1 John 5:12 He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life. The natural man belongs to the present order of things. He is endowed simply with a high quality of the natural animal life. But it is life of so poor a quality that it is not life at all. He that hath not the Son hath not life; but he that hath the Son hath life — a new, distinct, and supernatural endowment. He is not of this world. He is of the timeless state, of eternity. The difference, then, between the spiritual man and the natural man is not a difference of development, but of generation. The distinction is one of quality, not of quantity. The scientific classification of men would be to arrange all natural men, moral or immoral, educated or vulgar, as one family. One higher than another in the family group, yet all marked by the same set of characteristics — they eat, sleep, work, think, live, die. But the spiritual man is removed from this family so utterly by the possession of an additional characteristic that a biologist would not hesitate to classify him elsewhere, not in another family, but in another kingdom. It is an old-fashioned theology which divides men into the living and the dead, lost and saved — a stern phraseology all but fallen into disuse. This difference, so startling as a doctrine, has been ridiculed or denied. Nevertheless the grim distinction must be retained. It is a scientific distinction. "He that hath not the Son hath not life." (Prof. H. Drummond.) Parallel Verses KJV: He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.WEB: He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn't have God's Son doesn't have the life. |
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