Redefining Eternal Life

Matthew 24:35a Heaven and earth will pass away.

While many of us are rushing to receive Jesus as our personal Lord and savior, and leaving it at that; today I heard God say ‘Even Heaven will pass away.’

Well that’s a bummer!

Heaven isn’t the end! The Bible didn’t say it is the beginning and the end, nor is it the first or last.

HE is!

Let us revisit the Bible’s definition of eternal life.

John 17:3 says ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’

Eternal life therefore begins with a person — HIM. And it’ll end with Him. No where is heaven mentioned as eternal life’s definition! Because probably God had already mentioned that it would evaporate.

So what must we do with this?

Firstly, we must know that entering heaven is a given. It’s like entering a supermarket, but you didn’t get to the supermarket just to get there; but to get something particular!

No one can get to the Father, unless by Jesus; who’s the way … (John 14:6) Thus, He’s the door to the supermarket. If you don’t know Him, you will round the walls of the supermarket all your life, and die without accessing the necessities you need.

So if ‘entering the supermarket’ is a given, then it is equated to breathing. You can’t say you exist to breathe! Everyone is breathing! And it’s not like your breathing is enabling the earth to revolve. Rather, you breathe to fulfill something specific.

People who receive salvation just to enter heaven are those that exist to breathe! There is so much more to salvation than that! But even those that breathe eventually die: that’s what ‘heaven too shall pass away.’

Here’s the rest of the theme verse:

Matthew 24:35b … but my words shall not pass away.

Part a told us what would pass and part b is telling us what will not. If God’s word will not pass; then we must assume its material in order for us not to pass away. This is the form God expects us to acquire. Even He Himself assumed it:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John‬ ‭1‬:‭1)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us … (John‬ ‭1‬:‭14a‬)

If God’s nature is the Word, and He will not pass away, it only means you as well have to be the Word. And the good news is, He made provision for that;

Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever (I Peter‬ ‭1‬:‭23‬)

But the word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. (I Peter‬ ‭1‬:‭25‬)

When we are born again, we are babies again. That means we must grow. We must milk. Until we grow teeth and eat meat. Remember babies learn and adapt by what they see. They get to understand their nature daily; their skin color, tribe, languages and everything that defines them.

So is it with your new spirit. Many stay babies, such that even if they have been born again for ten years, they have just been babies for a decade. They didn’t grow in their nature (as the word) — and yet even Jesus (the Word Himself) had to grow in it, by reading and meditating and understanding it, just like I have explained a baby does in their stages of development.

It is this growth that compounds to your nature as the Word. It is this growth that equates to knowing God and His son. And I feel like the rest of our lives is about knowing Him — more today than we did yesterday. More after death, than we did in the past life. More in the new world after heaven and earth have passed away.

You need to undergo this transfiguration just like Jesus transfigured on the mount when Moses and Elijah appeared next to Him. Why? Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed. You can’t afford to be unequally yoked to God, and that is why He expects your nature to become like His.

Jonah was in the whale’s belly for three days. That whale couldn’t eat or drink for it’d have drowned Jonah the more or digested him alive. Since it had him as a foreign body, it was inconvenienced. But if he was a fish, I believe it’d not have worried about swallowing water; for fish-Jonah would have had gills to breathe within if the torrents came.

That is why a fish can’t fall in love with a monkey! Their love can’t stand distance and differs nature! One in the depths of the sea — the other in the heights of trees. One has to either learn how to hold its breath, or the other has to learn to breathe air! One has to change its nature for the sake of love!

It was the same for us: God in the heights of heaven, man in the depths of the earth. We couldn’t come up, so He gave up His divinity, and transfigured into humanity! For the sake of love!

Do you see why you must be the word!? He became human for you, to win you over. But to go up with Him, and exist eternally, you must become the Word’s nature (His nature) for Him too. Tit for tat is a fair game!

If you’ve been putting your trust in heaven, breaking news — it too will expire. Many of us have idolized heaven, thinking that having obtained a seat in a corner within the banqueting house is all that’s required! The sad news is: more is required. Knowing Him! And not just sitting back! And knowing Him for yourself — and not your father or mother or sibling or pastor knowing Him for you!

Eternal life isn’t just God. Yes He is eternal, but eternal life for you is knowing Him. Every moment you take knowing Him, is everlasting life for you …

Which means that eternal life doesn’t begin in heaven. It begins the moment you intentionally start to KNOW Him! The idolatry here is us longing for heaven and not for Him who made heaven. Wanting the gift more than the gifter!

Just like I mentioned earlier; heaven wasn’t defined as the beginning or the end. He was! And could it be, that earth is just the place predestined for your knowing Him to begin.

So what’s the end of this whole matter?

1. Earth shall pass away. Heaven seems like the ark in Noah’s time, but also the ark had to be left after the flood. Heaven too shall pass! So you must be found in something that won’t; and that’s God!

2. We redefined what eternal life truly is: and it begins with you knowing those minute letters from the Bible. In so doing, you’ll find yourself transfiguring into the nature of the thing that won’t pass away. And part of the evidence that you have transformed will be in your ability to make your own world while still here:

For by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. (Heb 11:3)

So get to work. Get to studying His word. And His very Spirit will be your guide, teaching you every mystery trapped within.

Eternal life isn’t then. It is now!

•

I John‬ ‭2‬:‭17‬ And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
‭‭