The Exceedingly Great and Precious Promise

“ Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began…” (Titus 1:1-2).

“Therefore, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life (1 John 2:24-25).

There is no greater, nor exceedingly more precious promise in the Bible than the promise of eternal life. It is great because it is ultimately the restoration of the glorious life with God for which we were created (Isaiah 43:7), a life mankind forfeited because of sin, our rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives (Romans 3:23).  It is exceedingly precious because it is a gift, a gift received only by faith, which itself is also a gift of God (Romans 6:23) (Ephesians 2:8-9).

And nowhere in the Bible is this gift of eternal life spoken of or revealed more clearly than in the New Testament. This is not to say that the promise is absent in the Old Testament.  It is there, just with not as much clarity, as Jesus Christ Himself is ultimately the source and substance of that life (1 John 5:10-13) (John 10:10).

Since Jesus is the source of this life, we see our first reference to Him in Genesis 3:15, in the promise of the seed of the women, who will destroy the works of the serpent, the devil whose poisonous lie Adam and everyone since Adam have believed and acted upon, bringing death, the loss of the glorious life with God for which man was created to every person;  death which will have its final and forever expression in Hell (Romans 5:17-18) (1 John 3:8) (Matthew 25:41).

God the Father sent God the Son – Jesus, into the world as a man, that through His sinless life, substitutionary death and miraculous resurrection, the glorious life with God for which man was created would be graciously restored to all who would turn from their sin and entrust their lives to Jesus as their Savior and Lord (John 3:16) (Galatians 4:4) (Romans 10:9-13).

Although the reality of eternal or everlasting life is most clearly revealed in the New Testament, it is alluded to often in the Old Testament in passages such as Psalm 23:6, Job 19:25-27, Isaiah 25:8-9, and Ezekiel 37:11-14.  In Genesis 5:21-24 and 2 Kings 2:11 we have revealed that Enoch and Elijah were both assumed into Heaven without experiencing death, with Elijah and Moses who had died, appearing alive with Jesus at His transfiguration in Matthew 17:1-4.

We also see in Daniel 12:2 the promise of resurrection unto eternal life for some, while others will be resurrected to everlasting torment.  It is clear from this scripture and others that eternal life is not just referring to the duration of our existence, which will be forever either in Heaven or Hell, but is most importantly referring to the quality or blessedness of that eternal existence (Matthew 25:34).

It is notable that the people in Jesus’ day had some level of belief in this promise of eternal life, as on at least two occasions Jesus was approached by someone with the question of what one must do to receive it (Mark 10:17) (Luke 10:25-27).

Jesus gives His clearest answer to this question in Luke 10 wherein He elicits that answer from the man asking the question, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself”. 

This answer helps us understand that eternal life is primarily relational.  This becomes very clear in John 17:1-3, where Jesus, in His prayer to the Father shortly before His crucifixion, tells us exactly what eternal life is, namely that we would know – have personal, intimate and experiential relationship with Him and the Father within the glorious relationship and life with God for which man was created in the beginning. This relational aspect becomes even more clear throughout the prayer as Jesus prays for this glorious relationship to be experienced by those who have and will believe in Him (John 17:20-26).

This life of eternal blessing from and favor with God in our union with Jesus and the Father begins when we are born again or regenerated, restored to spiritual life by a supernatural work of  God the Holy Spirit in our soul, who personally comes to live in us to impart to us every spiritual blessing God has blessed us with in Jesus (John 3:3-8) (Titus 3:4-7) (Ephesians 1:3).  And from that moment in time everything changes, most importantly, us (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).

The Holy Spirit’s work in our heart, the core of our being that has been thoroughly corrupted by sin, is multifaceted and complete as He instills in us new desires, with new motivations and affections that are centered on God as the object of our deepest love and source of our greatest joy. (Jeremiah 17:9) (Ezekiel 36:24-28) (1 John 4:19).

He, the Holy Spirit, convicts us of our sin and grants us the gift of repentance, creating in us the desire to turn from our sinful and self-centered lives, to live a God-centered life wherein we come to see our sin as violently offensive to our holy and righteous God and worthy of His judgement, and thus desperately long to be free from its control over our lives (John 16:7-11) (2 Timothy 2:25) (Romans 7:22-25).

He grants us the faith to believe and receive unto ourselves all that Jesus has accomplished on our behalf through His sinless life and sacrificial death so that our sins can be justly forgiven and we can be declared righteous and reconciled to God, adopted as His beloved children, translated out of the kingdom of darkness, wherein we were enemies of God, into the kingdom of His beloved Son, a joint heir of that kingdom and of all the blessings that will be found in it throughout eternity (2 Corinthians 5:21) (Romans 8:14-17) (Colossians 1:13-14) .

The Holy Spirit sheds/produces the love for God in our hearts, a love that is to control – motivate all that we do in this world and throughout the ages to come, as we no longer live for ourselves but for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us (Romans 5:5) (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

The Spirit, from the moment He grants new life, becomes our teacher or helper, opening our spiritual eyes to see and understand spiritual truths that are found in God’s gracious self-revelation, the Bible, and then to apply them to our lives (John 16:12-15) (1 Corinthians 2:9-13).

Most importantly, He opens our spiritual eyes to see by faith the glory of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ such that He becomes the desire of our heart and delight of our soul (2 Corinthians 4:6), wherein knowing, loving and being loved by Him begins to become more important to us than anything else in this world.

The Spirit then works in us to achieve the glorious purpose for which we were saved, which is to be conformed to the image of the man Jesus Christ, who is the true image of God that men and women were intended to be from the beginning (Hebrews 1:1-4) (Genesis 1:27). We are told in Romans 8:28-30 that God is working all things that occur in the lives of those who love God, who are submitted to His purpose, to that end.  And we are encouraged by Philippians 1:6 that God will not fail in achieving this purpose.

Yet we have a significant role and responsibility in this transformative process that God will graciously empower us to fulfill as we seek to experience eternal life now, and on into the ages to come.   We will look at that process in my next post.

Grace and Peace ×