2), in connection with, "Hope that is seen is
not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we
hope for what we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."--Rom.
8:24, 25. Their thought is, if we live "in hope of eternal life," then
we have not really eternal life as a present possession; that we
cannot hope for what we already have. But Jesus said positively that
the believer "_hath passed out_ of death _into_ life" (John 5:24, R.
V.), and He contrasts the one who "_hath_ eternal life" with those to
whom He says, "Ye have no life _in you_." A man can have eternal life
here, and at the same time hope for it beyond the grave. A man has his
wife and children _now_, and _hopes_ to have them next year; a man
away from wife and children has his life _now_; and yet he lives in
hope of his life (the same life, that part of it not yet lived) with
his wife and children a month from now; an exile from home has his
life now; yet lives in hope of his life (the same life, that part of
it not yet lived) in his native land a year from now. So, the child
of God's, the redeemed man's, citizenship is in Heaven (Phil. 3:20);
he lives in hope of eternal life there; yet it is the same eternal
life (that part of it not lived) that he has here and now.

Another cause of stumbling at eternal life being now the actual
possession of the redeemed man, is that many who claimed to have had
eternal life, also claim to have lost it; and if it had been actually
_eternal_ life it could not have stopped; for then eternal would not
be really eternal; hence, it must have been simply the _promise_ of
eternal life that they had, and they therefore only lost the _promise_
and not really eternal life itself. But Jesus, foreseeing this class
of professing Christians, said that they were never really redeemed,
never really had eternal life: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast
out demons? and in thy name done many wonderful works? and then will I
profess unto them, I never knew you,"--Matt. 7:22, 23, not "you were
redeemed, you did have eternal life, but you lost it; it stopped"; but
"I never knew you," and John teaches the same thing in 1 John 2:19,
"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been
of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they
might be made manifest that they all are not of us." (R. V.)

"There is no such t