What is Eternal Life?
John 5:13: “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.”
John writes to give certainty, and the kind of certainty that is life-changing. Faith in the Son of God brings eternal life. Instead of being enslaved to our own wisdom and our own sinful desires, instead of being destined for death, we can have life with God.
This week I read a helpful definition of what God means when he offers us “eternal life.” This pastor describes “eternal life” as “deathless life.” Apart from Christ, our entire existence in this life is under the shadow of sin and death. Our life in this world is marked by loss, it is damaged by sin. But when we possess eternal life by faith in Christ, we live “free of death’s grip… a life beyond the reach of anything that holds back our joy in the things God has given.”[1] It’s not that receiving eternal life means we become sinless or that we can avoid death completely. But eternal life means that sin and death no longer have the last word on our lives. It means that by faith in the Son, we have unfettered access to God, our good and mighty Father. It means we have the power to live by faith and we have a hope of life with God that will never end, a hope that is greater than death.
John writes this letter for believes in Jesus Christ to know that we possess eternal life, this deathless life. And so the question this letter raises is: “do you believe in Jesus, the Son of God?” This is the only way to truly know God. Faith in Jesus means believing that he is the sacrifice for your sins. In John, he uses the word “propitiation” to describe what Jesus does. It means that your sins, your selfishness and self-reliance, deserve God’s punishment, but Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross to absorb the punishment you deserve. Do you believe that? Faith means trusting Christ means that you’ve turned away from living for yourself and by your own wisdom, and instead you’re seeking fellowship with God by faith in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus, you can have this eternal life. Do you believe?
[1] McCullough, Matt, Remember Death, pp. 136-137.