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Eternal Life.

Reading 1John5.

Introduction

What more important theme is there that we could consider than the matter of eternal life. Life is something which we esteem to be of tremendous importance. What joy there is as a new baby is born into the world – a new life! What efforts are made to deal with sickness and poor health in order to prolong life! And if such are our emotions and efforts for ordinary physical life which, whatever our efforts, will come quickly enough to an end for all of us how much more important must be the matters that concern our never-dying souls.

So this evening I want us to look together at some of what the Bible teaches about eternal life. This is a subject that finds a certain prominence in the NT with over forty direct references. However this simple verse count does not exhaust the interest in the subject as many more verses speak simply about "life" where clearly what is in view is spiritual life, the life of a believer in relationship with his God.

How we will proceed

1.     What is eternal life?

2.     Is eternal life natural?

3.     Why talk about eternal life?

4.     How do we receive eternal life?

5.     What is the alternative to eternal life?

What is eternal life?

The word 'eternal' like its synonym 'everlasting' at once make us think in terms of time. We imagine an exceedingly long period of time, indeed a never-ending period of time and in part we are not wrong to think this way when we come to think about eternal life. Our never-dying souls once created by God will never cease to exist and so it is important for us to give serious thought to what that existence will be like.

But while the words do carry this sense of unendingness they carry more than that. This is life of a new age, a new era. It is life perfectly fitted and adapted for that new era. It is life fitted for fully knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent as we learn from Jesus' prayer recorded in John 17.

We mustn't imagine that this life doesn't start until we leave this world rather it enters and transforms our existence in the here and now and goes on getting better and better in the hereafter!

Jesus prayed to the Father and said:

Jn.17:3 "this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Such knowledge will be intensely personal and relational – can anything be more wonderful than being in such a relationship with the Almighty God?

If we take delight in the wonders and beauties of creation, for example, how much more wonderful must it be to intimately acquainted with the One who made them all!

ü  Eternal life will be thoroughly enjoyable

Last week we thought about Psalm 16 and that Psalm told us amongst other things the following:

Ps.16:11 "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

How foolish we are when we allow suggestions that somehow it will all become a little bit tedious in the long run to find a resting place in our thinking.

ü  Eternal life will involve us honouring God – Jesus did this while He was on earth and we shall do likewise!

Rev.7:15-17 "Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

ü  Eternal life is a secure life.

Jesus promised such to His disciples:

Jn.10:28 "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."

ü  Eternal life is a safe life – there is no danger now of ever coming into judgment!

Jn.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."

ü  Eternal life involves resurrection life and is associated with rewards.

Jn.6:40 "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

Is eternal life natural?

You might wonder what I mean by asking this question. Well I want to ask is eternal life something that is inherent in being a human being. Do we all naturally have eternal life? Many folk today do have ideas about such life and assume that it is automatically theirs but is it? What does the Bible have to say?

Well if we take a little time to read the Bible we find a number of arguments that all indicate that no, we do not naturally have this life about which we are talking.

On at least two different occasions Jesus was asked the following question. Once the question was asked in order to try to trip Him up but the other occasion the question was seriously put by a man who wanted to know.

The serious question was put by the one we know as the rich young ruler:

Mk.10:17 "(As Jesus) was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”"

Here was a man who was morally and religiously respectable. We also see in his manner of coming to Jesus that he was humble and respectful. And yet he is very conscious of something – he is conscious that he does not possess eternal life. Hence his question – what must he do, or what good deed must he do, to have eternal it?

Now if he didn't yet have eternal life it is must surely be obvious to us that eternal life is not something that belongs to men and women as a natural part of their humanity.

This understanding is confirmed when we discover that eternal life is frequently referred to as:

a.     a gift – now you don't give to someone what they already have – if mankind naturally had eternal life we wouldn't find the Bible speaking of God as giving eternal life to certain members of the human race.

b.     as having conditions that must be met if such life is to be experienced.

We will come to this again in a moment.

Why talk about eternal life?

I suppose it might be conceivable that someone object that if eternal life is not something inherent to the human race then we shouldn't bother ourselves with talking about it.

And again, for whatever reason, probably most of our contemporaries in the UK today don't think it is of any importance to them at all to think about eternal life. So why are we taking time this cold Sunday evening to do so?

Well there is a very simple answer and here it is: God has made promises concerning such life!

Tit.1:2 "in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began"

1Jn.2:25 "And this is the promise that he made to us – eternal life."

Furthermore we learn from Jesus own mouth that eternal life is something that God wills for a particular category of people:

Jn.6:40 "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life."

How do we receive eternal life?

