A matter of life and death.

Abstract

I. Jesus came to offer life (24-26)  26 three Greek words for life used in the Gospels; one refers to daily life and resources for living, another signifies the self-conscious awareness, the third used 6 times in this passage is "zoe" which typically indicates life given by God and is often paired with the adjective "eternal".  life isn't something God owns or controls it is part of who He is, He has life in Himself (intrinsic and absolute); Genesis 2:7 we're told that God "breathed life" into the man He had made; John 1:4 "In him was life, and the life was the light of men."  Eternal life involves a personal relationship with God the author and giver of life; John 17:3 "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."  Jesus made a couple of his "truly, truly" statements here about eternal life  24 So how do we get this eternal life? Men would do anything, pay any price in exchange for life. Jesus said all you have to do is hear (believe and obey) his word and believe the One who sent him. That's it?  Did you catch what he said about us in there? He called us dead. That's the result of the Fall. All of humanity is spiritually dead. He breathed life into us, we enjoyed that perfect relationship (life) with Him; we sinned and forfeited that life. Jesus came to deliver us from death back to life.  Ephesians 2:1-7 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  Important to note when this transaction takes place. We often get caught in the trap of thinking, "If I can only persevere in this life and hold on to the bitter end, I'll have eternal life with God after I die." Wrong! Look what Jesus said, "HAS eternal life" and "HAS passed from death to life."  He backs this up in v25 "an hour is coming and is now here"; There is a phrase theologians like to throw around with respect to salvation "already but not yet"; What it gets at is that when we are in Christ we experience the wonderful benefits of being saved, but only a foretaste of the glory yet to come. This verse is a wonderful example of that.  We know a day is coming when "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4); Jesus brought a taste of that last day glory into the present day healed the sick, cast out demons, raised three people from the dead (ruler's daughter from Matthew 9, widow's son from Luke 7, Lazarus in John 11); John 11:25-26 "Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die."  So yes, we look forward to eternal life with God in heaven after we die, but we don't have to wait until then. We have life already. So the question is, "Why are we living like we're still dead?"