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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman We've
Already Entered Eternity While being raised in
1950's and 1960's Evangelical Christianity my impression was that I would
enter eternal life when I die. I
see it somewhat differently now, as I believe is seen in John 5:24. "Very
truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has
eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to
life. Our English word
"believes" seen here and throughout the New Testament must be
understood as "trusts" since that is what its Greek equivalent
means. Believing does not
merely mean giving mental assent to something that is true, and that
includes the existence of Jesus and all things pertaining to Him.
As believing pertains to our salvation, it means trusting Jesus,
not only with our salvation, but with our very lives.
It means entering into an eternal trusting relationship with Him.
That's a far cry from intellectually agreeing with the Biblical
view of Jesus, salvation, eternal life, and all of the rest. Our English verb
"believes" in John 5:24 is a present, active Greek participle.
I understand this to place the emphasis on one actually and
actively being a present-day trusting in Jesus person.
It's about who one actually is as a person and not just about what he or she
mentally believes.
With the above in mind,
in John 5:24 Jesus said that a person who believes, a trusting in Jesus person,
"has eternal life" and "has crossed over from death to
life." In both of these
phrases the verb tense is a present active indicative Greek verb.
It's present tense, not future tense.
This verb means that right now in present time, a trusting in Jesus
person, beyond any doubt, has entered eternal life, and thus, has already
passed from death to life eternal. In 1 Corinthians 6:17
Paul wrote that those who are united with Jesus, are one with Him in
spirit. I, then, exist in the
eternal spiritual realm with Jesus, despite the fact that I still live in
this material, time space world. Paul
also stated where Jesus presently sits, as seen in Ephesians 1:19.
"He [God] raised
Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly
realms," Right now Jesus sits
beside His Father, but look at where we as Christians sit.
Read Ephesians 2:6. "And God raised us
up with Christ and seated us with him in the
heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,"
Spiritually speaking, I conclude that
right now, God our Father, Jesus, and us as Christians, all exist together
in the heavenly, spiritual realm that is eternity.
We must, then, daily demonstrate our spiritual reality in the
material, time space world in which we also live.
Post Script
I've often heard that we
must not be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.
When thinking of our present western-world Christianity, I maintain
that we must not be so earthly minded that we are of no heavenly good.
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