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

Before considering this way and its dangers and difficul- ties, let us notice the end to which it leads life. As al- ready seen, life may be enjoyed on various planes of being, higher as well as lower than human. Life is a broad and comprehensive term, but here our Lord uses it in reference to that highest form of life, pertaining to the divine nature immortality the prize for which he invited us to run. What is life? We not only realize it in ourselves, but we see its operation in lower animals, and even in vegetation, and we are told of its existence in higher forms, angelic and divine. How shall we define a term so comprehensive?

While we may not be able to discover the secret springs of life in all, we may safely assume that the Divine Being, Jehovah, is the great fountain of all life, from which all these springs are supplied. All living things result from and depend on him for life. All life, whether hi God of in his creatures, is the same: it is an energizing principle, not a substance. It is a principle which inheres in God, but which in his creatures results from certain causes which God has ordained, and of it he is therefore the cause, the author or fountain. Hence the creature is in no sense a part or an, offspring of the Creator's essence or nature,

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