Tag Archives: John 3:16

Is Eternal Life Temporary?

26 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by in John, Stephen Charnock, Thomas Manton, Uncategorized

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(Got a question from one who heard that “eternal” means a very long time. Therefore, the “eternal life” offered by Jesus may only be a very long life which could end at some point in the future. This is the brief response I wrote)

God does not offer “eternal life” as a shadow or a trick or some temporary thing. God holds eternal life up as one thing so valuable that it is worth losing our life to gain this eternal life. It is better to be hated, abused and murdered and gain this eternal life, than it is to have every good thing which could be had in this world.

The fact that God offers it to us, should give us comfort. If God offered a life which might run out, then it would disturb our peace:

It is an endless and everlasting life. Such as are once possessed of it shall never be dispossessed again. If man be designed to enjoy a chief good, and this chief good must content all our desires, it must also be so firm and absolutely immutable as to secure us against all our fears; for a fear of losing would disquiet our minds, and so hinder our blessedness.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 11 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 366. God has not offered a very long life as our supreme good. God has offered us a life which is both never-ending, but also which belongs to a differ age, the age to come. Both of those things should give us comfort.

First, when we speak of “eternity” and God, we must out of our heads the idea that “eternity” is a very, very long time. This is hard for us to do, because we only have only experienced time in this way.  In Romans 8:20, Paul explains that the creation – the entire universe that we could know – “was subjected to futility”, it is vain, it is running down (Eccl. 1:2, Gen. 3:19).

This matches what we know about the universe from observing it. Physicists talk about “Time’s Arrow”: the universe is running in one direction, and it is running down (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time).  So when we talk about “time”, we think of a succession of moments and an increase in entropy.

Stephen Charnock in The Existence and Attributes of God writes

We must conceive of eternity contrary to the notion of time; as the nature of time consists in succession of parts, so the nature of eternity in an infinite immutable duration. Eternity and time differ as the sea and the rivers; the sea never changes place, and is always one water; but the rivers glide along, and are swallowed up in the sea; so it is time by eternity.

There is a great deal of discussion and speculation when it comes to what eternity actually means. Eternity – and infinity —  are very strange and very hard concepts. God is called the “everlasting” or “eternal” God (Rom. 16:26), he is the eternal king (1 Tim. 1:17). That is why in Revelation we read that God was, is and is to come (Rev. 1:8, 11:17).

When we start to think of concepts like “eternal life” (John 3:16), we have to realize that when it comes to divine things, we are not speaking about very long things.

It is true that sometimes the words translated “eternal” or “everlasting” sometimes have the idea of very long, or indefinite, or “age”, or “aeon”. That, however, should not trouble us. When we speak to one-another we often talk about something “taking forever”, when we mean 20 minutes.  We will say that it was “an eternity”.

But we can also use the word “forever” and understand it to mean something which cannot end. When we use the word “forever” or the word “eternity” we can tell what we mean – and we expect other people to be able to understand us easily. We do this, because can understand the context and the use. We understand that sometimes a word is being used ironically, or emphatically. So if I tell my wife, I will love you forever, I mean to underscore the intensity of my commitment: even though we both know that neither of us will literally live forever.

The same thing applies to uses in the Scripture – the Bible is written in ordinary language. So in Genesis 9:16, God makes “an everlasting covenant” to never flood the earth again. But we also know that God will one day re-create the entire universe (2 Pet. 3:7).  Therefore, we know that this covenant to never flood the earth will hold true throughout the duration of the earth’s existence, but the covenant does not mean that God will keep the earth in existence forever.

Or in Genesis 17:8, God promises Canaan as an “everlasting possession” – we quickly see the problem of simply using the word without consideration (even if we decided we would think about it forever).

So, in some places the word aion/aionios means a long time ago: Luke 1:70, As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old (aion).

In context we can tell it cannot mean “forever” – that would result in nonsense.

By contrast, in 2 Corinthian 9:9, we read that God’s righteousness endures forever. We can’t say that God’s righteous will last a long time and then wear out.  Or God’s throne is “forever”. (Heb. 1:8). If God’s throne is not going to last, God is not much of a God.

What I want you to see here is that you cannot fear that our promised eternal life will wear out in the distant future merely because the word “aion” could mean a very long time.  Our word “forever” can mean “a long time”. The way in which a word could be used does not tell me how it is being used.

Second, when it comes to eternity and God, our normal concepts of time simply do not apply.

 How then is the word “eternity” used when it comes to our “eternal life”?

It would make very little sense to say that you will live “forever” and it to be only a very long time. Life is something which one either has or does not. If life is everlasting, the word “everlasting” or “eternal” would not be ironic/hyperbole (“it took forever to get home”).

