Page:The Annihilation Theory Compared with Holy Scripture.pdf/12

12 hearing of His words, verse 24). This is spoken of in Ephesians ii. 1, “You hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins,” and the same change is alluded to by another Apostle: “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” All these passages would be simply non-understandable unless we were aware of the double signification of the terms death and life. Take another instance:—“If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death” (John viii. 51), and another, “He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” (xi. 25, 26). We well know that the event we call death happens to all, yet there is a sense in which the good “never die,” “never see death.” The Apostle Paul very clearly defines the position: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. ” (Rom. viii.