Thank you to John for this week’s MWB
“Tomorrow begins today.” My bank recently sent me a letter including that extraordinary statement. Nonsense? Clearly untrue? Paradoxical? (What do you think?)
“Tomorrow begins today” is actually relevant to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in
John 5:24: “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
These words are part of a discourse that Jesus had with Jewish leaders after he had healed a paralysed man on the Sabbath day at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. The leaders persecuted Jesus for “breaking the Sabbath”, and when he referred to God as his own Father (thus making himself equal with God) they tried even harder to get him killed. Jesus responded to them with words we read in John 5:19-23. He said
“Whatever the Father does the Son also does” (v19). “Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life….” (v21). “The Father…has entrusted all judgment to the Son” (v22) . “Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him” (v23)
Then (v24) “Truly, truly” says Jesus, to underline the words he is about to say.
“Whoever hears my word” (i.e. listens and takes to heart Jesus’ message)
“and believes him who sent me” (i.e. trusts in God’s word and action through Jesus)
“has eternal life” (now)
“and does not come into judgment” (no condemnation)
“but has passed from death to life” (death has lost its sting).
Amazing words! But what is eternal life? Does it just mean “life that goes on for ever and ever”? (To be frank, that does not sound appealing!)
No. The Lord Jesus himself has told us what eternal life really is. In his wonderful prayer to his Father, recorded in John 17, he said “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
So eternal life is not just “life that never ends”, but a new relationship with God our Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ – deep, intimate, life-transforming – the relationship for which we were made.
That relationship, Jesus says, is for now – and for ever.
Tomorrow begins today!