appear, they also shall appear with him in glory."[236] Knowledge of God
the Father and of Jesus Christ, imparted by the Holy Spirit, is said by
our Lord to be Life Eternal. "This is life eternal, to know thee the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."[237]

Standing at the end of the Creed, this article expresses the
consummation of the work accomplished for man by the Three Persons of
the Godhead. The Father created man and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, that he might glorify God and enjoy Him for ever; and
when, through the fall, man had forfeited the gift of life, God spared
not His own Son, that, through His dying, pardon and blessed life might
be brought within the reach of the fallen; the Son assumed human nature
and suffered and died, that He might deliver men from death, temporal
and eternal, and procure for them everlasting life; the Holy Ghost, the
Giver of life, sanctifies the believer and makes him meet for the
inheritance of the saints. All the means of grace were given for the
purpose of convincing and converting men, and of preparing them for
entrance into and enjoyment of the blessed life in eternity.

The _Everlasting Life_ of the Creed covers more than the immortality of
the soul. Even heathens grasped in some measure the fact that the spirit
of man survives separation from the body; but life for the body in
reunion with the soul is a doctrine of revelation. In the Pagan world
various conflicting beliefs were held as to the condition of men after
death. Some thought that existence terminated at death; others that men
then lost their personality and were absorbed into the deity; and others
that the spirit was released by death and then entered on a separate
existence, possessed of personality and capable of enjoyment; but of the
Christian doctrine of resurrection-life for soul and body in abiding
reunion they were altogether ignorant. Those consolations which