The Eternal Life Series offers a look at eternal life based on John 17:3 and related New Testament scriptures.
Most or all of the New Testament was written in Greek, so Bible students often dissect scripture by minutely examining Greek words and philosophies. This is natural for Americans because the American education and culture is based on Greek ways of thought.
However, Jesus probably taught mostly in Hebrew, with some of his teachings in Aramaic. Jesus and his followers were well educated in the Hebrew Old Testament. For the first couple of decades after his death, the followers of Jesus were mostly practicing Jews. It seems likely that a better understanding of the teachings of Jesus can be attained by looking at them through a Jewish cultural viewpoint and a better understanding of Hebrew words.
The impetus for this series were some of the episodes of the Bema Discipleship podcast, along with personal study times with Hebrew experts Elle Grove Fricks and Brad H. Young. Working with them, we developed a dictionary of some Hebrew words that you can find in Reference 7 of the Reference section of this website.
Although each episode in this series can be approached individually, the Eternal Life Series is written for viewers to watch all of the episodes in the order in which they are presented.
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To many Christians in the modern world, “eternal life” means going to heaven after you die and living there forever. What else can it possibly mean?
In John 17:3, Jesus offers one of the few definitions in the Bible. He says, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” In this verse, “know” means a deep, intimate relationship. So, eternal life is having a deep, intimate relationship with God and Jesus.
The term “eternal life” is used more than forty times in the New Testament. If you start with the possibility that eternal life has to do with relationship, you find that many of those verses have to do with relationship, not the afterlife. You find that many of these verses have a much richer meaning if you think of relationship with God in the current life, as well as going to heaven after death.
An example to consider is the story of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-30. In this story, both the terms “eternal life” and “saved” are mentioned. If you consider both of them as having to do with relationship now, as well as the afterlife, the entire story is very powerful. Eternal life and salvation start now, not just at the moment of death.
