Lesson for June 30, 2019
The Integrity of God
Fifth Imputation: Eternal Life to Believers
Eternal Life
The soul of every human being will live forever. The question is where will it live? The answer, of course, is found in God’s Word. The Bible declares that the soul that sins will surely die and that we all die in Adam. (Ezekiel 18:20; I Corinthians 15:22) So there is a seeming contradiction – since the soul of man lives forever – unless you understand that there is more than one kind of death in the Bible. There are actually at least seven different kinds of deaths. Therefore, it important that we identify the kind of death in the above passages. The seven deaths are physical death, spiritual death, temporal death, second death, positional death, operational death and sexual death.
- Physical death – soul and/or human spirit leaving the body. (Philippians 1:21; II Corinthians 5:8; Luke 17:22; James 2:26)
- Spiritual death – separation from God without the ability within yourself to do anything about it. (Ephesians 2:1; Romans 5:12, 6:23)
- Temporal death – the believer temporarily out of fellowship with God. (Romans 8:6,13; Ephesians 5:14; I Timothy 5:6; James 1:15; Revelation 3:1; I John 3:14; Luke 15:24,32)
- Second death – continuation of spiritual death into eternity for the unbeliever. (Revelation 20:12-15)
- Positional death – the believer being “dead with Christ” in identification with His deaths (spiritual and physical) due to our union with Him. (Romans 6:1-14; Colossians 2:12, 3:3)
- Operational death – lack of divine production in the believer’s life. (James 2:26)
- Sexual death – the inability to procreate. (Romans 4:17-21; Hebrews 11:12)
If “we all die in Adam” and “the soul that sins will surely die” refers to physical death, we would all die the moment we are born or the moment we commit our first personal sin. So, this is not referring to physical death. This death is not the second death since that occurs in eternity, it’s not sexual death and it’s not positional death since we are not identifying with Christ. So, it must be either spiritual death, temporal death or operational death. Which one? Since these passages refer to believers only, it cannot be operational death or temporal death. It is, therefore, spiritual death (separation from God). Spiritual death is turned into the second death in eternity for those who fail to take the salvation solution of faith in Christ. So, the seeming contradiction is solved, and we see that those who reject Jesus Christ as Savior will exist forever separated from God (eternal death). The person who chooses God’s salvation solution of faith alone in Christ alone will live forever with God.
However, eternal life is much more than just living forever. Eternal life is God’s life (one of His attributes) imputed (credited) to the human spirit (its home) at the moment of salvation. This imputation of eternal life occurs simultaneously with the imputation of the human spirit. Though we possess eternal life the very moment we trust Christ as Savior, we do not fully possess it until we enter the eternal state. Eternal life has more to do with eternity than life on earth and it is the life of God that creates the capacity to receive and appreciate eternal rewards. Since it is God that imputes eternal life to the believer, it is a matter of grace. Therefore, eternal life is not deserved, nor can it be earned. This means that anyone who has believed in Christ for salvation (regardless of their current spiritual status) possesses eternal life. It also means that the believer is secure in Christ, forever. (John 5:25-26; 11:25-26; 14:6; I John 5:11-13)
Another result of receiving eternal life is the guarantee of a resurrection body. Theologically we call this Ultimate Sanctification and it will occur at the Rapture of the Church. This resurrection body is said to be like that of Christ’s resurrection body. This means believers will no longer possess a sin nature, and therefore they will no longer be able to produce human good. In our resurrection bodies we will be able to produce only divine good. Receiving eternal life assures believers of an eternal relationship with God. (Philippians 3:21; I Thessalonians 4:13-17; I Corinthians 15:51-57; I John 3:2)
Experiential Sanctification
Even though we have eternal life, God did not give it to us so that we could simply admire it from afar. He gave us eternal life so that His life could be reproduced in us as the character of Jesus Christ on a daily basis. When a believer is producing the character of Jesus Christ, he is being set apart (the meaning of sanctification) to God. Producing the character of Christ in a believer is the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit controls your soul, He is able to produce Christ’s character, but this control is in direct proportion to the amount of Bible doctrine a person has stored in his soul. As the Holy Spirit controls the soul over a prolonged period of time, the believer begins to advance to spiritual maturity. The advance to spiritual maturity can be accomplished only by proper application of the Bible doctrine that has been stored in the soul. It is the proper application that changes the believer’s thinking from human viewpoint to divine viewpoint. (Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 4:12-16)
