Eternal Life
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Do you know what I want for you most of all? Eternal life. Not just in the future but now. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10). That’s what I want for you.
Most of the people I talk with, who have at least some interest in religion, say they hope for eternal life. So, what you want, what I want, and what I want for you might all be the same thing.
As we think about eternal life, two questions come to mind:
What is it?
How do we possess it?
What is eternal life?
Looking at John 17:3 above, the Greek words for eternal life are aiōnios zōē. Zōē means life, and aiōnios describes the quality of that life. We tend to think in terms of quantity: everlasting, never-ending, etc. But this word aiōnios is as much backward-looking as it is forward-looking. It’s the kind of life that has always existed in relationship with God, that we can inherit, that we are invited into.
How do we possess eternal life?
Returning to John 17:3, we see that eternal life⏤this eternal kind of life⏤is connected with knowing God. It needs to be said here that knowing God is much more than knowing about him. This kind of knowing is relational and intimate. Many of us have grown up in a culture that reduces knowledge to information, facts, and data. We will need to work a bit harder to approach knowing as a growing relational connection.