What is "Eternal Life"?

Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life (Jn. 6:68).

 

Before I started to become sensitive to the words of Scripture, I imagined I "knew" what was meant by the term "eternal life."  I thought it referred to the life we would enjoy after this life -- everlasting life in heaven, with all the saints and angels and the eternal Presence of God. 

 

However, after experiencing a whole new kind of "life" as a result of my encounter with the Lord, I began to think that "eternal life" meant a great deal more than living forever in heaven.  I already knew that the "eternal life" referred to all through the book of John was based on the Greek word "zoe" as opposed to the Greek "bios."  Both words are used throughout John's Gospel, and it is a wonderful experience just to read the Gospel noticing the references to "zoe." 

 

When Jesus says, "The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (Jn, 10), the word "bios" is used, meaning "breath" or "spirit."  Throughout all of Chapter 6, however, the word "zoe" is used:



 

I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 

 

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.  The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

 

I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

 

The meaning of the Greek "zoe" is "lively," to live life lively, quick, energetic, with delight and satisfaction.  And this "eternal life" begins NOW for those who live in Jesus Christ.  This is what He came to impart to us --- not just life after death, but life in this life also:  I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.  The fullness of life, the joy of life.  He came to deliver us NOW from fear, from anxiety, from oppression, from slavery to sin and lust that destroys not only us but those around us. 

 

Eternal life is the present life filled with ultimate purpose and meaning,

life given its ultimate horizon, and lived beyond the insecurities and frailties of our humanity because it is now grounded in a firm and perceptible relationship with the God who is indestructible and utterly reliable (Fr. Anthony Oelrich, author of Feeding on the Bread of Life: Preaching and Praying John 6).

 

When Jesus begins to live His life in us, we are at last on "firm ground," whereas before we walked, as it were, in a slippery bog, fearful of human opinion and of our own failure.  When Peter tells Jesus that He alone has the "words of eternal life," he testifies that the words of Jesus, opening to us the Scriptures, bring us security:  As soon as I lie down, I fall peacefully asleep, for you alone, O Lord, bring security to my dwelling (Ps. 4).

 

St. John Chrysostom tells us that the Scriptures are "a door, for they bring us to God and open to us the knowledge of God; they make the sheep, they guard them, and suffer not the wolves to come in after them.  For Scripture, like some sure door, barreth the passage against the heretics, placing us in a state of safety as to all that we desire, and not allowing us wander; and if we undo it not, we shall not easily be conquered by our foes.  By it we can know all, both those who are, and those who are not, shepherds....Seest thou from this too that Christ agreeth with the Father, in that He bringeth forth the Scriptures?  (Commentaries on the Gospel of John).

 

Jesus is the Word made flesh.  In Him is eternal life, and only He can open to us the words of eternal life (zoe).  There are many today who care nothing about the next life, the one after this one, if they think about it at all.  But surely they do care about today's "life."  If we would have liveliness, energy, joy, enthusiasm, satisfaction, fulfillment, and "length of days" in this life, we would do well to hear and consume the words of eternal life given to us by Jesus Christ.

 





The Universal Experience--Part 4

According to Evelyn Underhill, the universal mystical experience across all cultures and religions is an encounter with the Holy, whatever Name is given to Him.  And that encounter imparts to those who experience it a sense of safety and security, a feeling that we have encountered not a "force" or "energy," but a Person, and finally, a sense of renewed energy and outgoing mission -- a "born again" experience. Without this encounter, our religion is just religion.  Once we meet the Lord as did Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Paul, we become missionaries and contemplatives.
 
All throughout the Old Testament, the Psalms proclaim YHWH as "my rock," "my stronghold," "my shelter," with Whom "I can scale a wall," or "conquer an army."  Those whom He sends are told to "Be Not Afraid," for "I am with you!"

 Although God is the Name that cannot be named, but only breathed in and breathed out again in worship and awe, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity attempts to "name" the experience as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  The Hindu religion has similar appellations for the experience, as I am sure all religions do.  But all the doctrines, all the rites, all the religions have at their core the one essential Truth:  the Presence of Divine Life among men --- the infinite, eternal, transcendent mystery "made flesh" and present in our midst. 

