by T. Austin-Sparks
Date messages given unknown. Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.
If we are seeking for a master key with which to unlock the Bible, we can find it in one word - Life, the great issue of all the ages; and we can say that the Bible is altogether occupied with this. The Bible, from beginning to end, is concerned with this matter of Life as over against death. These two things, Life and death, are set forth, as we know, in relation to two persons: Christ the Life, and Satan and death... I think many Christians have failed to discriminate between duration, extent of life, and immortality. Immortality is a kind of life that goes on and it is that immortal life, not just the continuation of life, not just an interminable life, but that peculiar specific immortal life which is the great subject of the Bible, the great quest of man, and the great purpose of God. So it is in relation to this Divine Life and God's purpose for man to have it that the whole battle of the ages is waged between heaven and hell; and man is at the centre - the object and the occasion of it all.
