Eternal life, is it a place or a person?
I have heard the gospel shared for years as a Southern Baptist boy growing up. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the infamous questions tacked on to the end of sermons and used to start evangelistic conversations like , “If you were to die tonight do you know where you will go?” or “If God should ask, ‘why should I let you into heaven’ what would be your response?” were in fact a culture created by Evangelism Explosion. Then, perpetuated by all the knock off versions of the EE method that others took credit for when they simply changed words or added and changed a few verses.
This is not the time or place to critique this approach, and it is amazing the ways our God has used this passion for evangelism to reach thousand of people, for which I am grateful. But it is simply to say, the questions you ask teach as much as the information and life you lead. The resulting theology from the grassroots level has had a unintended effect.
John 17:1-3 says,
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (ESV)
John says eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. What we need is Jesus, who is eternal life. No surprises here. John loves the subject of Life.
John 1:1-4
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
John 3:14-16
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have 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.
John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
John 4:13-14
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but 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 5:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
There is no difference for John between life and eternal life. In fact there are only 6 chapters out of 20 that don’t directly use the word life. But consider the passage from John 17, and the well-known John 14:6. You could say that, since the book is about Jesus, all 21 chapters are about life. Jesus Christ is life, and all life in him is eternal. So whether John says you can have eternal life, or simply just life, he is talking about the person of Jesus Christ. Life is in him, he is life.
Eternal life, according to John, is Jesus. This is a very different way of thinking than the idea of Jesus Christ bearing our sin in His body on the cross so he can now offer you eternal life (Heaven) as a free gift. The free gift is not heaven. Eternal life is not heaven. Eternal life is not a place.
Why does this matter, because when heaven becomes the goal of our salvation Jesus simply becomes a means to get what we want. Jesus is not someone we use to get what we want. Heaven is a secondary blessing that comes with knowing Christ. Jesus is life and all we will ever need. We need Jesus more than heaven.
Pauls says in Philippians 3:7, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” Maybe we should be asking ourselves this question, “If I never go to heaven, and all I have is this life with Christ would it still be worth knowing him?”
If heaven is all we are after, then it is pointless to forsake all for Christ in this life. We just simply “accept Jesus” and then endure until we get what we really want. But let me ask another question. If life with Christ is not worth forsaking all now, why would you think it would be any different after death? In other words, if you don’t want all of Jesus now why would you want all of him then?
Honestly, I think we have been sold a bill of goods. Heaven became a place you will love because of what you will get. In reality heaven allows us to experience Christ in sight, not just faith, God’s glory on full display right in front of our eyes.
So you can keep your million years of golf or surfing or whatever it is you hope eternity will hold for you, and I will take Christ. I want to know him, to love him, to worship him with every breath in this life and the one to come. I would not have Life without Him.
Eternal life is not a place, it is a person, his name is Jesus. Eternal life begins for you the moment you believe.
You were created to worship and glorify God. Sin has taken your eyes from his glory to your own and deserves death. Your glory is a cheap imitation. God became a man and lived the life you can’t. Jesus, God in the flesh, lived for the Father’s glory perfectly, yet died your sinner’s death, was raised to life three days later. Having finished the work of rescuing you, he now now calls you to trust in his righteousness (life) rather than your own. He offers life eternal in him through faith beginning the moment you believe and it culminates on the day he returns to restores all things in creation to his Glory.
This is His story and what you were made for. Give up those selfish dreams. They are filthy rags compared to the riches of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord!
