There are many great hymns written about heaven. We like to sing of the “Sweet By and By,” “When We All Get to Heaven” and “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,” to name a few. It’s something that all Christians look forward to, that day when we shall Jesus face-to-face, when faith shall become reality, when hope will transform into fulfillment and all that will be left is the love that envelops us in Christ.
The focus on heaven and “someday soon” leads us away from the truth about when, exactly, eternal life begins. It may come as a surprise that it begins with the moment the relationship with Christ begins.
The Promise of Things to Come and the Reality of Today
To be sure, the New Testament does indicate that eternal life is a promised gift of God’s grace. Jesus was asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (cf. Matthew 19:16; Mark 10: 17; Luke 10:25), and there are numerous verses that speak of the future nature of our eternal life (John 6:40; John 12:50; Romans 2:7; Galatians 6:8). Jesus spoke of the end of the age (Matthew 28:20) and the implication of eternal life. There really can’t be a dispute that eternal life includes a future event. John writes in 1 John 3:2 speaks of seeing Christ as He is. It is a future event that occurs when Christ returns.
But the New Testament also gives plenty of evidence that eternal life begins at the moment of the salvation experience. Paul reminds us that believers are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). This new creation is a result of being born again (cf. John 3:3; John 1:13), and if we are born into a new life that suggests an eternal life. In one of the most familiar verses of the Bible, John 3:16 ends with the promise “. . . that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” It is the promise of a present event. The eternal life comes at the time of the belief in Christ, not at the future date. John 3:36 is more explicit: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”
John 5:24 says, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears My words and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”
Based upon these verses and the idea of the new birth and the new life strongly leads to the conclusion that eternal life begins at the moment of saving belief in Christ Jesus.
What Is Eternal Life?
There are a lot of ways to define eternal life, depending upon who one asks. I find the best way to discover the answer is to let the One who is Eternal Life define it for me.
“Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
The verse takes place at the beginning of Jesus’ Pastoral Prayer or Priestly Prayer found in John 17. It comes at the conclusion of the Passover meal with His disciples on the night Jesus knew He was to be betrayed. The night had been filled with last minute lessons (sometimes referred to as the Upper Room Discourse), and Jesus concluded the night with this prayer. It is a very personal prayer, filled with Christ’s fellowship with the Father and with His disciples, both the disciples in the room that night and the disciples that would come as a result of the testimony of those present that night.
Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God the Father and knowing Jesus Christ, God the Son. (This knowledge would be made possible by God the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.) This knowledge is not on the intellectual plane as we consider in traditional thought, but experiential in nature, as is common in Hebrew thought of the day. To know God is to walk with God, to talk with God, to fellowship with God. It is an awareness of Him throughout our lives as He permeates our being with His Spirit. There is an intimacy to the relationship and to the knowledge we have of God the Father and God the Son.
The relationship is one of a loving Father and His children. I know we live in a world where we are constantly hearing stories of abusive parents and negligent parents and dysfunctional families. That is not the case with God. When Jesus told us we are to ask, seek and knock, He used the analogy of a child asking a father for bread or fish. Jesus said a loving father wouldn’t give the child stone for bread or a snake for fish. Jesus’ point was that a loving father gives what the child needs to the child. And Jesus tells us in that passage that we are “evil” in comparison to God the Father. “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11). The goodness of God is given to us in eternal life, and that eternal life is knowing God the Father and God the Son through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
What Are Some of the Benefits of Having Eternal Life?
“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me—just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and the Father are One” (John 10:14-15, 27-30).
One of the benefits of living in eternal life now was presented in the previous subheading. Another is found in the verses quoted above. Now that we are in eternal life and have experiential knowledge of the Father and Son through the Spirit, growing out of that relationship and knowledge, we are able to hear and recognize the voice of Christ.
The question about whether or not God speaks to us is answered in these verses. Christ speaks to us, and we who are His sheep—His followers, those who believe in Him as Savior and Lord—understand that voice. We listen for it and, when we hear it, we acknowledge it and respond favorably to it.
In these verses we also discover that another benefit of eternal life is security in our salvation. Eternal life is exactly that—“they shall never perish.” The guarantor of that promise is God Himself—“no one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand.” We who have been given the gracious gift of eternal life are secure in our relationship with God. I am convinced that God, when we are saved and receive eternal life, keeps us in that state of grace. In return, our response to that is that we walk in His ways and follow His commands. (See also, “Can I Lose My Salvation?—Parts 1 & 2” under “Exploring God” in explorationinfaith.com.)
“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:22-23).
A third benefit of eternal life today is freedom from sin. Understand that freedom from sin does not mean freedom from temptation, nor does it mean that Christians are incapable of sinning. Sadly, we are more than capable of sinning, even after the gift of eternal life and the freedom from slavery to sin. Freedom from sin means we are no longer to be condemned for our sin—Christ’s atoning action at Calvary assures us of that. Freedom from sin means that, even when we succumb to the temptation and sin, we find forgiveness and grace. But the gift of eternal life is that we are made holy—placed into God’s service and set apart by Him for His glory and work. We are empowered with the ability to turn from temptation and to reject Satan. God, in His wisdom and grace through Christ our Lord, uses His Spirit to remind us that we are no longer required to sin. When we are tempted, almost immediately we are reminded that we are God’s and His Spirit prompts us to resist. Whether we do or not then falls upon us to be obedient to God or to ignore Him. Nonetheless, the promise of eternal life is that we no longer have to sin, and that eternal life frees us from the wages of those sins.
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
Another benefit of eternal life today is that it also gives us a hope for tomorrow and an ability to endure today. Let’s face it, life isn’t easy; it’s fraught with ups and downs, challenges and unexpected detours in life. As John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” And that’s very true. The gift of eternal life anchors us to the present relationship with God and assures of tomorrow. This allows us the ability to endure, to push through the storms of life.
Conclusion
The promise of eternal life is one of the fundamental guarantees arising from the atonement received from God through Jesus. The promise is not just for tomorrow, but rests with us today. Having that assurance enables us to walk with God in a way that otherwise would be impossible.
For the believers, embracing this truth opens a new way of seeing things and doing things. It opens our eyes to the reality of our relationship with God and gives us that peace that passes understanding. Walk in that promise today.
© 2018 Glynn Beaty