1. Eternal Life
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Eternal Life
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:1–3
Read John 3:1–21. Nicodemus was a member of the Jewish ruling council. Jesus called him Israel’s teacher (v. 10), so he must have had a good knowledge of the Scriptures. He appears to be a wealthy man as well as a religious man. Born a Jew, he was a member of the only nation God ever called His chosen people and His “special treasure” (Deut. 7:6). He sought to know the truth and from his heart wanted to love and obey the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Nicodemus was a man of character and courage, and yet he knew that something was lacking in his life. He went to get help from Jesus, and the Master told him what was missing: “You must be born again” (John 3:7 NIV). Nicodemus didn’t know there was such a thing as a “new birth” and a new beginning in life. The physical blessings we now enjoy came with our physical birth, and if we want spiritual blessings we must experience a spiritual birth. We must receive eternal life.
Eternal Life Is the Very Life of God
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are eternal; they have neither beginning nor ending. Moses said to the Lord that He was “from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps. 90:2). Moses also called the Lord “the eternal God” (Deut. 33:27), and the prophet Isaiah called God “the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity” (57:15). Paul addressed the Lord as “the King eternal” (1 Tim. 1:17). The life I have was imparted to me by my parents, but God has “life in Himself” (John 5:26) and that life is imparted to all who repent of their sins and trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord (John 10:27–28; Rom. 6:23).
From day to day and season to season, we are accustomed to seeing things and people around us come to an end, either suddenly or gradually, and we are overwhelmed by the very thoughts of eternity and living forever. In his book The Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer said of God’s eternality that “our hearts approve with gladness what our reason cannot fully comprehend.”1 That anyone or anything should exist with neither beginning nor ending is something our limited minds cannot grasp. Eternity is “time out of mind,” and when the Lord created the first humans, He “put eternity in their hearts” (Eccl. 3:11). This explains why people like us, created in the image of God, have always craved something beyond the mundane things life offers us. Before we met Jesus, we often said to ourselves, “There must be something better!” Augustine was right when he wrote, “You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Eternal Life Is the Gift of God
The apostle John wrote of Jesus, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). Jesus conquered death and darkness when on the cross He gave His life as a ransom for sin. “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” shouted John the Baptist (v. 29). “I am the good shepherd,” said Jesus. “The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (10:11). Throughout Israel’s history the sheep had died for the shepherds, but when Jesus came, the Shepherd died for the sheep! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (3:16). That familiar verse is one of the first we memorized as children in Sunday School, but we had very little understanding of what it meant. It was just words. When a new father or mother holds their first child in their arms, then they begin to understand the Father’s love for Jesus and for us! According to John 17:23, the Father loves each of His children as much as He loves His own Son!
That Jesus would give His life for us and then, when we trusted Him, give us His life, is beyond comprehension. The apostle Paul summarized this miracle in four words: “Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). When the Holy Spirit enters our inner being and takes control, everything changes! “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Your body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit and the members of your body the tools the Spirit will use as He empowers you to serve the Lord and glorify Him (1 Cor. 6:19–20). You have a whole new outlook on life as well as a new set of values, and a new desire to serve God and others. The indwelling Spirit enables us to become more and more like Jesus in our thinking (Phil. 2:5) and in our living (Gal. 2:20), and we experience days of heaven on earth because the life of heaven dwells within.
Eternal Life Empowers Us to Do the Will of God and Serve Him
Athletic skill ran in our family—until I came along, and then it ran out. When I was in grade school, I was the last boy chosen for every team. The team captains would argue and the loser would have to take me. When I got to middle school, I was usually on the sidelines, guarding the coats, books, and other possessions of the students playing on the field. I can recall times when I would be up to bat, wishing that Babe Ruth (this was a long time ago!) would enter my body and help me hit a home run. Little did I realize that Someone greater than Babe Ruth—the Holy Spirit of God—would take up residence in my body when I put my faith in Christ one evening at a Youth for Christ rally, and that He would endow me with all that I needed for living the Christian life. “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3).
As I studied my Bible, read Christian books, and listened carefully to preaching and teaching, I began to understand that when the Holy Spirit came into my body, He baptized me into the body of Christ and gave me the spiritual gifts I needed for Christian living and service (1 Cor. 12:1–13). Then I discovered that there was also a filling of the Spirit. Baptism occurs only once but this filling is a repeated experience as we yield to the Lord. I knew that I had to adjust my internal life (thoughts, motives, imaginations, and so forth) to match my eternal life or I would be sinning against the Holy Spirit by lying to the Spirit (Acts 5:1–11), grieving the Spirit (Eph. 4:25–32), and quenching the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19). It was encouraging and exciting to learn that I was never without divine help as long as I was “walking in the Spirit” and “living in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16–26). I didn’t need Babe Ruth!
You and I may confidently rest on the words Jesus said to His disciples: “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever” (John 14:16). In the original Greek text, the word translated another means “another of the same kind.” He was speaking, of course, about the Holy Spirit of God, and affirming that the Spirit would minister to the disciples just as He had ministered to them. The Spirit is our Helper just as Jesus was the disciples’ Helper. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came upon select people and helped them accomplish special tasks; but since Pentecost (Acts 2), the Spirit indwells every believer and helps them in their daily tasks as they serve the Lord. The word translated “Helper” (paraclete) means “one called to our side to help us.” It has also been translated Comforter, Counselor, and Advocate. Our English word comfort comes from the Latin and means “with strength,” and the word advocate refers to a lawyer who stands beside the accused to give professional help (Mark 13:11). The Holy Spirit does all of this and more for the people of God!
How do we “keep in step” with the Holy Spirit and not forfeit His marvelous ministry? First, we must spend quality time in the Scriptures, which the Holy Spirit wrote, allowing Him to show us Jesus and teach us all that we have in Him. Second, we must seek to glorify Jesus Christ in all that we say and do and with all that we have, for the ministry of the Spirit is not to glorify Himself or us but to glorify Jesus. Our Master said, “He [the Holy Spirit] will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you” (John 16:14). I recall hearing Dr. J. Sidlow Baxter preach on this verse and repeatedly say, “Whatever begins with the Holy Spirit will always end at Jesus Christ. He—the Spirit—shall glorify Me—the Savior.” If we want our work and walk to glorify Jesus and not ourselves, we must yield to the Spirit and allow Him to have His way. Like the first disciples, we must “give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4).
Each of the following chapters describes some aspect of the Christian life that you can experience and enjoy, but unless what I have written in this first chapter is true of your life, the successive chapters will mean very little to you. What Jesus said to Nicodemus, He says to us today: “You must be born again” (John 3:7). The first step in living the Christian life is possessing eternal life. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). God’s promise is that “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).
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1. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 44.