And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. – Jesus, John 17:3
So eternal life life is knowing God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I grew up thinking that eternal life was getting to go to heaven, walk on streets of gold and live in a mansion forever. I thought of eternal life in such a self-centered way. But it turns out that “eternal life” isn’t just some infinite length of time that we’ll live for. It’s a type of life. A life with a certain quality, the highest quality in fact. To know the Lord is that life.
We can walk in eternal life right now and on this earth by seeking to know Him. To know Christ is our chief pursuit and it’s full of riches and insight into Him that we can never exhaust on this earth. And then one day we will continue to know Him in eternity.
Let us seek Him and Him alone. Let us not seek after things. Because to know Him is eternal life.
Hi Quincy,
Eternal life is really so amazing—it’s the eternal, uncreated life of God that we receive when we’re born again. Wow!
Knowing the Greek words for life help us to see this more. The three words are bios, psuche, and zoe. Bios is the physical life and is where the term biology comes from; psuche refers to our soul life and is where the term psychology comes from; zoe is the word for eternal life which refers to the divine, uncreated life of God (although I don’t believe there’s a term such as “zoeyology” to refer to studying this life, but maybe there should be…). This eternal life is uncreated and indestructible. It’s eternal both related to time and to quality. So wow! What a marvelous fact that we received this life when we were born of God!
I grew up with the thought of living this same human life forever, due in part to “everlasting life” in KJV. Eventually the Lord used someone to impress me with John 14:6, He IS the life. And, when He is our life, we have the ability to know God. Later I learned the three Greek words which Joe mentioned; that made eternal life more clear.
I’m so glad that eternal life isn’t a future place to go, but a a present, practical, divine life that we can enjoy right now!
Since this eternal life is the wonderful Person of Christ Himself (John 14:6; 11:25), when we know Him by experience, we possess this eternal life.
May we learn to live by this life, by contacting our dear Lord Jesus–eating (John 6:57), drinking (7:37-39), and breathing of Him (20:22) every day.
I really enjoyed the post!