Enjoy Eternal Life Now — 2
The Gospel of The Kingdom of God. Episode 37
At our last gathering at The Table we began our journey of eternal life with seeing that in the first man — Adam — all humanity was doomed to perish eternally.
But thankfully, we also saw that because of God’s tender mercies over us, for the great love with which He loved us, while we were enemies, and we all being by nature the children of the devil, God gave His only Begotten Son as The Ransom from eternal destruction for us.
And we saw that whosoever, regardless, believes that Jesus is The Son of God is saved from eternal death and receives everlasting life in its stead.
However, we heard our Lord Jesus say that whosoever does not believe in Him is condemned already.
He/she is destined to spend forever with the devil and his angels in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone.
In other words, the only sin that keeps unregenerate man on the track to eternal perdition is not to believe in The Name of the only Begotten Son of God as his/her Salvation.
Furthermore, we saw three witnesses from the Bible who were testimonies that eternal life is received by anyone who would, simply by believing The Gospel of God.
And we saw that to disbelieve God’s testimony of His Son is to make God a liar. It is to equate The God of truth with the devil.
We understood that to believe God is to agree that what God said is true. To believe is to acknowledge in our hearts that the word of God is truth.
And we concluded our meal with this take home pack consisting of John 20:30 & 31 and its mirror image in 1John 5:13:
— Joh 20:30–31
(30) And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:
(31) But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
— 1Jn 5:13
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Now, seeing that as many of us at The Table as have believed The Gospel of The Son of God, know that we now have eternal life, we would be refreshing ourselves — refreshing our understanding of what eternal life is in truth.
What is eternal life?
Is eternal life nebulous?
Is it an abstract?
Is it intangible?
Is life eternal incomprehensible such that we cannot walk in Him intelligently?
In answering this preliminary question, we turn to what the Apostle of our Lord Jesus wrote to us in 1Timothy 6:12:
— 1Ti 6:12
(12) Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, to which you are also called and have professed a good profession before many witnesses.
In addition to fighting the good fight of faith, the Apostle Paul exhorts us to lay hold of eternal life.
In other words, he urges to grasp eternal life in our understanding.
And thankfully, to facilitate our being illuminated in our souls with life eternal, we have the Bible which is the treasure trove of The Word of Life .
From Genesis to the very last chapter in the book of Revelation, the Bible brims with the revelation of life eternal.
What is eternal life?
Eternal life is not Bible Knowledge: the Jews search the scriptures and still had no life.
Eternal life is not that man would live forever.
Man is a spirit being and he would live forever anyway.
And then again, the angels of God, the living creatures around His Throne, and even the devil and his angels are spirits and they do not have eternal life, yet they also live forever.
Eternal life is not morality obtained by keeping The Law of God: the rich young ruler had kept the secondary segment of the Ten Commandments and he knew in himself that he had no life.
Eternal life is not financial prosperity: the young man we just mentioned had great possessions and still sought after eternal life.
Furthermore, our Lord Jesus said a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.
So what is eternal life?
Who could answer our question better than our Lord Jesus even as He did in John 17:1–3:
— Joh 17:1–3
(1) Jesus spoke these words and lifted up His eyes to Heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.
Glorify Your Son so that Your Son also may glorify You,
(2) even as You have given Him authority over all flesh so that He should give eternal life to all You have given Him.
(3) And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
He said life eternal is to know God the Father, and Jesus Christ Whom He sent.
The question now is what does our Lord Jesus mean by to know His Father and Him?
Does He mean that we become acquainted with God The Father and His Son as we do with our friends and families; and with neighbours and colleagues?
To understand what He meant by knowing The Father and His Son, we begin with that saint of old, Job.
Job was a man adjudged by God not only to be righteous, but also that there was none on the surface of the earth that could be compared with him.
Let us listen to the testimony of the servant of God as it pertains to his knowledge of God written for us in Job 42:5:
— Job 42:5
(5) I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye has seen You.
Job said he knew God only by what he had heard.
From his own admission that was written for us, prior to his spiritual enlightenment, Job knew not God by The Spirit, but knew Him only by the letter.
Simply put, he said he only knew about God.
This second rate way of knowing God most certainly is not what our Lord Jesus meant when He told us what eternal life is.
So what did our Lord Jesus mean by knowing His Father and Him?
Again, we have an infallible response to our question for the answer is given by The Lord Himself.
In expounding on His request that we might know God and Him, He continued with His prayer in John 17:20 & 21:
— Joh 17:20–21
(20) And I do not pray for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on Me through their word,
(21) that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.
Our Lord Jesus prayed that all believers through the age should be brought into oneness with His Father and Him.
We will most carefully note that He did not pray that this oneness with The Father and The Son was to be a mechanical union.
In a mechanical union, two separate and distinct objects are tied or bolted together.
In this union, it is possible to separate the two materials bound together into their individual components.
Rather, our Lord Jesus prayed that we come into an organic union with His Father and Him.
The child birthed by the sexual union of a man and his wife is an organic union of the couple.
And it is absolutely impossible to separate the child into his father and mother.
In their sexual union, the man and his wife are one body; and the fruit of their oneness is also one in them.
To know The Father and His Son Christ Jesus is to come into an organic union with them.
This organic union with The Father and The Son is what our Lord Jesus meant by knowing them both.
This is life eternal: union with The Father through The Son.
At this point, we will take a break on our journey of eternal life and go home with this pack John 14:20:
— Joh 14:20
(20) At that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
Amen.
“Enjoy Eternal Life” continues in Part 3
