We are now drawing this series
of considerations on Life to a close, although the subject is so
much greater than we could ever compass. For, as we have said, it
compasses the whole Bible, from first to last; and the Bible is
the history of God's relationship with man, and man's
relationship to God. Our final emphasis here is upon one fact of
fundamental and immense significance; a fact into which all that
we have said about Life has to be gathered. When we have said all
about the reality, the nature, the forms, the laws, and the
criteria of Life, this one basic fact projects itself, demanding
and challenging recognition. It is that
Life
Only Comes From Life
In the natural world this
conclusion was only established after a long and fierce battle.
As I write I have beside me the ponderous biography of Lord
Lister. Nearly seven hundred pages (written by Sir Rickman
Godlee) comprise this volume, and the reading of it leaves one in
amazement and shock that what is now universally accepted without
the slightest question - and to question which would now lead to
the very fiercest upheaval - did involve the whole scientific
world of the time in the most vehement controversy. The
establishment of the present comprehensive and meticulous system
of antiseptics, hygiene, sterilization, etc., in medicine and
surgery and public health, was only reached by way of years of
the most exhausting and exacting research and experimentation,
debate and controversy. The issue involved in all this was just
one question: does life spontaneously generate, or does it
proceed from already living organisms? In the biography referred
to the writer says of Lister that 'he finally settled the point
that putrefaction does not occur independently of the agency of
micro-organisms'. Referring to the great Louis Pasteur (founder
of the world-renowned Pasteur Institute) he quotes Pasteur as
saying to the most important audience that had ever come together
(in Paris) to hear him:
'And, gentlemen, I could point
to that liquid and say to you, I have taken my drop of water from
the immensity of creation, and I have taken it full of the
elements appropriate to the development of inferior things. And I
wait, I watch, I question it, begging it to recommence for me the
beautiful spectacle of the first creation. But it is dumb, dumb,
since these experiments were begun years ago; it is dumb because
I have kept it from the only thing that man cannot produce, from
the germs which float in the air, from Life, for Life is a germ,
and a germ is life. Never will the doctrine of spontaneous
generation recover from the mortal blow of this simple
experiment.'
Another scientist of the same
era has placed the following on record:
'For two hundred years the
scientific world has been rent with discussions on the Origin of
Life.
'Two great schools have
defended exactly opposite views. One that matter can
spontaneously generate life; the other that life can only come
from pre-existing life...
'A decided and authoritative
conclusion has now taken place in science. So far as science can
settle anything, this question is settled. The attempt to get the
living out of the dead has failed. Spontaneous generation has had
to be given up. And it is now recognized on every hand that Life
can only come from the touch of Life.'
It will now be seen where we
have arrived in our chapters on Life. If our great premise is
right, that God has constituted the natural creation upon
spiritual principles, then in this matter science has
really corroborated Scripture. The scientist above mentioned said
that this corroboration means the removal of the most serious
enemy Christianity has had to deal with. 'Of the multitudes who
confess Christianity at this hour, how many have clear in their
minds the cardinal distinction established by its Founder between
"born of the flesh" and "born of the
Spirit"?'
This is one of the truly
'cardinal' facts that Jesus came to demonstrate. That is why He
chose to do so many of His works (called by John 'signs') just at
the point where every natural resource and hope were at an end.
They were 'miracles' just for that reason. He never touched a
situation unless it was hopeless. Indeed, He deliberately kept to
the hopeless. If He turned water into wine it was when there was
no wine available. If He raised Lazarus, He deliberately allowed
him to reach the point of decay before He intervened - that is,
the natural point. Jesus was not corroborating science. He was
demonstrating what science has arrived at through vast research
and numerous experiments; that Life cannot come from death, but
only from Life, and in the spiritual realm the only possible hope
of Life is that it comes from the Living One.
"In him was life, and the
life was the light of men" (John 1:4).
"This is the testimony,
that God has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. He that hath the Son hath the life" (1 John 5:11-12).