Inside ROR Today: Eternal Life Defined

Imagine preaching the Gospel to someone and the person asks you, “What is eternal life?” What will you say? I’ll give you two simple statements that’ll help you understand what it is. The first one is that eternal life is the life and nature of God. This in itself isn’t a definition but an expression that describes what kind of life it is. Eternal life is a life that’s different from other kinds of life; it’s the life and nature of God. 

As a definition, eternal life is the organic and existential attributes of deity. Why is this important? It’s because all over the world, people talk about different gods. There’re so many deities in different cultures represented in so many ways. But none of them has eternal life.

Eternal life is the life that Jesus, in Scripture, declared the Father has, which essentially distinguishes Him from all others that may be called gods: “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:26). The Bible declares, “… And now we are in God because we are in Jesus Christ his Son, who is the only true God; and he is eternal Life” (1 John 5:20 TLB). Jesus Christ is God! In Him, we find and can relate with the organic and existential attributes of deity.

When He walked the earth, He was life encapsulated in a human body and manifested to us: “For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John 1:2).

This eternal life is what He brought to the world (John 10:10). This is the message of the Kingdom of God: that Jesus Christ offers eternal life freely. That’s why it’s called Gospel; you don’t have to pay anything for it.