An Eternal Kind of Life
Another point of view on “everlasting life”
Whether you have grown up in and around churches or not, you probably know that one of the key ideas in Christianity is “eternal life.” The stereotype normally goes something like this: if you’re a good person in this life, then when you die you will go to heaven and live forever. You are magically transported upwards to some ephemeral realm, where you live peacefully, tread on clouds, and look down on your loved ones on earth below.
If you are a Christian, you may have all kinds of protests against the description I have just given. And rightly so. It is, admittedly, littered with tripe cliches. But, and now I speak to Christians in particular, if you are going to defend the idea of eternal life against distortion or misconception, what do you have to offer in return? It seems to me that many Christians do not really have much to offer at all. Most Christians do not give the matter much thought, and so end up assuming some softened, watered-down version of the stereotype: “Well… um… you live forever…with God…and…um…”
I want to share with you an idea about “eternal life” that has helped me in recent weeks. I offer here no overarching definition or claim. This is just a thought. Just one way of considering the matter.
In the New Testament, the Greek words lying behind “eternal life” are usually zōē aiōnios. It is from the first word, zōē, meaning “life”, that the name Zoe comes. The second word, aiōnios, is a little more difficult to render into plain English. Why so? Because the Greek carries two senses: it carries a qualitative and a durative sense; aiōnios refers to both the quality of life and the duration of life. But, in English translations, usually only one of these senses can be preserved, and so translators have to make a choice.Translations that favour the durative sense often use “everlasting” to translate aiōnios, whilst those preferring the qualitative use “eternal.” Sometimes, there is no conscious choice between the two. But, it is the latter sense that I would like to explore further. What does an eternal life look like?
First, the life of a Christian is a life with God. This is the key factor in what makes a person’s life distinctly “Christian.” It doesn’t matter how long or how short a life might be, without God, it cannot be described as a “Christian” life. Here already we can see the importance of the qualitative sense of aiōnios: without God, a life that is everlasting is, in Christian terms, meaningless. In fact, the qualitative (with God) enables the durative (everlasting) in the first place.
So eternal life speaks of the quality of life with God in the future, in the coming blessed age. Secondly, It can speak of the quality of life with God in the present. Speech of eternal life in the present is an emphasis characteristic of the Gospel of John, though it is also found elsewhere in the New Testament. In John, those who believe Jesus have eternal life (3:36; 6:47) and “have passed from death to life” (5:24). One writer puts it like this: “Those who believe in Jesus now have that life that is appropriate to the coming age and consequent upon resurrection, and they have it as a present possession rather than — or in addition to — an expectation for the future” (Marianne Thompson, 88).
This is not to suggest that we forget the durative sense or future-oriented aspect of “eternal/everlasting life,” but rather to stress (1) the qualitative “with-Godness” of what that life is like, and (2) that we can have that kind of life in the present, now, as well as in the future.
Most popular thinking about aiōnios focusses on the durative sense of the word, and takes the term to denote a life that simply goes on forever in chronological time. “What is life aiōnios? Well, it’s everlasting life — you live forever!” But, I would contend, to focus on this sense to the diminishment of the other, the qualitative sense of aiōnios, is a great tragedy. To limit the sense of aiōnios to the durative results in a rather boring, uninspiring idea of what life with God is like. To appreciate both senses, life everlasting (durative) and life eternal (qualitative), is far more exciting. Let’s live an eternal kind of life, and let’s live it right now.
Thank you for reading. The Coffeehouse Cleric is a Medium publication dedicated to asking the big questions of life. It features writing on three main areas: minimalism, spirituality, and learning. If you enjoyed this piece and it helped you in any way, please do share it with friends and family.
