Enjoy Eternal Life Now — 3
The Gospel of The Kingdom of God. Episode 38
Thus far on our journey of eternal life, we have seen that the bridge that translates us from spiritual death to life eternal is simply to believe that Jesus is The Son of God.
And we heard our Lord Jesus say that whosoever does not believe in Him is condemned already — the wrath of God abides on him.
We have also seen that eternal life is not something we are looking forward to when we depart from our mortal bodies, but that as many as have believed in The Son of The Father have eternal life now.
Furthermore, we heard our Lord Jesus say that life eternal is to know the only true God and Him, Who God sent.
We understood that to know the Father and His Son is to be one in them as His Apostle wrote in these words written in John 14:20:
Joh 14:20
(20) At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
The Apostle also wrote in 1John 5:20:
1Jn 5:20
(20) We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding,
so that we know the true God.
We live in union with the true God — in union with his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and this is eternal life.
The Apostle John wrote that we know that The Christ of God has come, and He has illuminated us within, that we know the true God.
He further wrote that we are in union with Him that is true — in union with His Son Jesus Christ.
He concludes by affirming that our Lord Jesus is the true God, and that our union with Him is eternal life.
Simply put, to know The Father and The Son is being one in an organic union with The Father through The Son.
Going further in our quest to fully understand the eternal life in us, we will continue with the words of our Lord Jesus written for us in John 5:26:
Joh 5:26
(26) For just as the Father has life in Himself, so He has also given to the Son to have life in Himself.
The Good News Translation of the Bible renders this verse in these words:
Joh 5:26
(26) Just as the Father is himself the source of life, in the same way he has made his Son to be the source of life.
The life of a tree in all its fullness is in its seed.
Likewise, the Father granted the life in Him to be in in His Son. In other words, The Son is The Seed of The Father.
That the life in God is in His Son is reechoed by the Apostle in 1John 5:11 & 12
Verse 11:
1Jn 5:11
(11) And this is the record, that God has given to us everlasting life, and this life is in His Son.
God has given to us eternal life; and this life is domiciled in His Son.
Verse 12:
(12) He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Whosoever is in union with the Son has eternal life.
And whosoever does not have The Son abides in spiritual death.
This union with The Father through The Son, is not the exclusive preserve of a select few, but is true in everyone who has believed, as the Apostle of our Lord Jesus wrote to us in Hebrews 8:10 & 11.
Verse 11 reads:
Heb 8:11
(11) And they shall not each man teach his neighbour, and each man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord”, for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest.
The Apostle Paul wrote that from the infant in The Lord to the mature son of God, all come into this union with God.
Now, our Lord Jesus walked in the light of His confession.
And if you and I would walk in the reality of our union with Him, we, also, must consistently verbally declare every good that is in us through our union with Him, as we are exhorted to do in Philemon verse 6, and 2Corinthians 4:13.
Therefore, like our Lord Jesus Christ did in John 10:30, you, also, should consistently declare that in truth, you and your Heavenly Father are one.
Praise The Lord!
However, this union with your Heavenly Father and His Son has the flip side.
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For the other side of the one coin as it were, we would revisit our Lord’s request to His Father as is written 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 , so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.
Our Lord Jesus specifically requested that all believers be one in Him and His Father.
In other words, eternal life is a package deal: you have eternal life in union with The Father and The Son, and simultaneously in union with all the saints.
Stated otherwise, no one has eternal life in all His fullness effectively that has not grown into conscious union with all the other members of the one body of Christ.
This “wholesale package” of effective life eternal as being our collective union with The Father through The Son was prefigured for us in Israel.
Joshua and Caleb had possessed their inheritance in their hearts but could not enter in on their own for forty years.
They could only enter into The Promised Land as members of the nation of Israel, and not as individuals.
The truth that it is only in union with the brethren that we have eternal life effectively is clearly revealed to us in Psalm 133:
Psa 133:1–3
(1) A Song of degrees of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
(2) It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;
(3) As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.
Where is it that God empowered eternal life?
The unity of the brethren is where God has blessed us with eternal life.
That God empowered us to have life eternal in union with the brethren is in harmony with our Lord Jesus’ request to His Father that we all come into oneness in Him and His Father.
Now, every form of life is expressed in both what it can do and in what it is absolutely incapable of doing.
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For example, the life that is in a bird is expressed in its effortless flying.
And the life that is in a fish finds its expression in its natural ability to live and swim in water and its inherent inability to live and function on land.
How is this life of God in us expressed?
What can be seen physically of this spiritual union of the brethren?
