Eternal Life

Concise Bible Dictionary:

This stands commonly in scripture in contrast to death. It is revealed in the Lord Jesus. “He is the true God, and eternal life.” “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:11-12, 20). He that has the Son of God therefore has life now, and knows it by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life. The apostle John speaks of life as a subjective state in believers, though inseparable from the knowledge of God fully revealed as the Father in the Son, and indeed characterized by this. The Lord said to His Father, “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). The Apostle Paul presents eternal life more as a hope before the Christian, which however has a present moral effect (Titus 1:2; Titus 3:7). From which we gather that eternal life for the Christian refers in its fullness to the glory of God, when the present body as a part of the old creation will be changed, and there will be complete conformity to Christ, according to the purpose of God. In the meantime the mind of God is that the Christian, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, should know (have the conscious knowledge) that he has eternal life (1 John 5:13). For Christians it is evident that eternal life is morally distinct from life after the flesh.

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