What Is Eternal Life?

What Is Eternal Life?

Is eternal life simply a place you will go to after you are dead? Is it a peculiar feeling inside?

The apostle John tells us clearly what it is: "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:11-12).

Jesus Christ and eternal life are synonymous terms; eternal life is none other than Jesus Christ Himself, of whom it is written, "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4). If you have eternal life at all, it means that you have SOMEBODY; you have the Son, JESUS CHRIST, just as He Himself affirmed; "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14
Eternal life is neither an inward feeling, not an ultimate destination after you are dead. If you are born again, eternal life is that quality of life that you possess right now, at this very moment, indwelling your physical body, with your own two feet on the ground, and in this world today. Where does this life come from? Only from Him. He is that Life. The life you possess is all of Him, and this is true salvation.

When I was a kid of twelve, a man told me about Jesus in a way I could understand. Then, unknown to him or anybody else, at a quarter till nine on a Saturday night, the thirteenth of August, 1927, I said in my heart, "Lord Jesus nobody ever told me this before, that You died in my place. I gladly receive You so that You can forgive me." I knew He had become my Saviour, and I have had that assurance ever since. I have never again had to receive the Lord Jesus Christ into my life because He did it then, according to His promise, and He always means what He says.

That moment and that event was not my salvation, however. My salvation, which I did not understand until about seven years later, is that Christ, having died for me to change my destination when I died, also rose again from the dead to live His Life in me  and to change my character. His indwelling Life in me overcomes that old Adamic nature, the carnal mind that is at enmity with God and which can only abuse, misuse, and prostitute my humanity.

Salvation is so much more than a change of destination from hell to heaven! The true spiritual content of our gospel is not just heaven one day, but Christ here and now. In the economy of God, conversion is only an essential preliminary to discipleship, which is a lifetime of allowing Christ to live in you and do His work through you.

Your salvation is also a million times more than simply knowing your sins are forgiven. As a forgiven sinner you are to be re-inhabited by your Maker, re-invaded by Deity, so that your humanity becomes intelligently available to an intelligent God for the intelligent purpose for which He intelligently created you. That is true sanctification, as the Bible explains it. [and that was God's original intention for Adam and Eve before they sinned].

"And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and to know Him, Jesus Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent." (John 17:3).

1. Do you have full and continual assurance of your salvation in Jesus Christ?

2. What does eternal life mean to you?

3. What does salvation mean to you?

~W. Ian Thomas~