Because I live, you also will live.
What does it mean to “live?” I don’t mean to be “alive” like a plant or animal might be, but to really live.
The world’s definition of living is about consuming. How much stuff can you get your hands on? How much food and drink can you consume? How many things can you get? How many friends can you collect?
Once you have gone down that path the next step in the world’s definition of living is, “How good is your stuff?” Do you have the best food? How expensive is the stuff you buy? How new is your car? How elite are your friends?
Each step down this path is more expensive, more demanding, more consuming. At the end of the road, this path looks more like a treadmill than a life.
The kind of life that Jesus is talking about is very different. It harkens back to the separation from God that occurs in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve touch the forbidden tree. On that day they died. Not physically, but spiritually. They lost their innocence in God’s sight and become separated from God. The relationship with the people He made was forever changed.
Yet God does not abandon His creation. When Jesus comes to earth, he comes to restore our relationship with the Father. His death on the cross redeems us, buying us back from Satan’s power. By His sacrifice, our relationship to God is restored and with it, real life.
Oddly, real life has almost nothing to do with being alive in the physical sense. The body dies. Real life is what happens apart from physical life. The one who is really alive continues to live in Christ even after the body dies.
Let’s Discuss: How would you describe “real life” to someone who has never known Christ?
I think I would compare it to birth. The baby in the womb is alive and has life and is created in God’s image, yet we act like now the baby has real life at birth. The same thing is going on with our life now compared to life in Jesus (John 1: 12 – 13).
Anon-
Nice analogy! Another one might be the state of the butterfly while it is in the chrysalis. It transitions from one form of life to another. In a sense, new life in Christ is like growing wings. We are able, through God’s grace and power, to transcend what are obstacles to those without life in God.