“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. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.” – John 5:24-27
LIGHT FOR NOW: As believers, eternal life is not what we will receive at the end of our lives when we die; it is what we receive at the beginning of our lives when we believed.
The word “condemnation” used in verse 24 of our text above from its original manuscript (the Greek) implies judgment. In other words, the man that has eternal life shall not come into judgment, and this is because he has passed from death to life. Passing from death to life here is passing from spiritual death (separation from God) to life (eternal life in Christ or eternal union with God). The judgment in verse 27 of John 5 will not be executed on them that believe because those that believe shall not come to judgment, but they have passed from death to life. So the judgment here will be executed on the unbelieving ones. That’s why Paul says in 1Corinthians 6:2 “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?” He calls believers saints, and he says “we (the saints) shall judge the world”. This is because we have the very life of God; we had passed from death to life; we had passed from condemnation or judgment unto righteousness. But for the man without Christ, he is condemned or judged already. This was made clear in John 3:18 “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God”.
The phrase “condemned already” is the phrase “judged already”. Meaning, the judgment is even on the earth when he rejects the gospel. At the point of salvation where a man believes the gospel, he passes from condemnation/judgment/death unto life. This tells us that eternal life is not what we will receive at the end of our lives when we die; it is what we received at the beginning of our lives when we believed. Notice, both John 3 and John 5 lets us see that this eternal life is received in the present (on earth). He said in John 5:24 “He that believeth in me hath eternal life”. Eternal life is not after death, it is life on earth when we believe. It is the understanding of this fact that makes us not to mourn like those without hope when the believer dies physically because he had passed from death to life. That’s why for the believer in Christ, what happens when the spirit leaves his body is not death, the bible calls it a sleep because the believer will awake in glory in the end. Glory!
INSTRUCTION: Be conscious of your eternal life in Christ.
PRAYER: Lord, I believe I have the very life of God, I have passed from death to life, I have passed from condemnation and judgment unto righteousness; therefore, eternal life is at work in my inside, in Jesus Name, Amen.
QUOTE: Believers don’t die, believers sleep.
DAILY BIBLE READING: MORNING: 1THESSALONIANS CHAPTER 4; EVENING: 2CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 2
LIGHT FROM THE WORD 