A Spiritual Birthright
All believers are part of the Royal Family of God, regardless of their spiritual status. Sin of any kind does not remove a believer from God’s family. As spiritual royalty, God expects believers to uphold the high standards of royalty by exhibiting the character of Christ. Since this is only potential, some believers will comply with God’s command and some will not comply. Those who use their volition to obey the mandates of God to learn and apply God’s Word will enjoy the blessings that are afforded to royalty. Those that ignore the mandates of God will live as peasants, though they are still royalty by birth (the new birth from above). (I Peter 2:9) The new birth guarantees equal privilege and equal opportunity for every member of the Royal Family. However, not all believers will choose to advance spiritually, which creates inequality in the Royal Family. Using equal privilege and equal opportunity to learn, believe and apply Bible doctrine increases your capacity to receive blessings both now and in eternity, but it is your eternal life (the life of God) that provides the capacity to enjoy those blessings. Eternal blessings are a direct result of the amount of time a believer spends in the study and application of God’s Word during his life, because this is God’s only method for increasing our capacity. (II Peter 3:18)
Overflowing Grace
Because believers possess the righteousness of God and eternal life, God is both willing and able to pour out overflowing grace blessings to them. These blessings are passed down to the believer through God’s “grace pipeline.” God’s blessings are always a matter of His grace and are never based on human good of any kind. God blesses us because of Who He is, not because of who we are or what we do. If God blessed us on the basis of what we do for Him, then we would receive the glory. On the other hand, if God blesses us on the basis of His sovereign will, and He does, then He receives all the glory. Overflowing grace blessings to believers come only as a result of spiritual growth. Increased spiritual growth means increased capacity to receive God’s blessings without becoming arrogant and forgetting the source of those blessings.
The Eternal State
In eternity all believers will have eternal life, but there will be certain inequalities among believers with regard to eternal rewards and blessings. Since God blesses believers on the basis of capacity, it is easy to understand how there will be inequality in Heaven. Not all believers develop capacity for blessing at the same rate nor do they share the same degree of capacity. The more a believer learns and applies from the Word of God, the greater is the capacity to receive rewards both now and in eternity. This does not, of course, mean that anyone will be unhappy or remorseful in Heaven. God in His matchless grace sees to it that no believer spends eternity in any condition other than perfect happiness. Remember that the sin nature no longer exists in eternity, therefore jealousy, envy, bitterness, etc. will not be characteristics possessed by believers in the eternal state.
The giving of rewards by God is much easier in the eternal state since the sin nature of the believer has been left behind in the human body (at either death or the Rapture). In the believer’s glorified state, God is able to pour out blessings that will be so far above our thinking which no analogy we can think of would adequately describe. Not only is our sin nature gone, so is our negative volition, both of which hinder our receiving blessings on earth. And satanic influence will be gone in eternity, with its negative impact on a believer’s life through Satan’s world system.
Eternal life means living in a state of eternal peace and happiness for every believer regardless of his eternal blessings. Some believers will reign over cities and some will not, but we all will live in magnificent mansions. Though our motivation for the execution of the Christian Way of Life is always our personal love for God, knowing that there are degrees of reward should also motivate our advance to spiritual maturity. In God’s system of reward and blessing, believers must never forget that proper motivation and proper protocol are the keys to successfully appropriating them. A right thing must always be done in a right way in order to be right. (Romans 5:17)