- “Whoever Believes Has Everlasting Life”

6. “Whoever Believes Has Everlasting Life”

Below are some verses from John’s Gospel that contain believing (or some other equivalence) and ‘eternal/everlasting life.’ How are the two related? Which is the cause and which is the effect? How does the eternal life come about? Does your faith secure you your eternal life? Or does your faith evidence the possession of eternal life?

a. John 3:15-16 “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

b. John 5:24 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

c. John 6:40 “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

d. John 6:47 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”

e. John 6:54 “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

f. John 17:2-3 “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

There are only two ways to understand the passages above:
Your standard reformed position: one believes in order to have eternal life, i.e., ‘whoever believes shall have eternal life.’ [‘Shall’ has been introduced to accommodate the unbiblical notion.]

Please note that ‘whoever believes shall have eternal life’ is a conditional statement of offer, i.e., a condition must be fulfilled in order to receive something; you will (future) receive eternal life on the condition that you do believe (present). This is not what the Scriptures teach concerning eternal life. This is a common misreading of what is actually said in these passages. Before you can understand what a verse means you must first make sure you know what it says.

The Scriptures say, ‘whoever believes HAS, possesses eternal life’ – that is, a statement declaring the reality of the present possession of eternal life. It is like making a statement ‘whoever breathes has life.’ It is so easy and natural to understand this declarative statement of fact as a statement of conditional offer, like saying that breathing is a necessary condition to obtain life. Fallen, spiritually blind men naturally think of doing something to obtain eternal life. However, common sense demands we understand that a person breathes because he possesses, has life.

But sin has severely twisted the common sense when it comes to spiritual truth! Similarly even believers also easily misread the Scriptures to make it say, ‘whoever believes shall/will have eternal life’ – thus turning a declarative statement of fact, of present possession into a statement of future potentiality, its realization depending upon the fulfillment of a condition by a spiritually dead man!

Someone objected and said, “How would a common man on the street understand such a statement, ‘whoever believes has eternal life?’ Well, if the truth of a biblical statement is to be decided by what the common man on the street would understand it, then things are bad indeed. No wonder man-centered religion prevails in Christendom! We have forgotten the maxim, ‘spiritual things are spiritually discerned.’ Why do the living consult the dead? Isaiah 8:19.

I believe the biblical position says that one believes because he has eternal life, i.e., ‘whoever believes has eternal life.’ ‘Whoever believes has everlasting life’ is a declarative statement of fact; you do something because of something you possess; i.e., you believe because of the eternal life you already possessed, as the result of God effectually calling you out of the state of sin and death to eternal life.

Are these passages saying that one must believe in order to get eternal life? Or do they declare that one believes because he already possesses eternal life? Is it regeneration => faith => eternal life? Or is it regeneration => eternal life => faith? Since there are only two alternatives, a choice is not difficult. I as the pastor of SDC choose to believe that faith is the evidence, the consequence and the effect of eternal life.

And please do read John 3:16 – a very simple, yet a most abused and misunderstood text of Scripture – in the bright light of John 3:3,5. Luke 13:1-5 speaks of perishing in calamities, not about perishing in eternal hell. People perished in disasters. The Jews were warned that they would likewise perish if they repent not. Christ was warning them that they would likewise – likewise – likewise - perish under the hands of the Romans in the coming destruction of Jerusalem.