What is ‘Eternal Life’?
By David W Hall
I am in intense, unrelenting pain. The doctor recommends medical treatment that will ease it significantly. But here is the catch. There is a chance that the treatment may produce life threatening side effects. My choice is between length of life and quality of life. They are not the same.
Now consider the following statement. ‘Everyone has eternal existence …. but not everyone has eternal life!’ What does this mean? Simply that there is a vast difference between just existing and having God’s life.
When we were born, God gave us a physical body, and in that body He placed a soul and a spirit – the invisible part of us. We know that our physical body now has a limited life span, and will eventually die and decay. But the Bible makes it clear that is not the end of us. Our soul, the invisible and conscious part of us goes on forever.
When God originally created us we were designed to live forever – body, soul and spirit. Adam and Eve were the starting point of a marvellous plan God had devised. In this scheme we were to share God’s very own life as His sons and daughters (without, of course, being gods ourselves). This divine life in which we were to share is called ‘eternal life’, not just because of its endlessness, but because of its infinite nature and quality – because it comes from God Himself Who is limitless in every way. His life is manifested in His love and His capacity for giving and fellowship, which are measureless.
God designed us to share this life.
When we decided (in the fall of Adam) to reject God and His plan for us, our relationship with God died, and this death permeated our whole being. Our physical body began to age and deteriorate towards eventual death and decay. Our soul, though it continued to exist, was cut off from the life of God and is effectively dead to God and His intentions for us. Now it still has endless existence, but without God’s life. The Bible says, apart from God, we are ‘dead in trespasses and sin’.
This is where the gospel of Jesus Christ becomes vitally relevant.
When Jesus, the Son of God, came into this world He brought with Him the eternal life that God originally intended for us to share.
The apostle John wrote, ‘the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us’. John also declared that ‘in Him (Christ) was life, and the life was the light of men’. 1 Jn 1:2, Jn 1:4.
The most famous verse in the Bible says, ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’. Jn 3:16. When Jesus died on the cross He died in our place in the death created by sin. At the same time He opened a river of eternal life that flows out to all who come to Him to receive it.
Jesus said, ‘whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ Jn 4:14.
To die physically without receiving this divine life, is to become eternally relegated to an existence of unthinkable, hopeless darkness and judgement.
The apostle John wrote, ‘God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son’. 1 Jn 5:11. In other words, if we are to receive this life we must come ‘into Christ’ where the life resides.
What does this mean? How do we come into Christ?
To come into Christ means that we enter a living relationship with Him and with all those who are joined to Him. We do this by turning from our innate rejection of God’s love and lordship over us. Then we receive and believe His call for us to be children of God. Jesus said, ‘he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life’. Jn 5:24.
God promised that ‘as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name’. Jn 1:12. To be a child of God means that we have been born of the seed of His life. It now dwells in us, releasing inside us all the qualities of that life to grow and multiply. We can stand up before God as one of His sons or daughters, living the life that He has already planned for each of us.
