But to us, with our Christian consciousness, 'life' means more than
living, and 'He is our life' in a deeper and more blessed sense than
that our physical existence is sustained by His continual energy. The
love of God and consequent union with Him give us the only true life.
Jesus is 'our life,' and He enters the spirit which opens to Him by
faith, and communicates to it a spark of His own immortal life. He that
is joined to Jesus lives; he that is separated from Him 'is dead while
he liveth.'

The last point here is the solemn responsibility for choosing one's
part, which the revelation of the law brings with it. 'I have set
before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse, therefore
choose life.' We each determine for ourselves whether the knowledge of
what we ought to be will lead to life or to death, and by choosing
obedience we choose life. Every ray of light from God is capable of
producing a double effect. It either gladdens or pains, it either gives
vision or blindness. The gospel, which is the perfect revelation of God
in Christ, brings every one of us face to face with the great
alternative, and urgently demands from each his personal act of choice
whether he will accept it or neglect or reject it. Not to choose to
accept _is_ to choose to reject. To do nothing is to choose death.
The knowledge of the law was not enough, and neither is an intellectual
reception of the gospel. The one bred Pharisees, who were 'whited
sepulchres'; the other breeds orthodox professors, who have 'a name to
live and are dead.' The clearer our light, the heavier our
responsibility. If we are to live, we have to 'choose life'; and if we
do not, by the vigorous exercise of our will, turn away from earth and
self, and take Jesus for our Saviour and Lord, loving and obeying whom
we love and obey God, we have effectually chosen a worse death than
that of the body, and flung away a better life than that of earth.