John’s First Epistle opens with the manifestation of eternal life in the Person of the Son come in flesh. This eternal life was with the Father, and only in Him in whom the Father was revealed could this life be made known. He had ever been with the Father, and knew all the thoughts, desires and feelings of the heart of the Father, and coming into the world expressed in His own Person, and in His words this life which Scripture calls eternal life.
Shortly before the Son left the world to return to the Father, He said to Him, “As Thou hast given Him authority over all flesh, that (as to) all that Thou hast given to Him, He should give them life eternal.” From this we learn that it was the will of the Father to communicate eternal life to those He gave to the Son. Then Jesus speaks of what eternal life is, when He says, “And this is the eternal life, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:2-3).
Eternal life therefore consists in the knowledge of the only true God, that is of God fully revealed as Father in the Person of the Son, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the Sent One of the Father. This divine life is evidently connected with the Christian revelation, as far as this world is concerned, and could not be known apart from the incarnation of Jesus.
The eternal life was not manifested in an angelic being; nor was it simply in a special manifestation, like the Theophanies of the Old Testament; but it was in the Son of God become Man, a real Man, who was “heard…seen…contemplated, and…handled.” The revelation of the eternal life was as perfect as was the Manhood the Son of God took to bring to men the true knowledge of God.
This divine life is called eternal life because it is eternal: it exists outside of time, although it has been brought into time in Jesus. The natural life of man is bounded by time. Individuals may reach a life span of nearly a thousand years, like the ancients before the flood; and as they will in the coming Millennium; but human life as derived from Adam sooner or later comes to an end. Even if we contemplate human life in connection with the race, it is not eternal. It began with Adam, some six thousand years ago, and it will pass away when the earth is no more. But eternal life lies outside what is connected with Adam; it had no beginning, and will never have an end.
While it is eternal life, without beginning and end, it was new so far as its manifestation in this world is concerned. Its beginning down here was in the Person of Jesus. What belonged to heaven was displayed on earth. It is not only heavenly in origin, but heavenly in character. This Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, when He said, “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen…If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things” (John 3:11-12).
Although this is a heavenly life, it is not spoken of as the life of the created heavenly beings. 1 John 1 says, “It was with the Father,” and therefore brings before us the life in which the Son lived with the Father, a life of holy affections and divine relationships. Yet it is a life into which God can bring his creature man, and indeed, the life was manifested in the Son with a view to bringing men into the enjoyment of it. But we must realise that there is that into which no creature could ever be brought, that which belongs to God in His essence, which is not only unknown but unknowable by the creature, even as we read in 1 Timothy 6:16, “Who only has the immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.”
The great angelic beings of heaven have their own state and conditions of life: they are the holy angels, who live in constant unswerving obedience to God, carrying out His will as His servants, even as it is written, “Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire.” Men are differently constituted to angels, and although their life is a very blessed one, it is not given to us to enter into their thoughts and feelings, and all that constitute their heavenly life. We read of their shouting for joy in Job 38:7, and often of their praise. But this eternal life, which was with the Father is not communicated to the angels, but to those the Son has received from the Father.
Nor do we read in Scripture of the saints of old having received the eternal life. They were indeed born of God, and no doubt possessed a life that death could not touch, but it was not a heavenly life that they enjoyed. It was not theirs as yet to know the Name of Father, or even to be able to take their place as the children of God: these things awaited the coming of the Son into the world. The saints of old were privileged to live in communion with God according to the revelation He was pleased to give of Himself; and this was their life, the divine life in which they lived, but the eternal life had not yet been manifested, much less possessed.
The eternal life consists in the new relationships and affections that belong to the revelation of the Name of Father. There could be no knowledge of the Father until the Son came, so that none on earth could know the affections of the Father’s heart except through the Son. These blest affections could only be known in the nearest place of relationship to the Father, and the Son came not only to tell us of the affections of the Father but to bring us into relationship with the Father and with Himself, that eternal life might be ours.
The babes in the divine family now know the Father, even as we read in 1 John 2:13, “I write unto you little children, because ye have known the Father;” and as having the Spirit of sonship, the believer is able to cry “Abba, Father.” Abraham was the friend of God, and God revealed to him His intention of destroying Sodom; but although so highly honoured, Abraham could not say, as the babes now, “Abba, Father.” Nor could Moses, even though he could enter into the presence of Jehovah and speak with Him, as no other could. Not even David could lisp the Name of Father, even though he wrote so blessedly and sang so sweetly of the coming of the Lord, and of the display of His glory.
No doubt all the saints in heaven, Old Testament as well as New Testament, will know the joys of eternal life; but it is the portion of the saints of this day, the day in which there has been the revelation of the Father, to enter in some feeble way into the eternal life that was made known by the Son on earth, and is now possessed in Him by all who believe in Him. In heaven we shall enjoy to the full the eternal life that God has given to us, but it will be the same life then that God has given us to enjoy even while passing through this world. It is not in the circumstances of nature that we enjoy eternal life, but as drawn apart from all that belongs to nature and to the world, into the presence of God to have communion with the Father and the Son.
Although the relationships and affections that we now enjoy will be unchanged in heaven, our conditions of life will be very different, for we shall have bodies of glory like Christ’s body of glory. This is before the mind of the Apostle Paul when he writes of eternal life. John writes of a spiritual life now ours in the Son of God, but Paul presents it in relation to our glorified state in heaven, and therefore writes of the “hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the ages of time” (Titus 1:2).
In 1 John 1:3 we learn that the report concerning the manifestation of eternal life in the Son of God was given to bring the saints of God into the joys of Christian fellowship, fellowship with the apostles who brought the report, but also fellowship with the Father and the Son. It is in the enjoyment of this fellowship that we know the joys of eternal life; for these things, the apostle can say, “write we unto you that your joy may be full.”
R. 1959