When I was growing up, I got a lot of really good teaching about the life to come. I read books on Heaven; I read accounts of people who claimed to have visited. The hope of eternal life in Heaven was something to sustain and encourage us as we slogged through life, and rightfully so. The Bible’s image of the New Heaven and New Earth is glorious.
What I don’t remember hearing as much about was how God intended to have us participate in eternal life right now. We would sing, “This world is not my home, I’m just passing through,” which suggested life was a frustrating annoyance until we got to the good stuff after we died.
It turns out we are not “just passing through.” Jesus invites us to enter into and experience the life of the Kingdom now in very tangible ways. Life isn’t just an inconvenient means to an end. Jesus invites us to flourish in God’s good creation, filled with His Spirit, invited to become part of the “body” of Christ for the nourishing of the world with the lived out good news that God is love, and His love is for you.
I wish I had heard that more. I wish we had talked more about what that looked like. So, here we go.
Here is today’s text with commentary added to provide the context and subtext. I encourage you to read this passage on your own in its uninterrupted form just to be clear on the distinction J
Now there were some God-fearing Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast of Passover. They came to Philip, who was from the Greek are of Bethsaida in Galilee[1], with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to observe Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus about the request.
Jesus granted permission, then spoke to them all. “This is what’s happening. Listen carefully: truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Anyone who delights in his life in this world more than in God will lose it, while anyone who thinks so little of his life, and so much of God, that he is willing to sacrifice it all for God, will keep it for eternal life.[2] Whoever serves me must follow me to where I am going; and where I am, my servant also will be.
My Father will honor the one who serves me. Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. This is the fulfillment of the Father’s plan. Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified my name, and will glorify it again.” Some in the crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.[3]
Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine: to confirm you in this great truth, that I am the Son of God, he whom God the Father has sent into the world, by and in whom he designs to bring glory to His name.[4]
Now is the time for judgment and condemnation on the power of sin in this world[5]; now the prince of this world will be driven out and decisively defeated for all to see[6]. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will, like a fisherman dragging in his net, drag all the people[7] of the world to me.”[8] (He said this to show that he would be lifted up by dying on a cross lifted up from the earth.)
* * * * *
Let’s pause for a Biblical Words Nerd Corner Moment. This isn’t trivia; it’s clarity about the subject matter. The Bible has an interesting way of talking about things that last forever, or things that have ‘eternal life’ or are ‘everlasting’.
· Animal sacrifices were to be offered “forever”- until the sacrifice of Jesus Christ ended the need for animal sacrifices (2 Chronicles 2:4; Hebrews 7:11-10:18).
· God planned to dwell in Solomon’s temple “forever” - but it was destroyed (2 Chronicles 7:16).
· The old covenant of the law is referred to as the "everlasting covenant" (Leviticus 24:8), yet 2 Corinthians 3 tells us it was transitory and has been replaced, and Hebrews 8:13 says, “In speaking of a new covenant, [Jesus] makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
Were the biblical writers confused? I don’t think so. I believe they were inspired to choose even their individual words in a way that captured what God wanted to reveal. So if we assume this was not a mistake, there must be something going on with the language that is important.
In Hebrew, the word translated in 2 Chronicles as “forever” is olam. It's all over the Old Testament. It can mean an ancient time, a future time, a lifetime, a span of time with an uncertain end, an age of the world, a dynasty, an eternity… It’s a very flexible word.
When the Hebrew was translated into Greek in the Septuagint, the (still inspired) writers had to make a choice about how to translate olam. They chose the word aionios.[9] You will usually see this translated in English as ‘eternal,’ ‘everlasting,’ or forever just like olam is in the Old Testament. However, it’s more complex than that.
Its primary meaning is that the end is not known. While in the belly of the big fish, Jonah said the earth bound him forever (olam/aionios), but it was only three days. It was a time span with an unknown end. The end is there; you just can’t see it until its there -– like when you look out over Lake Michigan at the dunes and can’t see an end to the water. It’s a mystery. We might say it goes on forever. A bored child might say, “We’ve been here for ages. When are we going to leave?” Think of the disciples’ question in our passage today:
Matthew 24:3 “Tell us, when these things will be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age (aion)?”[10]
When is this age – this ‘forever’ age? this ‘eternal’ age? – going to end and the next one begin? Clearly the disciples meant something other than ‘eternal’ when used a word often translated as ‘eternal’. They aren’t the only ones.
Hebrews 1:1-2 “…in these last days [God] did speak to us in a Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He did make the ages (aion).[11]
Hebrews 9:26 ”…But now He has appeared… at the consumation of the ages (aion),[12] for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
Ephesians 3:8-9 To me…this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages (aionon) has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1:19-20, 26 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross…the mystery which has been hidden from ages (aionon) and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.
So there have been ages in world history (not eternities in world history) –and we aren’t done yet.
Ephesians 1:20-21 “…when He raised [Jesus] from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age (aion) but also in that age which is to come.”
