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I. THE STATE FROM WHICH EVERY BELIEVER IS DELIVERED.

1. Its nature. A threefold death has befallen man. The body dies, everlasting death is threatened, spiritual death is inflicted. This latter is the death here, and is not simply the absence of what constituted life, but the presence also of the opposite.

(1) Man's knowledge was a part of his life, but it has gone and he is ignorant and misrepresents the truth.

(2) This flow of holiness is staunched, and he is defiled.

(3) His innocency is blotted out, and he is guilty.

(4) His title to heaven is gone, and he is exposed to hell.

2. Its forms. It does not always take the same shape.

(1) A man's circumstances will do something to curb the tendencies of his nature. Your life may be chaste and outwardly religious, but with all this there is a defiled nature seen by the eye of God.

(2) In other cases there is a complete contrast, and depravity knows no shame.

3. Its extent; total(1) as regards the individual.

(a) The human form once so noble and symmetrical and undying has become enervated by disease, and falls into the grave.

(b) The mind has not escaped its blight. Go to the lunatic asylum where the mind is gone, and to the cultured atheist whose vast intellectual powers are perverted.

(c) The soul is dead, not that it has ceased to be immortal, but lives on in death.

(2) As regards the race. However employed and wherever found man is the impersonation, of death.

4. Its cause. Not God. Look at the proofs of Divine benevolence in the beauties of nature, and ask, Is God the cause of death? Look at the monstrosities of nature — the drunkard, e.g., and ask, Is that God's handiworks?

II. THE CONDITION TO WHICH, BY THE MERCY OF GOD, EVERY BELIEVER HAS BEEN BROUGHT: from death to life.

1. What is this life?

(1) Life is a series of relationships. In vegetable life there is a relationship of dependence; in animal life of the senses: in rational life of consciousness; in spiritual life to God in Christ.

(2) Life has its developments. This could not be predicated of a stone. In vegetables you see it at its lowest, in reptiles higher, in beasts higher still, in man highest; and in rational life you have the babe, the child, and the man, and so in spiritual.

(3) Spiritual life is knowledge. Mark the contrast between men of large intellectual powers and a man half-witted, who knows God is his Father and Christ his Saviour. They are dead; he lives.

(4) It is purity.

(5) It is love.

2. Whence comes it?

(1) Not from self; a corpse cannot raise itself.

(2) Not from another; a corpse cannot raise others.

(3) From God the fountain of life, through Christ, the resurrection and the life.

III. THE PROCESS FROM THE ONE TO THE OTHER.

1. Its character a purely spiritual process, illustrated by the transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly; the change from winter to spring; the resurrection of the dead.

2. Its means. The gospel embraced by faith.

3. Its Agent, the Holy Spirit.

(Gervase Smith, D. D.)

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KJV: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

WEB: "Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and doesn't come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.