In John 5:24 Jesus says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
When it comes to being alive or dead, Jesus places people in
two categories. Jesus identifies these
two groups of people in the above verse.
The difference between these two groups is that those who are
spiritually alive have heard Jesus’ words and believed in the One who sent Him,
whereas the latter do not and are spiritually dead. To understand the verse, it must be understood
that Jesus is talking about a person spiritually.
Notice that “death” is put before “life” in this verse. This is not a coincidence. Since Adam and Eve, all humans have been born
spiritually dead. Physically man is
alive at birth and continues to be “physically alive” until he dies. At that point, according to the Bible, he no
longer exists in any form. (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20). Jesus is making the claim here that at “judgement”
he can “impart eternal life” to those who believe in Him.
Jesus goes on (5:25-26) to state that He has the power to
impart eternal life. In (5:27-30) Jesus
claims that in the future He will raise from the dead everyone who has ever
lived and at that time will judge them for all eternity. This claim that Jesus
is making about eternal life must be understood in the context of God’s plan of
redemption as outlined throughout the Old and the New Testaments.
The Bible tells us that God gave us physical life and also
that we all will eventually die. This
situation came about by the actions of our first parents, Adam and Eve. God made available for them the gift of
eternal life that is represented by the tree of life in Genesis 2:9. The tree represented God’s way of life which
was total obedience to God’s revealed will.
The garden also had another tree which was the called the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The
tree represented man deciding for himself what was right and what was
wrong. They rejected the total obedience
to God’s will in favor of choosing to follow their own will. If they would not have done this, they would
have received eternal life (Genesis 2:17).
God told them their fate, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your
food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken, for dust you
are and to dust you will return.”
The good news is that God, from the beginning, had a plan,
and the offer of eternal life still stands.
Through the rest of the Bible, God unfolds this plan for us. We are rescued from death by the blood of
Jesus Christ.
The apostle Paul explains how and when we will receive
eternal life when he explains, “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable
inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell
you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash,
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the
trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be
changed. For the perishable must clothe
itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the
imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written
will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
Paul clearly tells us that this will happen when
Christ returns to earth. “Brothers
and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in
death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will
bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s
word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of
the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For
the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command,
with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead
in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will
be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And
so we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).
This is when all Christians meet with Jesus, receive our
immortal glorified bodies and return to heaven with Jesus to live eternally.
