What is it and do I have it?
Things New and Old
It is worthy of observation that we find only one mention of everlasting or eternal life in the Old Testament—Dan. 12:22And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2), where it refers to those who "shall awake, some to everlasting life." We are indebted for the revelation of it to a later dispensation. It is a New Testament doctrine, and, blessed be God, a present fact.
Passing over Matthew, Mark and Luke, who rarely mention it and always connect it with the future, it is found in the writings of John. In the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of John we find it revealed and unfolded fully. Paul speaks of it, as recorded in the Acts and in Romans, for example. Paul gives us some additional revelation in Timothy and Titus, as to its being the subject of promise before the world. But the Holy Spirit has evidently made John to be specially the exponent of this personal, heavenly, divine doctrine of our eternal life in Christ.
Turning to John's Gospel we find the Lord for the first time presenting the doctrine to Nicodemus in the most striking way. The lifting up of the brazen serpent by Moses had been the typical rehearsal of the gift of eternal life, the determinate purpose of God's heart, with a view to which, and for its fulfillment, He had given His Son in fullness of time to the world. It was the incontestable demonstration of a love which finds its only adequate expression in the bestowal of eternal life upon the dead, and its only just measure in what it cost His heart to entrust that blessed One to those who would hate Him without a cause!
At the close of the third chapter, John the Baptist, who had doubtless gathered the doctrine from Christ, is seen communicating it in the most definite way in connection with faith to his own disciples and certain of the Jews.
In chapter 4, to the woman at the well, the Lord presents it in connection with the Holy Spirit—the living water. And to His own disciples He presents it in relation to the ingathering of the fruit by those who toil for Him in the ripe fields that wait for harvesting.
In chapter 5, verse 24, the Lord emphatically and solemnly, as indicated by the words, "verily, verily," presents it as the immediate, present and necessary result of faith in Him.
The following chapter gives us the feeding of the five thousand. It also gives us the teaching of Christ as to the truth of His own Person being the true manna, the true bread: bread of God and bread of heaven. It shows the connection between feeding upon Him and everlasting life which He was giving. To feed upon Him was to have Him as the object of one's faith.
Verse 40 goes on to the personal act of Christ in raising up at the last day those who have the everlasting life, which here He pledges Himself to supplement with resurrection.
This same chapter deepens the subject to our souls in verses 53 and 54 in its manifest connection with the redemption work of Christ, the only basis for God's wondrous purpose of grace, so blessedly laid in the death of His Son. The lesson taught us is evidently that the possession of eternal life synchronizes with our personal association with Christ in the knowledge of Him in redemption who is the Son of the living God. He has the words of eternal life. We have none other to which to go, as Peter confesses in verses 68 and 69.
In John 12:5050And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. (John 12:50), the Lord teaches us that in sending Christ, His Father had given Him a commandment, adding, "And I know that His commandment is life everlasting." What a blessed picture of grace this is. The Father gives His command to the Son, whom He is sending into the world. And what is it? It is not the exaction of His rights from ruined debtors. It is not the execution of His sentence on rebels against His authority. It is not reproach, reproof, denunciation, threatening of judgment and wrath. No! It is one statement, one commandment, and that is the same for all. God's command to Christ concerning a lost world, God's commandment concerning those who are dead in trespasses and sins is summed up in this one blessed statement—"life everlasting." Christ adds, "Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak.”
When in communion with His Father in chapter 17, He speaks of the power given Him over all flesh, "that He should give eternal life" to as many as had been given Him, more fully spoken of in the next verse—"This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." This shows the connection between the eternal life as the abundance of divine power and as the revelation of the Father and the Son.
Full of the same thought, in 1 John 1:22(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) (1 John 1:2) he says, "For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." But a marked advance is seen here. The eternal life is being identified with Himself who, in the Gospel, is seen as the revealer of it only.
In the last chapter, verses 10 and 11, he sums up the record that God gave of His Son "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." This affirms, too, that he had written these things to believers in the name of the Son of God, that they might know that they had eternal life. Then he closes the Epistle as he began it by identifying that life with the Son Himself. Thus, "we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." 1 John 5:2020And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (1 John 5:20).