It could be emphatic: and there is a sense in which it is. It does not merely mean continual and without end: it means life which belongs to another age: thus the language life of the Age, or Aeon would point toward not merely a long life, but a life which belongs to the age to come, to “eternity”.

But perhaps the most important aspect is that the idea of “eternal” life is contrasted with death.  Consider John 6:51 & 58. In this passage, Jesus is contrasting the bread eaten in the wilderness (manna) which himself as the bread of life. Jesus notes that the fathers ate manna and died (“Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and died” John 6:49).  Yet the one who eats Christ “will live forever” (John 6:50). He repeats the same idea in John 6:58: they ate and died, but “he who east his bread [Christ] will live forever”. If Jesus is merely offering an extremely long life, this argument fails.  Jesus’ offer is something that cannot end, or his argument is a lie.

This argument is stronger when you consider the other concepts and images which are used to complement the idea of “eternal life” in John 3:

That is the immediate result of the love of God for the world: the mission of the Son. His ultimate purpose is the salvation of those in the world who believe in him (eis auton, not en autō as in v. 15). Whoever believes in him experiences new birth (3:3, 5), has eternal life (3:15, 16), is saved (3:17); the alternative is to perish (cf. also 10:28), to lose one’s life (12:25), to be doomed to destruction (17:12, cognate with ‘to perish’). There is no third option.

A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 206. Eternal life runs parallel to born again. We cannot be “unborn”, therefore, by analogy we do not un-live.

Second, the contrast is made to death and destruction. If we will die, then the offer of “eternal life” makes no sense if “eternal” only means very long time.

 

 

Union With Christ and the Incarnation

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Incarnation, Isaiah, John, Philippians, Romans, Union With Christ

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An infinite chasm of sin and nature stands between the Creator and his creatures:

 I am God, and there is none like me

Isaiah 46:9. As the Creator, God cannot rightly be compared to his creation:

18    To whom then will you liken God,

or what likeness compare with him?

19    An idol! A craftsman casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and casts for it silver chains.

20    He who is too impoverished for an offering

chooses wood that will not rot;

       he seeks out a skillful craftsman

to set up an idol that will not move.

21    Do you not know? Do you not hear?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22    It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

       who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

23    who brings princes to nothing,

and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

24    Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

       when he blows on them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25    To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

26    Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?

       He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name,

       by the greatness of his might,

and because he is strong in power

not one is missing.

 

Isaiah 40:18–26 (ESV). The distance is made greater, not merely by division of Creator and creation – but also by the division of rebellion and sin (Genesis 3:24).  As the result of sin, the entire creation has been “subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20).

 To effect reconciliation with him, God condescended to come to us, in the Incarnation.  The work of reconciliation has its ground in God himself. As all decrees of God, God does not look beyond himself, but rather his decrees express  “his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 7).

As to us, the sending of demonstrates the love of God:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16. The wonder and majesty of the eternal Son coming to us is a constant theme of the New Covenant expression and explication:

10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying,

                        “I will tell of your name to my brothers;

in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

13 And again,

                        “I will put my trust in him.”

And again,

                        “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Hebrews 2:10–15 (ESV).

 

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:3–4 (ESV).

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5–11 (ESV)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14 (ESV).

The Incarnation becomes a ground of the believer being in union with Christ – and thus becoming reconciled to God. The chasm between God and man was bridged by God in the space of Jesus. The union with Christ takes place upon various grounds.  As noted by Henry Wilkinson Williams in Union With Christ (1857), one aspect of the union between the redeemed and Christ lies in the sympathy Christ holds for us in our physical weakness and distress:

The relation between the Saviour and our race is, therefore, most intimate and endearing. Jesus, the Incarnate Son, is our Brother. His heart, while He was here upon earth, beat with the sympathies of humanity. He felt as we feel, excepting only that His spirit was free from the least stain of moral defilement.

This is major strain of Hebrews, we have a high priest who is able “to sympathize with our weakness”:

Here, then, we behold the first great fact which the mediatorial scheme presents to us. The Son of God assumed our nature, so as to become a sharer of our weakness, our sorrows, and our temptations. And in this we perceive, in part,—though only in part,—the ground of our union with Him. He has stooped to become one with us. It was an essential feature of the economy of redemption, that the great Restorer, the second federal Head of humanity, “the last Adam,” should appear among us, not in a state of dazzling glory, but in one of lowliness and suffering, distinguished from that of mankind at large only by His perfect freedom from sin. “God” sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” (Rom. viii. 3.) A bond of union was thus formed between Him and the race that He came to save; and the first great step was taken in that scheme of human recovery which was to bring His believing people into the most intimate fellowship with Himself.

