What Is Eternal Life?
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
“Eternal life.” That is John’s most common way to refer to the gift that we have in Christ through faith. He uses it at least 52 times in his Gospel and in his first letter. We saw its widely known use in John 3:16 on Sunday, but check out some of the other places we find it:
Jesus tells the Samaritan woman: “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)
Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” (John 5:39)
Jesus says of all who believe: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)
Jesus prays to the Father: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
And then John, entirely consistent with the way Jesus spoke, writes: “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. … I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:11, 13)
What does the phrase mean? Going by its use, and even just from the verses above, we know that “eternal life” is first, and most obviously, eternal. It will never end. It is irrevocably secure (10:28). All other water, Jesus says, will make you stay thirsty. It’s temporal. But not Jesus, not the water that is of him (4:14).
Second, eternal life is the life of Jesus himself. He gives this life (10:28), but it is never life apart from him. “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11). This life is so much in Jesus that for us to have this life means we have Jesus. Jesus and all his benefits is the life he gives us. In giving us life, he gives us himself that we might know the Father and him (17:3; also see 1 John 1:3, “our fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ”).
In short, “eternal life” is what it means to be united to Jesus by faith — it is what regeneration is for, and justification, and sanctification, and glorification. Eternal life is the end goal of which there is nothing higher, and it’s something that we can begin to experience now, in this life, by the Holy Spirit’s power.
Anything less than this is, well, less — even certain benefits of Jesus in isolation from the others. What good is forgiveness of sin if we are just left standing alone with a blank slate? What good is imputed righteousness if it only means we escape judgment?
Jesus came to give us eternal life — himself, forever — because he is truly the ultimate good news of the good news. To miss this wonder and fixate on one benefit, or one aspect, is to settle for a truncated gospel when he came to offer us so much more. It is to enjoy a holiday at the beach when Jesus offers us universes of worlds with countless beaches and unending holidays.
So, again, John 3:16 is a simple verse, but that little phrase “eternal life” hints at universes. Words fail us now, but one day we will know — or better put, we will begin our knowing. We get Jesus, and more of him forever.
