If we think of this idea of the source of life from a natural perspective, we know that if you take a fish out of the water, it will die.  We know that if you were to uproot a flower and just leave it exposed, it would die.  We know that if you put a human in an atmosphere with no oxygen to breathe, they will die.

In these cases, water, soil, and oxygen are sources of life.  But what about spiritual life?

What is the source of spiritual or eternal life?

Those who think the law is somehow the means to true spirituality have missed the point of eternal life.  The law never once imparted eternal life to anyone.  There was never a promise of eternal life attached to the Law.  In fact, the Bible teaches us that the Law was the ministry of death.  Its purpose was to expose the frailty of man, the failure of man, and the inability of man to attain for himself the righteousness required to possess eternal life.

Now, when I state the righteousness required to obtain eternal life, I am really speaking about what is required to possess God’s presence and dwell in it, which is the source of eternal life.  I am speaking about being in Christ and having Christ in you.

There’s something of great interest written in the Book of Acts that we should consider here.

Acts 17:25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

Notice how it says, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.”  The worthlessness of idolatry is addressed in these passages from the standpoint of where real life comes from.  Anyone without the presence of God within and without is spiritually dead.  They may appear to be alive on the outside, but inwardly, they are dead.

Romans 5:20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

According to these passages, why did the law enter?  So that the offense may abound.  It was given to magnify the offense of sin.  What did sin reign in?  Death!  Grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord!

Jesus is the source of life!  He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through me.”  This is why anyone who has not been born again spiritually by ceasing to be good enough by their own merit and putting their faith, hope, and trust in Jesus they are dead and will not see life.  Keeping the law will never make anyone alive with eternal life.  That can only be obtained through Jesus Christ, who is the source of eternal life.  Preaching the law to believers is declaring death to them by tempting them to once again look to themselves for their righteousness and acceptance with God.  The Law is not the source of life Jesus is, and the New Covenant is the covenant that God is now acknowledging, not the Old.  Only a connection with the true source of life can bring eternal life, hope, and peace as promised in the Scriptures.