Eternal Life Essay

This man had been miraculously saved from a cocaine addiction, and he was listening to my teachings day and night. He wanted to get to the bottom of everything, or to the core of Christianity. So, he finally asked, “If you only had one opportunity to minister to a person, what would you teach?”

I still had to think for a moment, but quickly came up with an answer. I would share the meaning of true eternal life. That may not sound very profound or even foundational, but that’s because most people don’t know what the Bible means when it talks about eternal life.

Someone might say, “Eternal life is living forever.” But that’s not it. No one ceases to exist when they die. Everyone lives forever in either heaven or hell. “Well then, eternal life must be living forever in heaven

It’s not something that begins when we get to heaven. There are a number of scriptures that speak of everlasting life as something we possess in this life (John 4:14; 5:24; 6:27; 6:40, 47).

So, the question remains, “What is everlasting life?” This is very important. John 3:16 says this is the reason that Jesus came.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Many people have mistakenly thought that the goal of salvation is the forgiveness of sin to avoid hell. That’s not what John 3:16 is saying. Sure, not perishing in hell is an important part of what Jesus came to do. He accomplished that by paying the debt for all our sins, past, present, and even the ones we haven’t committed yet.

If that’s all there is to salvation, that’s more than any of us deserve, and it would still be worth preaching. But salvation is much, much more than getting our sins forgiven so we can go to heaven instead of