Question:
Am I mistaken in the teaching of John 5:24 and 1 John 5:10–13 that we have everlasting life in this life by believing in Christ?
Answer:
That the believer has now everlasting life, the following propositions and Scripture texts clearly show:
- Humanity by nature are “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3), being sick with sin (Isa. 1:5, 6; Rom. 3:23).
- The disease of sin (unless divine power interposes) ends in death. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15.
- Because humans are sinners, they are ignorant of the righteousness of God (Rom. 10:3); being victims of sin, “children of wrath,” or death, they are “alienated from the life of God” (Eph. 4:18); for righteousness is life (see Rom. 5:17, 18).
- Therefore, they who through Christ receive the righteousness of God by faith (Rom. 3:22) also receive the life of God, from which they are no longer alienated.
- Again, Christ is the manifestation of God to us (John 14:9), or, in other words, “God was in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:19); Christ was, therefore, the righteousness of God and the life of God (John 14:10).
- When we accept Christ by faith, we have the “righteousness of God” ( Rom. 3:22) and the life of God, or everlasting life (John 3:36). So Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” John 5:24. “He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life. These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.” 1 John 5:12, 13, A.R.V. Says the regenerated Paul, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.” Gal. 2:20.
Was not the life of the sinner and his sins real? Is not the righteousness of Christ and His life just as real? God’s Holy Spirit is life, and God puts that Spirit within those who believe (Eze. 36:27; Rom. 8:9); and “the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10). That Spirit gives us a new heart and a new spirit (Eze. 36:26), makes us a new creature (2 Cor. 5:17); and as is that Spirit in nature, so is that which comes from the Spirit.
To use another illustration: We are born of the “incorruptible” seed of the Word of God, the Gospel which abideth forever. 1 Peter 1:23-25. Says Jesus, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63. Peter says we are to feed upon “the sincere milk of the Word,” that we may grow thereby. 1 Peter 2:2. Now if we are born of this incorruptible seed and feed upon spirit and life, will we not be like the food of which we are partakers, upon which we grow, which has been made a part of our very being? Therefore, as in that Word is the life of God, so in partaking of that Word, we are partaking of the life and Spirit of God. That is shown by the fact that, while out of Christ we were children of disobedience and death, in Christ we are quickened, or made alive, with Christ. Col. 2:13. Being crucified with Christ, the child of wrath dies, and the person is born of God, a son of God. Does not the son partake of the life of the father? If we are children of God, do we not share His life?
But may we not lose this life, although it is real? Yes, we may. It is given by faith; it abides by faith, by God’s Word abiding in us. If His words abide in us by faith (John 15:7), that faith will work by love (Gal. 5:6), that love will keep God’s commandments (1 John 5:3; John 14:15–17); and by this last text, we learn that with all this God’s Spirit, or life, abides with us forever.
But if we go down in death, what then? We commit our life to Christ, and when Christ our life shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:4), not only with everlasting life but with immortality. The grave can not hold us. Death could not hold Christ (Acts 2:24), for the righteousness of God was upon Him; no more can it hold us, for the righteousness of God through Christ is upon us. In Him, all fulness dwells; we have Him, He is ours, and we are “complete in Him.” Praise God for His unspeakable Gift, and for that life from which we are no longer alienated, and which gives power over sin and death.