Ephesians 2:6-8 “…raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages (aion) he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
So, there have been a few ages; there will be more. The writers aren’t babbling incoherently about one endless eternity after another. They clearly mean something different. Meanwhile, both John and Paul show us what it looks like to talk about something being everlasting, covering all ages.
Revelation 1: 17-18 “I am the First and the Last, and I am the living One[13]. I entered the realm of the dead; but see, I am alive now and to the ages (aion) of the ages (aion) .”[14]
Revelation 22:5 “God’s servants will continually serve and worship Him… by His light, they will reign throughout the ages (aion) of the ages (aion).”[15]
Ephesians 3:21 “..to Him is the glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus, to all the generations of the age (aion) of the ages (aion).”
Clearly, John and Paul write of eternal life in the way we think of it, endless life in the ages of ages to come. But in today’s text, when Jesus said his disciples would get and keep eternal life, he was saying something about aionios life – life in this age, something we have now. How so?
It turns out that this word also describe a quality of life. It’s about who we are and what we do. HELPS Word Studies describes it like this:
An "age-characteristic"…the unique quality reality of God's life at work in the believer… Eternal (aiṓnios) life gives time its everlasting meaning for the believer through faith…thus believers live in "eternal (aiṓnios) life" right now, experiencing this quality of God's life now as a present possession.” (HELPS Word-studies)
When the rich ruler asked Jesus what he needed to do to have “eternal life,” and when Jesus talked to his disciples about eternal life, the phrase is aionios zoe[16], literally: “age life/life in the age,” the kind of life that comes from relationship with God beginning now and enduring throughout the age. They weren’t asking about where they were going to go when they died (though they had questions about that other places). Here, Jesus is talking about the life “more abundant” that Jesus offers us beginning now (John 10:10). A little later in the book of John, Jesus explained:
This is eternal life (zoe aionios): that they may know You, the only true God.”(John 17:3)
Earlier in the gospel, Jesus said:
“He who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life (zoe aionios), and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:24)
Zoe aionios (“eternal life”) begins now with Christ in us, the hope of glory.[17] Back to the text we read this morning.
“Anyone who serves Me must follow My path; anyone who serves Me will want to be where I am, and he will be honored by the Father…”
Those who are willing to sacrifice their life to follow Jesus will live in the aionios life God has given to them.
Bottom line: Though spiritual life or death, destruction or reward of the ages to come is always in our spiritual line of sight, we will live in and experience life or death, destruction or reward in this age as well. Jesus told his disciples to follow him now, embrace eternal life now, walk in the light now, in the midst of the darkness of this age.
Okay, we are out of the Biblical Words Nerd Corner.
How do we live in this life? As a response to the love God has shown us through Jesus, we are like the seed that falls to the ground: that which brings death and destruction – sin – must die if we are to rise into aionios life by following the person, teaching and the path of Jesus above all else.
Dying sounds hard because it is. But we all have to let some things in out life die so that other things can live.
· If I want to live healthy, I need to let my desire for fried chicken and mac and cheese die.
· If I want to be a violin virtuoso, I will need to let my desire for 10,000 hours worth of other activities die.
· If I want to really be known and loved, I need to let my desire to hide die.
Maybe another way of saying it is that I am going to need to know which things need to be dead to me so that I might live.
If I am going to follow Jesus, my desire for things that compete for my allegiance and worship must die; my desire to be lord of my life must die; my sight must be fixed on that which brings and builds eternal life so that I can taste and see that the Lord and His Kingdom are good.
This dying to self is not simply the way for us to experience the fullness of zoe aionios, the life of heaven in this age. It’s how we spread it to everyone around us.
Whenever we worship, somebody dies, and it will be either us or others.
If I worship my comfort, I will sacrifice my wife and kids. They will pay the cost of my comfort. “Stop bothering me. We will talk when I’m good and ready. No, you adjust your hopes and dreams and priorities because they don’t match mine.” I will sacrifice my friends. “I need you to show up on my terms.” I remain dead in my selfishness and sin, and I drag down those close to me.
If I worship my reputation, I will sacrifice any of you who don’t make me look good. “You think I’m wrong? You’re an idiot. You are winning an argument with me? I will lash out and try to humiliate you or keep beating this argument to death because I can’t be wrong.” And I will remain dead in myself selfishness and sin and drag down those around me.
If I worship money, I will choose work time over relationship time and I will choose profit over people. If I worship my health, I will make everyone else take second place to my diet and workout schedule. If I worship sex, all that will matter is my fulfillment and my happiness, and I will sacrifice the dignity and autonomy of people around me as I manipulate and pressure and use… And I will remain dead in my selfishness and sin and drag down those around me.
You want to know what you worship? Ask yourself whom you are willing to sacrifice; then ask yourself why.
So what do we do if we are caught in this trap? We must become that seed that falls to the ground and dies so it can be brought back to life and bear good fruit. Or, as Paul wrote, we present our bodies as living sacrifices, wholly acceptable unto God (Romans 12:1). Watch for a very important two words to show up J
In the same way you gave your bodily members away as servants to corrupt and lawless living and found yourselves deeper in your unruly lives, now devote your members as servants to right and reconciled lives so you will find yourselves deeper in holy living. In the days when you lived as slaves to sin, you had no obligation to do the right thing. In that regard, you were free.But what do you have to show from your former lives besides shame? The outcome of that life is death, guaranteed.
