#22 Top 40 New Testament Passages: What is Eternal Life? (John 17:3)
And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
When you hear of eternal life, what comes to mind? Might it be white puffy clouds, golden streets, pearly gates and questions from St. Peter? Perhaps it's all your loved ones who have died together again. Maybe it's a brilliant throne with Jesus coming to greet you in a hug. We all have something in mind for the next life.
But did you realize that eternal life is defined very clearly in the gospel of John? It comes in the opening of Jesus' high priestly prayer.
God will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)
But when you read John 17:3 eternal or everlasting life is knowledge of God and of Jesus, whom God sent, who is God in human flesh. Jesus opens his high priestly prayer asking God to glorify him with the glory he knew before the world existed. (John 17:2, 5) Jesus seeks to glorify God by giving eternal life to all those whom the Father gave to Jesus. (John 17:1-2) With the definition of eternal life defined as knowledge of God, Jesus is giving the knowledge of God to those who have come to believe in Jesus.
John is clear that belief in Jesus is life.
No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. (John 6:44-47)
And how is Jesus giving eternal life to believers? How is Jesus giving believers the knowledge of God? By showing them God.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:6-7, 9)
To know God is to perceive, understand and even feel God. The Jews speaks of knowing in an intimate way, like sexual relationships. I don't think having sexual relations with God is what knowledge of God means, but the idea of personal intimate knowledge of God is part of what it means to know God.
Knowing God is a lifelong journey. We come to know God and we deepen our understanding through an ongoing personal relationship with God. We grow in knowing God through following, worshiping and serving Jesus. In the same way, eternal life is an ongoing journey with which we deepen and grow. Knowing Jesus gives us life. And that life grows in us.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that he gives living water to drink.
"The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)
Later during a religious festival in Jerusalem Jesus taught at the temple.
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive (John 7:37-39)
So it's fair to state that eternal life is personal intimate knowledge of God, by faith in Jesus, through the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is because God lives in me, that I can know God. Because of Christ is is possible to know the eternal and invisible God, and by know experience abundant life.
I do believe in a life to come where we will enjoy a resurrected body that will not die, nor endure pain. There will be no tears in heaven. My favorite passage about our hope in heaven comes from Paul.
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling— if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (2nd Corinthians 5:1-5)
Again the Holy Spirit is tied to the gift of eternal life. Paul speaks of the Spirit as earnest, a down-payment on our heavenly home. In another place he speaks of the Spirit as a foretaste of the world to come. (Ephesians 1:14) Through the Spirit we can experience something of life with God in heaven.
As Richard Foster once said, "Our faith is less about getting us into heaven, and more about getting heaven into us."
What is eternal life? It is your firsthand experience and knowledge of God through a personal relationship with Jesus through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Eternal life is heaven in you and you in heaven.
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