Faith and Unbelief
J. A. Alexander, D. D. John 3:36 He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life… Evangelical texts lose their freshness from over-familiarity. In order to appreciate their power we must realize their effects on those who have them for the first time. Let us reduce the text to a series of propositions. I. THAT THE HIGHEST GOOD IS ETERNAL LIFE. No heathen needs to be informed that life is more than existence. We cannot feel for a stone as we do for a tree which possesses life in its lowest form. We have a mere community of feeling for animal life; but this is as nothing compared with our regard for human nature. For rational life is better than irrational. But this can be conceived without the capacity of moral distins-tions — which men have, however. But, alas! we know that this moral life, if it may be so called, is quite compatible with spiritual death. Men are alive to the perception of moral good, but dead to its enjoyment. Is it not plain that a resurrection from this exalts us into a higher life, spiritual, not merely the life of our spirits, for in a lower sense they were alive before, but a life produced by the Spirit of God and doing God's will and enjoying His favour. This is the highest life of which a creature is capable in kind; its purification from the evils that mar it, its endlessness, and the perfection of its blessedness for body and soul in heaven, make it the highest life in degree. II. Let us suppose a serious heathen to have formed this conception of eternal life, and to be filled with admiration. He would soon compare it with his own experience and see that between him and it there was a great gulf fixed. That life presupposes a God holy in Himself and in His requisitions. The inquirer thus sees himself opposite to God and odious in proportion to His excellence. A fond hope arises. As sin has been his death, he will sin no more. Now comes a new revelation. He is the slave of sin, and his heart is dead in sin. Can he give it life? No. Here is a new despair. He turns to another method of escape. God will forgive him, and by a sovereign act make him a new creature. As he looks towards the inaccessible light he is completely undeceived on this point. He sees no shadow of connivance at sin. He withdraws his eyes, as he thinks, in eternal darkness. But on that darkness a new light begins to steal. His eye follows it to a point beyond himself, an intermediate object between God's inexorable justice and himself. Sin may be punished and the sinner saved. But a cloud passes over this celestial light. All men are alike, and if a man cannot make satisfaction for himself, how can he for another? But may not God? The thought seems impious till the lost veil is withdrawn and the astonished soul beholds the great mystery of godliness. God manifested in the flesh and becoming the propitiation for sin. But the work demanded of the sinner is hard because so easy: hard to do nothing when we think we must do all, to believe we have only to believe, when we expected to achieve our redemption. When once the soul is brought, however, to see that this is truly God's plan — that the Son of God is able and willing to save, and accepts this salvation, the work is done, and the man justified and safe for ever. By some such process we may suppose a heathen to arrive at the second proposition, viz., THAT ETERNAL LIFE MAY BE ATTAINED BY SIMPLY BELIEVING IN THE SON OF GOD. III. From this He would infer THAT UNBELIEF INVOLVES THE LOSS OF ALL THAT PERFECT AND ENDURING BLESSEDNESS CALLED ETERNAL LIFE. But here he would be liable to error. The mere loss of heaven would not affect the hearts of those who know it not. Indeed, they refuse it, preferring the pleasures of sin. Deprivation, therefore, would be no punishment. The doctrine of the gospel is that he that loses heaven loses this world also. "The wrath of God abideth on him." Hell is the deprivation of all that makes a life of sin tolerable here. 1. Sinners here participate in the outward advantages of the believer, but the wrath of God will separate the lost from the saved for ever, and from all the advantages of order, comfort, and mutual constraint consequent. 2. Sinners have positive enjoyment in sin — those are sentenced to be only for a season, and its native tendency to misery to go on for ever. 3. Sinners are ignorant of anything better which could make the most dissatisfied wish sinful pleasure. The wrath of God will awaken conscience, which will have sufficient light to plant its daggers with unerring accuracy, and the sinner shall know What he has lost. IV. WHAT THESE TRUTHS WOULD BE TO A HEATHEN THEY ARE TO US. If to him they involve the whole way of salvation, they involve no less to us. We have here — 1. The great end of existence, eternal life and Divine favour. 2. Its opposite, eternal death and Divine wrath. 3. The way of life by faith. 4. The object of this faith the Son of God, the one sacrifice for sin.In conclusion. On the unbeliever the wrath of God abides already. Let the procrastinating soul be undeceived. Distance of time and place works strange transformations. Tell one who violates the law of man that he will be condemned for it, and he may laugh the law and you to scorn. But bow few laugh when told that they are condemned already. Look at the convict at the bar, and see how different his aspect and demeanour from his aspect and demeanour when at large. Such is yon, case. You are not yet arrested, bat you are under sentence. You are condemned already, and reprieve or pardon is your only hope. (J. A. Alexander, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. WEB: One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won't see life, but the wrath of God remains on him."