Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
John 17:11-26 read...
It is the intended purpose of God that he receive his just glory from his children. I want us to see an important point regarding our relationship with God. He wants us to have his joy. He wants his joy filled up in us. God’s joy is never some shallow sentimental emotional experience believers try to duplicate over and over in a concert or in an emotional evangelistic meeting every week. His joy is always directly linked with the teaching and understanding of his word as seen in v.13; 17. Our joy comes by being sanctified through God’s truth as it sets us apart more and more unto God in a practical daily way. If you want to be a happy, well balanced, effective, efficient servant of God you cannot do this without true biblical joy.
When our thinking is right we will be happy though we still will have our trials in life. If we want to understand how we receive his imputed blessings we must decrease in stature and allow him to increase and this is never possible apart from a sound understanding and application of his word.
His word is our absolute authority, which means he expects us to comply if we want his blessings. God will not acquiesce; that is, comply his will to our point of view; our pouting, our ignorance nor our negative mental deliberations with blessings; he will instead institute enforced divine discipline. If we throw a tantrum with God, because we do not like his divine parenting as our heavenly Father, he will not bless us. God parents us through his written word, and he calls men to communicate his written word. Every believer is assigned by God a pastor-teacher who will teach him or her God’s word.
So far we have looked at four of the seven divine imputations. We have looked at the (1) imputation of human life, (2) Adam’s original sin to the human race, (3) our personal sins to Jesus Christ, (4) and the righteousness of God to the believer’s soul at salvation.
Today let’s look at the imputation of God’s eternal life to the believer’s human spirit which also occurred at the moment of salvation.
John 10:10 Jesus Christ said... “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The life Jesus Christ is speaking of here is the imputation of eternal life; it is an eternal imputation which means when you receive salvation you receive this eternal life imputation, it last forever.
Rom.6:23; “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
I John 5:11 “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”
Here John says under divine inspiration that God has given, didomi, [aorist active indicative verb], which interpreted by the parsing of this Greek verb means this gift of eternal life is a once and for all imputation which God renders. No one earns it and no one can loose it.
The origin of eternal life is found only in the One who has eternal life to give, and that is God. Eternal life is God’s alone to give. It is not mans to take or earn through his own efforts or religious observances. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said the earth was our mother and we owed our lives to her.
The earth has been personified as a life giving force, but if this were so there would be no life after death because the earth is not eternal and it takes back only the body which is also not eternal. No, my friend, there is a life more real and more important than this earthly biological life. Eternal life is so much more powerful and real.
Eternal life is in the Son, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, which also means Jesus Christ, being God, never had a beginning, nor will he ever have an end.
You see, faith in Jesus Christ is not faith in some “Johnny come lately” later belief system as compared to some earlier pre-Christian church century religions such as the 6th century B.C. Buddhism or Hinduism beliefs as some purport.
Christianity is simply the New Testament believer’s belief and following of the incarnate eternal Christ. It wasn’t called Christianity in the Old Testament even though the Old Testament speaks from Genesis to Malachi regarding the first advent of the Son of God.
Eternal life is part of the essence of God. With eternal life you will always be a part of God and he will always be a part of you. You will never be separated from God once you are saved which means you cannot go to Hell when you die.
The difference between being an immortal soul which everyone is, and having eternal life, is that the one with eternal life imputed to their human spirit goes to heaven when he or she dies. The one without eternal life, which is the life of God, goes to Hell when they die. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. If you haven’t received Jesus Christ you haven’t received eternal life.
I Jn.5:12 He that has the Son has eternal life, and he that has not the Son of God has not eternal life. Do you have the Son? Are you saved?
Lewis Sperry Chaffer said in his theology studies, as we should well know, that “eternal life is a priceless treasure and it should never be confused with human life.”
v.13 The one who has this imputed eternal life should have unshakable confidence in God concerning their eternity. You know you will live with the Lord forever. This truth and its present reality changes everything about your future and it is supposed to change everything about your present life. You do not waste the Lord’s time with foolishness. You do not let the world dictate reasons for unfaithfulness to getting and keeping the word. You do not let up for anything because your course in life has been eternally altered by the eternal life changing imputation you received at salvation.
I Cor.2:1-9 read...
We enter into our relationship with God by faith, faith in his spoken word. I trust you have put your faith in our eternal God and his Son our Savior, Jesus Christ. If you have not, will you receive Him as your Savior this day?