This is one of the characters of the Lord Jesus Christ. In him, saith the apostle John, "was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4) And elsewhere Jesus saith himself, "I am the life and the light of men. I am the resurrection and the life. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." It is most essential to our happiness, that we should have clear conceptions of this most blessed truth, so as to see and know from whence and in whom all the springs of life are. It is not, in my view of things, sufficient to understand that Christ gives life to his people, but that he is himself the life of his people. He saith himself, "Because I live, ye shall live also." So that Jesus is, to the soul of his redeemed, the very life of the soul, as our soul is the life of the body. When the soul departs from the body, the body dies; and could it be supposed that Christ was to depart from the souls of his redeemed, the soul would die also. But this is impossible; for it is said, that he hath quickened them, who were by nature dead in trespasses and sins. And the apostle to the church of the Colossians saith, "Your life is hid with Christ in God; so that when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." What a world of blessedness there is in this one consideration of the Lord Jesus as the life of his people! Precious Lord, I would say, thou art indeed both the life and the light of men! Thou art in thyself the whole of their spiritual and eternal life. Keep alive, I beseech thee, the renewed life thou hast given me in thyself; and cause me to enter into the full apprehension and enjoyment of that most glorious proclamation of thine in which thou hast, said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were deadly, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in, me shall never die."