Even Greek mythology was aware that the gods dwell among us, ourselves unaware until the veil is pulled back and the gods reveal themselves to us in human form. In Christian doctrine, Love Itself manifests Himself to us in the Person of Jesus Christ.  But Isaiah tells us that there was nothing in Him to attract the senses -- not comely in form, not beautiful in appearance.  God still reveals Himself not to the senses, but only to the pure of heart:  Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God!

If we stop at the doctrines, or the words used to describe the universal experience, we always remain outside of the Divine Life in our midst.  Richard Rohr is fond of saying, "God comes to us disguised as our life."  Some see only their life; others find God right where they are.  Our church rituals are designed to tell us what we are looking for, and bring us to the threshold, but they cannot bring us to the encounter with the Living God -- although He often meets us there because that is where we are. 

I have a friend whose father was an Episcopal priest.  She of course grew up with the doctrines and the rituals.  In fact, she had already met God -- or He had met her on the way, even as a child.  She tells me that her "Book of Common Prayer" was worn out from use.  As a teen, she read the Psalms over and over again, and she often experienced the Presence of God on Deer Island, sitting under a tree where the only sound was the wind in the trees, the lapping of waves, and the birds crying overhead.  One day, while riding her bike along the beach, she decided to enter St. Paul's church -- just to see what it looked like inside.  Once inside, all alone, she encountered the Presence of God in a way she had never done before.  She knew then that she would become Catholic.  Today, she is Director of Religious Education in our church. 

Bede Griffiths, who studied at Oxford under the tutelage of C.S.Lewis, eventually moved from England to India, where he lived for 35 years in an ashram-- a small community of people from different faiths, but one in their desire to know the truth.  "Our destiny," said Griffiths, "is to be one with God in a unity which transcends all distinctions."  As a Roman Catholic monk, he was firm in his dedication to Jesus Christ, but also in his belief that our search for truth should not be doctrinally confining. 

Here is the catch however:  we cannot attain unity in the flesh, by ecumenical dialog, for example, necessary as that might be for other reasons of understanding and tolerance.  Unity comes to people of prayer -- to those who already have experienced the mystery of oneness with God and who can recognize others who have had the same experience.  God unites and does not separate those who know Him.  Griffiths says this: To understand the mystery of the Trinity, it is necessary to participate in the experience of Jesus.  It is necessary to receive the Spirit of God, to share in the divine life and so to become the son of God, to be one with Jesus as He is one with the Father (Return to the Center, p. 113).

I have experienced oneness with many people outside of my own faith experience -- with Muslims, with Jews, with Baptists, Methodists, -- even with those of no religion at all.  We have different doctrines, but similar experiences, where we know ourselves to be children of God, in a personal relationship with Him, and energized by the Spirit.  This is the mystery of Christianity, this participation in the inner life of the Godhead, a mystery which cannot be expressed in words, but which is indicated by analogy by the words "Father," "Son," and "Spirit" (Griffiths, p. 113).

God still reveals Himself today to "men of good will."  The Old and New Testaments "name" the experience for us, shining light on what we but vaguely grasp with our minds, giving us the explanation for what our hearts have already apprehended.  The doctrines of our church formulate for us what men have experienced from the revelation of God.  Our rituals allow us the time and space to enter into this Divine Presence for ourselves.  And Jesus Christ comes running to meet us at the well, on the road to Emmaeus, as we are fishing in our boats.  He is near to us, if we can only believe!  And His greatest desire is to share with us His own participation in the Divine Life.

The Universal Experience -- Part 3

If the first characteristic of a universal religious experience, or encounter with the Living God, is a sense of peace, of safety and security, and if the second characteristic of the universal experience is one of personal relationship, what is the third characteristic?

All persons and religions of the Spirit exhibit a sense of enhanced life.  Jesus said, "I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly."  In Greek, the word He used was "zoe," (energy) rather than "bios," (physical life), although of course enhanced zoe would directly impact bios.