Well now, if eternal life is so good but none of us naturally possesses it then surely the question that we must ask is how may we obtain what God has promised? We need to ask in a similar question to the one the rich young ruler put to Jesus.

The first part of the answer we receive we have already touched upon.

Eternal life is a gift of God.

Earlier we saw that this fact clearly indicated that mankind didn't naturally possess eternal life but now we must realise that eternal life is not something that man can merit in some way or other. A gift is a gift and not a payment for achievement. If we are to experience eternal life then we must be prepared to recognise that we can't actually do anything to gain it. The gift is offered and offered freely at that – our only action will be to receive it.

That means that good people must receive the offered gift just as much as bad people must receive it.

Here are some verses that tell us just this:

Rom.6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

In John's gospel we learn that Jesus is involved in the giving of the gift:

Jn.10:28 "I give them eternal life"

Jn.17:1-2 "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."

Paul makes it abundantly clear that merit simply doesn't figure in the equation. He himself didn't deserve to be treated with leniency in any way because of his track record as a persecutor of the church. In fact he saw himself to be the very worst of sinners! How on earth then could he expect to benefit from eternal life? The only way was if he were treated in a way he didn't deserve, that is, with mercy! And that is just what he tells us. The worst possible sinner imaginable is no worse than was Paul – none therefore need lose hope imagining that any path to eternal life would be so arduous as to be impossible. Eternal life is a gift that depends upon the giver and God's reach is long and kind!

1Tim.1:15-16 "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life."

But, we may ask, how is this free gift of God to be received if it can never be earned?

The Bible makes this too very easy for us to understand.

Eternal life is to be received by believing in Jesus.

This doesn't mean that our believing is somehow meritorious that God looks on us and says my how wonderful their faith is I really must reward them for it! No, believing in the Jesus who has been set forth in the Bible is simply the necessary condition – all the benefit is Christ not in us or our believing! After all simply believing God to be speaking the truth is hardly a great recommendation for us.

Jn.3:15+16 "whoever believes in (Jesus – the Son of Man) 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."

Jn.3:36a "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life"

Jn.5:24a "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life."

Jn.6:47 "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life."

1Jn.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."

Do you see the kindness and generosity of God here? He doesn't require you to undertake some great scheme of personal moral reformation before He gives you eternal life – He simply requires of you to believe in His Son! He doesn't call upon you to perform a long list of religious duties whereby you might if successful raise you to the possibility of such eternal life – no just believe!

Believe that God sent His Son Jesus to take away your sin problem by dying in your place on the Cross of Calvary and that on the third day God raised Him from the dead!

Some of us have been watching a film on the Life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and we learned of how the young Spurgeon was converted as he understood the gospel from the prophet Isaiah:

Is.45:22 "Look to Me, and be saved"

As one of our hymn writers put it:

THERE is life for a look at the crucified One,

there is life at this moment for thee;

then look, sinner, look unto Him and be saved,

unto Him who was nailed to the tree.

It is not our faith that is the most important thing here it is the One in whom we place our faith. Whether our faith be weak or strong matters little what does matter is that our faith be placed in a Mighty Saviour and nowhere else!

Jn.6:68 "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,"

May we all be able to go on to say with Peter "we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

The alternative to eternal life

It remains for us to understand what will be the outcome of not receiving the gift of eternal life freely offered to us. We need to know what will happen to us if we fail to exercise faith in Jesus Christ.

The first thing I want to say is that there will be not the slightest change in our situation.

I wonder does that surprise you? Let me explain what I mean.

We are not punished for rejecting Christ or because we reject God's good gifts and for the simple reason that we are already naturally exposed to the wrath of God. In other words we don't expose ourselves to God's anger by rejecting Jesus Christ we are exposed already!

All you need to do to experience God's righteous wrath is absolutely nothing at all. Just go on as you have been doing and His wrath will remain upon you.

To reject Christ and to reject the free offer of eternal life is to reject the one way God proposes of escaping His anger in judgment. Do you realise that outside of Christ you are already under the wrath of God?

The alternative to experiencing eternal life is not the cessation of existence, a snuffing out of all there is. The alternative to eternal life is not the annihilation of nothingness beyond the grave.

Eternal life is frequently contrasted with its alternative in the Bible and that alternative is dire.

 Just listen to what the alternative is.

Mt.25:46 "eternal punishment"

             Jn.3:16, 10:28 "perish"

             Jn.3:36 "not see life" "wrath of God remains"

             Jn.5:24 "judgment"

             Jn.12:25 "loss"

             Rom.6:23 "death"

My friends don't thrust aside the Word of God as it is spoken to you – if you do it will be tantamount to declaring that you consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life. Rather hear, heed and look with trust to the Lord Jesus Christ and rejoice!