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View Articles:
Eternal Life Begins With Belief
To Believe or Not To Believe, That is the Choice
God Showed His Love
Eternal Life Begins With Belief
December 27, 2007
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
I had a conversation with someone about how recent advances in medical science are causing people to live longer. This person speculated that it wouldn’t be too long until people could live well into their hundreds. Then he asked, “Wouldn’t you just love to live to be 150?” Feeling the aches and pains common to those of my age, I said, “Not if I had to feel the way I do now for another 100 years!”
The ancient Romans must have felt the same way I do about the prospect of interminable old age. One of their myths tells the story of the goddess Aurora falling in love with a mortal named Tithonus. Recognizing the difficulties such a relationship entailed, Aurora begged Jupiter (the king) to grant immortality to Tithonus. Unfortunately, she forgot to mention that the immortality she sought was that of eternal youth. Jupiter, never passing by an opportunity to tweak someone else, granted the goddess’ request—literally. To Aurora’s horror Tithonus never dies; he just grows older . . . and older . . . and older.*
I am thankful that the true God is not a rogue like the ancients’ Jupiter! His gift of eternal life is much different—and much better— than mere immortality. The word translated “eternal” refers to the kind of life characteristic of the “age to come”—when God’s rule, established by Jesus Christ, “destroy[s] death and [brings] life and immortality to light” (2 Tim. 1:10). The eternal life that our loving God has promised to those who believe in his Son is so great that the Bible says: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him—but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9-10).
God’s gift of eternal life is not just “pie in the sky bye and bye,” but is something experienced in the here and now: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life . . .” (John 3:36). Those who have eternal life are able to deal with the hardships of this life courageously and look ahead expectantly: “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:16-17).
Is this your experience? It can be! “Ask, and you will receive.”
* I am indebted to John Fortner for telling me the name of the myth and to Bullfinch’s Mythology for its synopsis.
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