By Neil Earle
A minister friend of mine shook us up one day when he asked from the pulpit, "Just what part of 'never die' do you not understand?"
He was finishing his sermon on John 11 and quoting the part where Jesus says to Martha, "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:26).
This sermon made a deep impression on us because the elder was showing that Jesus was teaching Martha new things about the nature of the spiritual life Christians now possess.
Jesus had told Martha, "Your brother will live again."
Martha responded with what could be called a traditional Worldwide Church of God answer: "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." That was what we all believed and taught for so many years – the resurrection of the just and the unjust signified by the Last Great Day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
But...Jesus did not leave it there. He pushed on further.
Remember?
Jesus explained, in what must have been a very dramatic ourburst given the emotion of the occasion, Lazarus' funeral and all that: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes on me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
Humbled, Martha replied with the only answer that really matters: "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." (John 11:23-27).
Jesus had promised his followers an abundant life. As twisted as that message has become through the Success Gospel and other variants, there is still no more encouraging teaching. Just what is the nature of that life Jesus talks about? This opens an often-overlooked discussion for the word "life" is one of the great New Testament words. It is certainly a highline in John's Gospel.
Here's what Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says of "Zoe," (from which we get "zoology," etc.), the characteristic New Testament word for life: "Zoe is used in the N.T. of life as a principle. Life in the absolute sense, life as God has it, that which the Father has in himself, and which he gave to the Incarnate Son to have in himself (John 5:26), and which the Son manifested in the world (1 John 1:2)...it has moral associations which are inseparable from it, as of holiness and righteousness" (page 336).
Note this further explanation: "Jesus...did not come to destroy life but to save it and to give it overflowing zest...The concept of eternal life is present...most prominently in the Johannine writings and means more than mere everlastingness. It is life of a new quality – the God-type life...which by it nature transcends the limits of space and time. John stresses the present possession of this life. It is something the believer has (John 3:36; 6:47)...essentially divine (Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, page 641).
Or this, from Robert A. Morey: "Another frequent error is that the phrase 'everlasting life' refers to 'unending existence after the resurrection'...[No], the phrase everlasting life...means an endless quality of life which the righteous enjoy now as well as an afterlife. It refers to the fullness of life, such as joy and peace....[A]t the moment of regeneration (spiritual rebirth) the saints receive everlasting life as a present possession (John 3:15, 16, 36; 5:24; 6:47, 54; 10:28). This must be understood as referring not to an eternal duration or quantity of life but of experiencing an endless and abundant quality of life, i.e., a life of satisfaction and joy. True believers can taste the kind of life that will be theirs after the resurrection" (Death and the Afterlife, page 97).
Wow! What powerful thoughts – to which we shall return. What seems evident from these scriptures, however, and which is often skated over, is that at conversion Christians step into a new kind of reality. They move from a visible to an invisible realm – the Kingdom of God. They pass from death to life, a life which will never be taken away from them. They are already translated into the eternal Kingdom, as Colossians 1:2-13 says, speaking of God's redeeming act in Christ, "giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves."
Robert Moray spells it our boldly: "The life which a believer receives at the moment of regeneration is to be viewed as lasting forever. If a believer is in living relationship to Christ, not even death can sever his communion with the living God."
This is more creatively expressed in Romans 8:38-39, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
That life we now experience in Christ is best explained, perhaps, against the backdrop of what believers expressed about death in the Old Testament period. Old Testament saints and patriarchs were often leery and worried about death. They were not always superbly confident about what would happen. Newer Bible translations often more accurately render the word "hell" in the OT by the Hebrew word "Sheol" which meant something much like the ancient Greek concept of hades:
"[T]he ancient Hebrew sheol is similar in conception to the Greek hades. Sheol was thought of as a vast underground cavern or pit – probably the tribal burial place magnified (poetically) into a dark subterranean world – where the dead exist or persist. The prospect was wholly uninviting, so that Job could cry: Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort before I go whence I shall not return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness, the land of gloom and chaos, where light is as darkness (Job 10:20-22)...The dead were not in active communion with God. So the psalmist says, 'The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence' (Psalm 115:17-18)" (John Hicks, Death and Eternal Life, page 59).
Thus, the inspired Old Testament writers often framed death as a question – "If a man dies, will he live again?" (Job 14:14). Or they emitted a vague hope, "Do the dead praise you?" (Psalm 88:10). But the New Testament picture is vastly superior. What was a wistful hope or a despairing semi-lament becomes a confident knowing. And for good reason! Jesus brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel (2 Timothy 1:10). Jesus is the God of the dead as well as the living, "for to him all are alive" (Luke 20:38). Note Hebrews 2:14-15, "Since the children have flesh and blood he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death."
The New Testament's triumph of life over death is beautifully expressed in Revelation 14:13, "Then I heard a voice from heaven say, 'Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' 'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'they will rest from their labor, for their deeds follow them.'"
No fear here, merely an expectation of passing from one mode of existence to another. All this is because of the eternal life inherent in Christ, an eternal life he has already passed on to us at conversion, what many call the "born again" experience. Notice: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life" (John 3:36). It gets better. Note John 5:24, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed overfrom death to life." The word "has" here is in the Greek present indicative tense, that is, it indicates an action that is presently going on, just like you are presently reading these words. So, you already, now presently have eternal life. The verb phrase "crossed over" is from the Greek perfect indicative tense indicating a perfected action, one that is already completed – you have already crossed over from death's dark realm to life, as stated above.
What a hope! What an assurance! What a stupendous miracle, one that sets the New Testament reality above the Old Testament's preparatory questioning.
This good news continues: "I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life...Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:47, 54). This amazing sequence in John is almost climaxed by John 10:28, "And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand."
Only the words of the old hymn, "Blessed assurance" could possibly match the exaltation of what these passages are saying. There is something indestructible and incorruptible placed in us at conversion. That is why New Testament writers describe Christians as belonging to the new age, the kingdom age, already. We are as good as there. Here is Ephesians 2:1-6 with its dynamic contrast of death with life:
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world...But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus."
Christians already "look into eternity." The gift of life placed in them at regeneration gives them dual citizenship, the most important of which is our spiritual connection with the heavenly realms through the Holy Spirit placed in us. This makes Colossians 3:1-4 such a powerful passage: "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."
There was a song in the 1950s called "Two Different Worlds" which stated, "Two different worlds/We live in two different worlds." That is exactly the Christian's experience. The indestructible Spirit, the Spirit of life placed within us, has created a new person, the "inner man" Paul calls it, that yearns for an eternal home, an eternal life with Christ and God. That yearning will be fulfilled at the resurrection when the spiritual, eternal self, the new person, now being created inside of us, is given a spiritual, eternal body.
As S.H. Travis summarizes in The New Dictionary of Theology: "Because Christ's first coming has already inaugurated his kingdom, eternal life is experienced by the believer during the present life. Since eternal life means 'the life of the age to come,' it implies not only everlastingness but a quality of life derived from relationship with Christ (Romans 6:23; John 17:3). Thus the perfect life of God's ultimate kingdom is the consummation of the life 'in Christ' experienced now. Although death marks a discontinuity between this life and the next, eternal life guarantees a continuity of relationship to Christ even through death" (page 230).
Most Christian teachers have always understood this. What Old Testament prophets and patriarchs saw dimly we see more clearly. And why not? "He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:12). The Gospel has brought this real life, eternal life, indestructible existence, to light and it begins now. This means that the good news is really, really good!