"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."

                            -John 3:36 

A few weeks ago I began to study this verse, and one of the first things I noticed was that John the Baptist (the one speaking) had a different perspective on eternal life than most Christians today. He said that whoever believes on Christ hath everlasting life, not that they will one day have it. The reason I found this so intriguing is that I had previously viewed eternal life as nothing more than endless existence, but according to this verse, eternal life begins the moment we are saved, not when we make it to heaven. Sure, endless existence is, in a way, eternal life; but even sinners will experience this type of eternal life in hell, and we know from Scripture that the lake of fire is "the second death" (Revelation 21:8), not a place of eternal life.

So what is eternal life then? To answer that question, we need to look no further than the second chapter of Genesis, verse 17:

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

                            

If you have read the story of man's fall in the first few chapters of Genesis, then you know that when Eve disobeyed God and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she didn't drop down dead at the foot of the tree. Yes, she eventually experienced a physical death; but God had promised that death would come instantly, not eventually. So did God lie? Not at all! Adam and Eve did die, in that their perfect relationship with Him was severed. Based on these Scriptures, then, we can conclude that God's definition of life is more than living, moving, and breathing; it is having a relationship with Him.

Eternal life does indeed mean living forever, but it's more than just that. It is having an everlasting relationship with God. After all, a life apart from Christ is no life at all.