Eternal Life

DEFENSE

This fails to understand both the biblical concept of eternal life and other things Scripture says.

A basic truth of linguistics is that you can’t define a term simply by looking at its parts; you must look at how it’s used in practice. To violate this principle is to commit the etymological fallacy (e.g., the word awful is a combination of awe and full; it originally meant something full of awe and that thus inspired reverence, but now it means something exceedingly bad).

Similarly, you can’t look at the phrase “eternal life” and define it just by looking at its parts. You must look at how it’s used in the New Testament. When you do this, it is clear that eternal life does not refer simply to unending bodily life. That is something even the damned will have after the resurrection of the dead, but it is clear the damned don’t have eternal life in the sense the New Testament is interested in (see, e.g., John 3:36b). Eternal life thus deals not just with a quantity but a quality or kind of life.

Further, while there are verses that speak of eternal life as a present possession of believers, there are also passages that speak of it as something they have not yet achieved. Thus Paul says that on the last day God “will give eternal life” to believers (Rom. 2:7) and “he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life . . . if we do not lose heart” (Gal. 6:8–9; cf. 1 Tim. 6:12, Titus 1:2, 3:7).

Thus we don’t yet have eternal life in the final sense. We may have a promise (1 John 2:25) and even a partial experience of it, but we can lose these through mortal sin (see Day 302). Thus John warns his audience: “Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15).

To receive eternal life on the last day, Scripture says to “keep your- selves in the love of God; wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 21).