For the response to our question, we begin with the words of our Lord Jesus in John 17:20 & 21
Joh 17:20–21
(20) Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
(21) That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:
that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Our Lord Jesus said that it is in our collective union with Him and His Father that the world would acknowledge that indeed, He was sent from Heaven by His Father into this world.
So what is it that the world can see physically of our union that would make them believe that our Lord Jesus was sent by His Father?
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He told us what they can see in John 13:34 & 35:
Joh 13:34–35
(34) A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
(35) By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
He said that it is as the world sees how we love one another as he has loved us that all men would know that we are the followers of Him sent from Heaven by His Father.
Walking in love is the physical manifestation of the eternal life in us that can be seen by all men.
In other words, walking in love within the family of our Heavenly Father is a constituent of the fruit of the life eternal in us.
What does love look like? Is it primarily emotional?
Our Lord Jesus gave us a clear description of love in John 13:34:
Joh 13:34
(34) A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Twice, in this one sentence, He said we should love one another.
And He stated how we were to do so: we are to love one another as He has loved us.
How did He love us?
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He specified how in John 15:12 & 13:
Joh 15:12–13
(12) This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
(13) Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Firstly, He repeated verbatim His commandment to us that we love another, as He has loved us.
Then He told us how He loved us by laying down His life for us.
We are to love one another by laying down our lives for each other.
His Apostle reechoed and amplified His words in 1John3:16 — 18:
1Jn 3:16–18
(16) By this we have known the love of God, because He laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
(17) But whoever has this world’s goods and sees his brother having need, and shuts up his bowels from him, how does the love of God dwell in him?
(18) My children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
The Apostle John wrote to us that love is revealed visibly by what we do in two ways:
1. Love finds His expression through you and I in loving our brethren by laying down our lives for them as our Lord Jesus laid His down for us.
2. The love of God in us is seen in the compassion we have for our brother in need. The love of God, if present in us, moves us to share our material resources with him who has insufficient to meet his need.
He concluded by exhorting us not to love doctrinally or in vain words, but in what we do and in truth.
Now, those who know tell us that an apple constitutes of vitamin C and potassium and others
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Likewise the Apostle Paul revealed the comprehensive constituents of the love of God in 1Corinthians 13: 4 — 8:
Love is:
- Longsuffering — love is the same in the face of persistent adverse condition.
- Love is kind — love is tender hearted and full of compassion and favourably disposed towards the other.
- Love does not envy — does not resent others for what they have neither does He desire theirs, for He is contented.
- Love is not vain glorious — not puffed up — He does not seek the place of preeminence or of exaltation
- Love is not proud — love is meek and lowly in heart.
- Love is courteous — love is polite: love is not rude.
- Love is not self-seeking — love does not seek His own interest but the good of the other.
- Love is patient — love is not fretful: love quietly trusts in the love and the ability and the fidelity and the wisdom of God for the fulfilment of His will in His time.
- Love keeps no records of evil — He forgives and forgets.
- Love hates iniquity but delights in righteousness.
- Love is forbearing — He restrains himself when put under undue pressure by others.
- Love is faithful.
- Love is enduring.
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Love is forever — love is eternal.
Love is the fruit of eternal life.
Now, all the branch in The Vine has to do to bear fruit is to abide in Him.
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The life in The Vine — His sap — flows into the branch unconsciously and he brings forth fruit effortlessly in the process of time.
Likewise, thankfully, walking in love is not what we have to struggle to do neither is it an unattainable and grievous commandment for us to keep:
love is the fruit of the eternal life of God in us.
In other words, as natural as it is for fish to live and swim in water because of the distinct life in it, so it is our nature for you and I to unconsciously love one another.
And as surely as fish cannot live and function on land, so it is impossible for the child of God not to love his brother.
It is inherent in any who is born of God to love the brotherhood, for God is love
That the eternal life of God in us is expressed through the natural love we have for the brethren is revealed in John 5:24 and its twin of 1John 3:14:
Joh 5:24
(24) Truly, truly, I say to you, He who hears My Word and believes on Him who sent Me
has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life.
Our Lord Jesus said that when we believed, we passed from spiritual death to life eternal.
His Apostle expounded on His words in 1John 3:14:
1Jn 3:14
(14) We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers.
He who does not love his brother abides in death.
The Apostle John wrote that we have the inward witness in ourselves that we have passed from death to life, because we inherently love the brethren.
And we should most solemnly note that the Apostle bluntly stated the converse:
whosoever does not love his brother is yet in spiritual death.
At this point in our journey of eternal life, we will stop at His rest house located in 1John 4:7 & 8:
1Jn 4:7–8
(7) Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God.
(8) The one who does not love has not known God. For God is love.
Amen.