But now that you have been emancipated from the death grip of sin and are God’s slave, you have a different sort of life, a growing holiness. The outcome of that life is eternal life (zoe aionios). The payoff for a life of sin is death, but God is offering us a free gift—eternal life through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King. (Romans 6: 19-23)
It begins with a commitment to Jesus. We acknowledge the reality of who Jesus is; we surrender the lordship of our life to Him; we commit to following his path rather than ours. Holy living leads to growing holiness, which leads to experiencing the gift of zoe aionios God has given us.
I remember thinking as a young man that I wanted to make a difference in the Kingdom of God. I really wanted my life to count. I saw some older folks who were godly and whose presence had really impacted my life. I knew it was because of Jesus at work in them, and I wanted that!
I took me years to realize I couldn't just want that. We rest in Christ, but we don’t lounge in zoe aionios; we are invited to participate. A call to follow Jesus will require putting one foot in front of the other in the same direction as Jesus if we want to go with Jesus where Jesus is going.
· If I wanted the wisdom of aionios life, I had to prioritize certain things in my life that would lead to wisdom, like listening to and reading wise voices instead of entertaining but dumb ones.
· If I wanted the self-control of aionios life, I had to demonstrate the fruit of self-control that the Holy Spirit was growing on my branches.
· If I wanted the patience of aionios life instead of the anger that filled me, I had to follow Jesus deeper into understanding myself and maybe to a good counselor who helps me discover God’s healing.
· If I wanted to move from lustful thoughts to the pure thoughts of aionios life, I had to change what was filling my mind and bring in some righteous material the helped me view people as God sees them.
· If I wanted my marriage to embody spousal relationships in aionios life, I needed to increasingly learn and do biblical habits of loving and honoring and partnering with my wife.
There was no amount of wishful thinking that was going to change me in those areas. There was, however, the power of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit as the absolute foundation. Then, participation in aionios life: praying, studying the Bible, seeking counsel both casual and professional that steadied me in the path of righteousness, becoming accountable to others…and putting into practice what I learned. Holy living, leading to holy maturity, leading me deeper into eternal life.
That is still my challenge and my goal. Every day I need to drop seeds of sin to the ground to die so that I might produce life and not death. Every day, even in small ways, I must willing reject that which brings aionios death and embrace that which brings aionios life.
It is in this path that we begin to truly see how the Kingdom of God, right here and now, is meant for our good and God’s glory. N.T. Wright gets the final word.
“Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven…The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless…God has a great future in store for it.
What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future.
These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly…They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom.
Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion...
The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it.”
― N. T. Wright
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[1] “Philip’s name is Greek; he came from the region governed by Herod Philip… with connections to the Decapolis, which consisted of ten cities that were Greek in character.” (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)
[2] Loves his life means “delights in his life in this world more than in God.” Hates his life in this world means “thinks so little of his life, and so much of God, that he is willing to sacrifice it all for God.” (ESV Global Study Bible)
[3] Think of a similar scenario at Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:7; 22:9).
[4] Matthew Poole Commentary
[5] “By His coming death, Jesus will end the power of sin over Adam’s race, judging and condemning it.” (ESV Reformation Study bible)
[6] “At the cross, the devil will be cast out, that is, decisively defeated (see Luke 10:18; Heb. 2:14–15; Rev. 20:10).” (ESV Global Study Bible)
[7] HELPS Word-studies 3956 pás – each, every; each "part(s) of a totality…each (every) part that applies." The emphasis is on "one piece at a time."
[8] “There is an allusion here to the ensigns or colors of commanders of regiments, elevated on high places, that the people might flock to his standard.” (Adam Clarke)
[9] There could have chosen a Greek word that only means eternal or everlasting in a way that matches what we think of when we use the English words. That word is aidos. However, it’s only used twice in Scripture, and never in the phrase we translate as “eternal life.”
[10] Some translations say “end of the world.” That makes it sound like the end of time, but aionios points toward a time with an end, not the end of all time.
[11] Some translations say universe, world or worlds. That just…not what it means.
[12] The CEV says “at the end of time”; Webster’s says “world.” That’s not what it means.
[13] Daniel 4:34
[14] This is often translated “forever and ever” captures the intent of “ages” plural. The Aramaic Bible says “eternity of eternities,” which nails the intent,
[15] That’s how a Greek writer described forever and ever. They doubled down.
[16] “All life (2222 /zōḗ), throughout the universe, is derived – i.e. it always (only) comes from and is sustained by God's self-existent life. The Lord intimately shares His gift of life with people, creating each in His image which gives all the capacity to know His eternal life.” (HELPS Word Studies)
[17] “Eternal life is having the kind of life that God has… It isn’t just lasting forever. It’s a quality of life that we come to have by participating in the Kingdom of God.” (Dallas Williard)