When Pentecost arrived in Jerusalem on the Great Feast, it was no "committee of twelve" who determined to put on their "big boy pants" and go out to face the crowds arriving in the city for the Feast.  Rather, there was a "mighty wind" and "tongues of fire" that came to rest upon all of them.  Suddenly, those who gathered behind locked doors for fear of the Jews flung open those doors and began to proclaim all that they had seen and heard of Jesus of Nazareth, "the man anointed by God to perform mighty miracles among you."

The Holy Spirit is felt as an inflowing power, a new vitality, a recession of fear of human respect, energizing the individual and the group, impelling it to the full and most zealous life, giving it fresh joy and vigor, lifting it to fresh levels of life (Underhill, The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today, p. 6). 

The Book of Isaiah puts it this way:

 "He gives power to the faint, and to them that hath no might, he increases strength....they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint."

Paul said, "I can do all things in Christ Jesus, who gives me strength."  All men and women of the Spirit speak of the same energy as they try to describe the source of their activity and endurance.  It would be a worthwhile study to go through both the Old and the New Testaments looking for evidence of renewed vigor, energy, and strength in all who unite themselves to God.   One of the things that has most encouraged me as I grow older and my own strength grows weaker is Psalm I:

Blessed is the man (woman)....whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law meditates day and night.

He (she) is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in due season,

and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

 

A couple of days ago, I met two of my dearest friends from the time we were together in the prayer group -- in the late 70's and early 80's.  I had not seen either one of them in all these years, so our reunion was too short, but very joyful.  One of the two has suffered health problems almost beyond endurance: she now uses a walker, without which she cannot even stand up; her hands are curled up to the point of her not being able to open packages or cut her food; she is on oxygen 24-7 -- and the list goes on and on. 

 

Still, Fe praises and thanks God for all His providence toward her, and for the ways He continues to work in her life.  She is still as funny as she ever was and can bring you to tears of laughter with the stories of her experiences.  She loves her neighbors and is concerned about their problems, forgetting her own in the process.  One of her neighbors whose husband died 3 years ago recently told Fe that she finally began to leave her house and go out just because she watched out of her window as Fe struggled to pack her walker and oxygen tank into the car so she could still go out and do things.  Fe is the first one to tell you that her strength and joy come from God, that she is in His hands, and she is content with His will for her life.

 

This is someone who truly knows "how to be content in riches and in abasement," who knows the Source of her strength and her joy.  When Jesus said, "Not as the world gives do I give you...." this is what He meant.  Our "abundant life" does not depend upon circumstances but on the unfailing fountain of energy and new life poured out on us from on High.  Jesus promised the woman at the well, "a fountain springing up to eternal life."  He did not say the water would dry up because of desert conditions, but that "streams of water" would flow from the "belly" of all who came to Him.

 

Jesus told the apostles to return to Jerusalem and await "the Gift of the Father" that would be poured out on them:  "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you," He told them.  The word He used for "power" is dunamis; our English word "dynamite" comes from this root.  The reason I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit while in the hospital on June 15, 1977, was the love, joy, energy, of my roommate, a 22-year old girl who was hemorrhaging after childbirth and who was telling me about the power of God in her life.  Whatever she had, I wanted it, asked for it, and immediately experienced it.  I was afraid of losing it afterwards, through my own negligence, but my doctor, himself born-again, assured me, "You don't have the Holy Spirit; He has you, and He's not letting go!"  Now, almost 40 years later, I can testify that it is His energy that keeps me, and certainly not my own!

 

Power, energy, new life, living water, born again----Who among us does not want eternal, renewed and renewing "Life"?  The third universal characteristic of those who have encountered the Living God, despite creed or culture, is a new kind of outflowing energy which impels them to go beyond the confines of their narrow boundaries.  David danced before the Ark of the Covenant; the prophets prophesied; some teach; some become missionaries; some administer the church --- God's Life must flow out to the world that He loves, or it is not His life.  Jesus continues His earthly mission through His members today by pouring out in them His own Spirit of Life.