What does eternal life mean in the Bible?
Eternal life is one of the most central promises of the New Testament, and its best-known expression is John 3:16: the Son was given so that whoever believes in him "should not perish, but have eternal life." At first glance the phrase may sound like endless duration after…
Eternal life is one of the most central promises of the New Testament, and its best-known expression is John 3:16: the Son was given so that whoever believes in him "should not perish, but have eternal life." At first glance the phrase may sound like endless duration after death, but John's Gospel defines it more deeply. In Jesus' prayer, eternal life is described as a relationship: "This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ." On this understanding, eternal life does not begin at death; it is a quality of life that begins now and that death cannot interrupt. John states the same idea in the present tense: the one who believes "has" eternal life. In Paul's letters the concept is put in the language of gift: "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Nor does the New Testament leave eternal life as a merely individual future; the closing chapters of Revelation picture a renewed creation without death, mourning or pain: "He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes." That larger picture shows eternal life as the hope of creation restored, not an escape from it. The question is asked often in the Gospels — "what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" — and Jesus' answers keep turning the hearer toward faith and a life of love. The related chapters can be read on this site; the "Start with John" reading plan follows this theme's main text from beginning to end.