Trumpet Ministries Eternal Life
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Eternal life is the central message of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Contrary to popular opinion, eternal life is not the same as Heaven. Eternal life is a kind of life. Heaven is a place. An individual can be with or without eternal life in Heaven or on the earth.
God did not give His Son so whoever believes in Him would go to Heaven, as we usually preach, but would have eternal life.
You can't go to Heaven today unless you die, but you certainly can have life today. So we see there is a difference between Heaven and eternal life.
Eternal life is the Life of God that comes to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. He Himself is the Resurrection and the Life.
There are two kinds of life: flesh and blood life, and the Life of God. Flesh and blood life is a temporary kind of life, subject to corruption, and cannot possibly enter the Kingdom of God. Eternal life is eternal, is not subject to corruption, and is an aspect of the Kingdom of God.
Eternal life can be experienced in degrees. There is life, and then there is more abundant life. Paul told Timothy, who certainly was saved and had a portion of eternal life, to lay hold on eternal life.
When we receive Christ as our Savior we are given a portion of eternal life. Then the fight is on. Our sinful nature desires to maintain its own ideas and life. The eternal life that is in us desires to increase so our fellowship with God may increase.
Death and life struggle each day for mastery over us. If we obey God in all matters, living as a Christian should, observing the commandments of Christ and His Apostles, God will deliver us from sin and rebellion one step at a time. Each deliverance from spiritual death causes spiritual life to increase in us.
If we do not observe the commandments of Christ and His Apostles, if we do not live as a Christian should, then we are not undergoing the process of deliverance from sin. Then we are in danger, as in the parable of the sower, of losing the life that had been given to us.
The ten virgins went to meet the Lord. Five were too low on oil, on the Life of God. They were not permitted to go to be with the Lord.
We must remember that one of the supreme goals of the Christian salvation is the redemption, the adoption of our mortal body. This means the same Holy Spirit we have now will make alive our body at the coming of the Lord. This is a goal held before us. As Paul says, we must lay aside all else that we may attain to the resurrection that is out from among the dead.
If we, as a Christian, insist on living in the sinful nature, we will not attain to the resurrection that is out from among the dead, the first resurrection, the resurrection to life and glory. We will be held over to the second resurrection and receive the reward of our works.
Paul warns us that if we live according to the sinful nature we will die, that is, we will not have a life-filled inward personality in the day of resurrection and thus are not eligible for the filling of our resurrected body with Divine Life.
So we Christians, perhaps without realizing it, are in a struggle to press through and overcome the last enemy. If we faithfully follow the Lord Jesus in all matters, then, when He comes, we will receive eternal life in our body. But if we do not follow the Lord Jesus in all matters, then, when He returns, we will find ourselves in a state of corruption. Whoever sows to his or her sinful nature will experience corruption in the day of resurrection.
The believers of today must be made aware their supreme goal is not to go to Heaven when they die but to attain to life in the day of resurrection. It is what takes place regarding us in the day of resurrection that is so utterly important to us, not what happens when we die.
The doctrines of the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment are hardly known today. Yet, according to the writer of the Book of Hebrews, they are but elementary principles of the Kingdom. We certainly have lost much of the original revelation given to the Apostles of the Lamb!
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 am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (John 6:51)
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)
Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (I Timothy 6:12)
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