By Zhang Ying
We believers in the Lord all know that only God has the way of eternal life. The Lord Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). In the Book of Revelation, it was also said that: “a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bore twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 22:1-5). Eternal life means to live forever, to never taste death. From these verses, we can see that only God has eternal life, only God is the source of life of us human beings, and only God has the way of eternal life. If we find God, we find the source of life, and only then will we truly gain the way of eternal life and never be afraid of the threat of death.
From the Bible, I know that in the beginning when God created Adam and Eve, He didn’t limit how long they could live. He just gave the command to them: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). At that time, as long as man obeyed the words of God and did not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would never die. But due to Satan’s temptation, Adam and Eve defied God’s words and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As a result, they were cursed by God. God said to Adam: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it.… In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return to the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you are, and to dust shall you return” (Genesis 3:17, 19). In this way, Adam and Eve lost eternal life because they had sinned and then death began to come upon mankind. Thus it can be seen that the mankind of the very beginning were immortal, but they lost eternal life after sinning. It is Just as the Romans chapter 6, verse 23 says: “For the wages of sin is death.” After we humans committed sins, we lost God’s glory, lived under Satan’s domain and were bound by sin, and what we humans lived out was the image of Satan. Eventually, we humans would die because of our grievous sins. But because God loves us humans and could not bear to see humans created by His own hands die in sins, He started His work of saving humans, in order that we humans can completely escape from sin and be purified, thereby gaining God’s salvation and being qualified to inherit God’s promise—eternal life.
