Puritanhead
Puritan Board Professor
Source: Justification by Faith Alone: Affirming the Doctrine By Which the Church and the Individual Stands of Falls (Morgan , PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1995), ch. 4.Eternal life depends on Christ alone "” nothing, but nothing, else. Predestination will not bring it. Providence cannot produce it. It does not rest on foreknowledge, divine decrees, or even the atonement itself. Eternal life is Christ dwelling in His righteousness in the soul of the justified person. So eternal life is union with Jesus Christ. And the word for that union with Jesus Christ is faith. The sinner comes to Him, rests in Him, trusts in Him, is one with Him, abides in Him; and this is life because it never, ever, ends. The united soul abides in the Vine eternally. Weakness, sin, proneness to sin never brings separation, but only the Father´s pruning, which cements the union even and ever tighter.