Williams’ caution that such sympathy is only a part of union must be duly noted.  The union with Christ does not consist in a bare sympathy, an emotion and thought. If so, we could easily reduce union to the level of a tender hearted reader who looks upon an article and photographs of distressed persons in a foreign land, feels some brief sorrow and perhaps guilt, sends some money and then turns to another topic.

Yet, we must not abstract the believers’ union with Christ from the love and sympathy which gave rise to the Incarnation (John 3:16), nor the love expressed and encouraged in Christ’s incarnation. 

The Simplicity of the Gospel.1

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in 1 Timothy, Charles Spurgeon, John, Ministry, Psalms, Spiritual Disciplines

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Salvation is by grace through faith and not of works (Eph. 2:8-9); therefore, it is easy to conclude that the Christian life is utterly passive. There is a true “simplicity of the Gospel” and thus, some conclude that no effort should be extended in pursuing and understanding the things of God. That is false.

I certainly do not mean to imply that (1) one can ever perform sufficient work such that God will be obliged to convey salvation; or (2) that right standing before God is the result of native intelligence.

However, the “simplicity of the Gospel” does not mean that we are excused to be slothful in our approach to the things of God.  Unfortunately, all too many Christians think that any effort in the understanding of the Bible or the pursuit of God is somehow a sin or a false religion.

Spurgeon rightly speaks of the “simplicity of the Gospel” in his sermon “Soul-Satisfying Bread”:

But now, speaking to those to whom the Lord has given to understand his meaning, let me say, our Savior uses very simple figures. Think of his calling himself bread! How condescending, that the commonest article upon the table should be the fullest type of Christ! Think of his calling our faith an eating and a drinking of himself! Nothing could be more instructive; at the same time nothing could better set forth his gentleness and humility of spirit, that he does not object to speak thus of our receiving him. God be thanked for the simplicity of the gospel. The longer I live the more I bless God that we have not received a classical gospel, or a mathematical gospel, or a metaphysical gospel; it is not a gospel confined to scholars and men of genius, but a poor man’s gospel, a ploughman’s gospel; for that is the kind of gospel which we can live upon and die upon. It is to us not the luxury of refinement, but the staple food of life. We want no fine words when the heart is heavy, neither do we need deep problems when we are lying upon the verge of eternity, weak in body and tempted in mind. At such times we magnify the blessed simplicity of the gospel. Jesus in the flesh made manifest becomes our soul’s bread. Jesus bleeding on the cross, a substitute for sinners, is our soul’s drink. This is the gospel for babes, and strong men want no more. (Charles H. Spurgeon, vol. 19, Spurgeon’s Sermons: Volume 19, electronic ed., Logos Library System; Spurgeon’s Sermons (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998).)

Yet, before we run with his statement, we need to understand his point – which has made clear immediately before the quoted paragraph:

The Savior spake in symbols, that the proud might hear in vain, that hearing they might not hear, and seeing they might not perceive, executing upon that self-conceited generation which rejected him the judicial sentence of the Lord, for their hearts were waxen gross, their ears were dull of hearing, and their eyes had they closed.

The true perception is the Gospel is not a thing which comes by extraordinary intellectual abilities: Rather, the right sight of God in Jesus Christ is a gift.

An analogy might help here: Imagine two people each read a single letter. The letter is written by soldier to his wife. The letter is read by a literature professor at a great university and by the man’s wife – a woman who barely made it through high school English. The professor may understand every aspect of the language – including the errors. He might know where certain expressions were originally coined. He could place this letter into a history of the English language. However, that professor could never understand the love and loss conveyed by the letter in the same way that the wife will. She may not understand the grammar, but she understands the meaning in a manner that no one else ever can.

The plain text of this letter is unlikely to require a dictionary or vast knowledge to understand. This wife will know her husband’s meaning. Yet, does the simplicity of the language mean that the wife should not or would not expend effort to understand the letter? What would it say of her love, if this letter were the only word had received in months – and she were to spend no effort in bringing the words into her hear. Would she not pour over this letter and seek to understand every syllable? Would the letter not inflame love in her heart?

You see, the simplicity of the letter does not excuse her from the work of reading and thinking and understanding.   

And, she has the gift of loving and being loved by her husband; thus, she can understand the letter in a way that no one else ever can. The professor cannot penetrate into that love by examining the text.

That is Spurgeon’s meaning: Those who are adopted by God in Jesus Christ can understand the letter of the Bible in a way that those who do not know God cannot do.  The love conveyed does not reveal itself to outsiders (if you will), any more than the professor can feel the love of the wife by reading the letter. He may see it, and imagine it, but he can never know it.

The difficulty in the approach to God in the Gospel is not a difficulty imposed by complex language, but a difficulty imposed by faith and love and a spiritual sight of God.  The basic story of the Gospel can be understood by all who can hear and read with a heart of true faith:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.  1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV)

 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (ESV)