Eternal Life

If we want eternal life, we must get very close to, or even into, the thing that has it. 

(C.S.Lewis)

I hope I have not misquoted Lewis above; I am "quoting" from memory here, and his writings are so vast that I have no idea where I might find this particular item.  If I happen to stumble across the source anytime soon, I will reference it and correct any mistake I have made.  

In the Gospel of John, there are numerous references to "eternal life," and these references, in contrast to those in Lewis's writings, are easy to look up.  In the 6th chapter, for example, Jesus asks the apostles if they, too, want to leave Him after "many of His disciples" are "grumbling" about His teaching on eating His flesh and drinking His blood.  Peter's answer was, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life!"

In our western mentality and understanding, "eternal life" translates to "everlasting life," or living forever, a state many people cannot begin to imagine or even care about.  Because our thinking is so bound to time and space, it is much easier to accept the idea that once we die, life is over -- and that's okay for many people.  Since they cannot imagine what an afterlife might consist in, they have not much interest in floating around in a disembodied state, maybe singing hymns and seeing other disembodied souls.  

I have a friend whose joy is that, in the words of Carl Sagan, we are created out of stardust.  For her, death simply means that our energy returns to the earth to feed its overall health.  And for her, that is all she asks.  It is not that she is rejecting God; it is just that, like many people, she has never gotten around to entering into great intimacy with Him.  Our lives are busy, and the world is full of beauty -- enough to satisfy us for a time.  When our time is up, we are finished with the world and all it offers us, and that is okay.

What our Western understanding of eternal life fails to reveal to us is what the Greek language, the language of the Bible, reveals so clearly:  the words "eternal life" refer to a quality of life, not the duration of life.  In the Greek, "bio" and "psuche" are the terms for the physicality and duration, or length, of life.  For example,in Matthew 2:20, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream, he says, "Get up, take the child and his mother and to to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead."   Again, in Matthew 6:25, Jesus says, "... do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear..."  In these two places, the Greek word used is psuche, or "breath," the animal sentient principle only, as distinguished from the rational and immortal soul (pneuma) and from zoe, which means "vitality," "energy."

In Matthew 14, Jesus says "Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."  Here, although He does not use the term "eternal life," in the Greek, the term used is zoe, referring to energy, vitality, living, or in common use, the "beautiful life."

When we get to the Gospel of John, every reference to what we translate "life" is zoe in the Greek:  In Him was life, and that life was the light of men....God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that men might not perish but have everlasting life....I will give you a spring of water welling up to eternal life....  The first time in the Gospel that "psuche" (breath) is used is when Jesus says the Good Shepherd will lay down His life/psuche/breath for His sheep (John 10).

The woman at the well had "psuche," breath; what she lacked was "zoe," vitality/ energy/ the beautiful life.  What she craved was "eternal" life; she already had the other kind and she was miserable and lonely.  When she returns to her village, shouting to the others to come, "see a man who told me everything I ever did," we can sense in her manner an energy, a love, and a life that she had never before possessed -- eternal life!  She is joyful, full, overflowing, unable to contain this new energy.  She is no longer fearful of the opinions of others, or "careful for her own 'psuche/breath/life;'" she has been born again to eternal life, life that no one can take from her.  

THIS is the life we all seek even before we die -- this energy, vitality, love, beauty -- the life of children who do not worry, but who enter into each day with joy and excitement.  If we want this this life, we must get close to, or even into, the thing that has it, in the words of C.S. Lewis!