Living Eternal Life

by Robert Mohns

“Live your best life ever! Live the best version of yourself.”

We are inundated with slogans like these, and a whole self-help industry has arisen to assist us in this endeavour. Some of it can be helpful in stewarding our physical and mental wellbeing. Many people become disappointed and despair, however, because we are inconsistent in our pursuit of being our best self. Life happens, and sin, death, the devil, and our own flesh batter us down. We can feel like we are a failure or that there is something missing—something lacking. Sometimes we just feel fatigued. 

What if there was something more true, more real than living our best life? Something more needful than living the best version of our self? What if eternal life was the real thing, the true thing, the needful thing? 

Since the fall of our first parents, human beings have been seeking eternal life, the fountain of youth, rejuvenation, healing. But because all humanity is fallen, we seek life in all the wrong places.  

According to legend, the first governor of Puerto Rico in the 1500s, Juan Ponce de Leon, set out to Florida seeking a river of youth leading to eternal life. Seeking after the Holy Grail, a cup that offers eternal life, is also the stuff of Crusader lore. Today the idea is common in entertainment both in adventures like Indiana Jones and as satire in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

Christians comprehend the frailty of humanity by turning to our Creator and to His Word. In Genesis, we are reminded that God formed humanity out of the dust of the earth, breathed His Spirit into that fleshy form, and thus man became a living being. Human beings are uniquely made in the image of God. We consist of both a physical body and a rational soul. In the fall the image of God was lost. But God did not put an end to humanity, nor did He change the essence of humanity; we are still body and soul people.  

What if there was something more true, more real than living our best life? Something more needful than living the best version of our self? What if eternal life was the real thing, the true thing, the needful thing?

In the incarnation of Jesus, the Word was made flesh. Jesus, who is truly God and truly human, came into this world. He who is sinless bore the sins of every human being. He redeemed us, paying the death penalty that God’s justice requires for sin. He won salvation for all human beings and has given us eternal life.  

By God-given faith, we cling to Jesus, who is our life and salvation—and we cling to His promise that, even though we die, yet in this body and soul we will be raised again and clothed with immortality. We take Jesus at His word: “This is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40). This Word has the power to fulfill what it promises. 

Eternal life with Jesus is not just a promise to be fulfilled in the future on the great day of the resurrection of all flesh; it is also a present gift for everyone who looks to Jesus. You are already living eternal life today. 

There are many people who offer therapies for body, soul, and mind. Apart from Jesus, these can only offer ways to focus your attempts to manipulate yourself to be in a better place. But your soul was not created to be manipulated by you. What if soul-care is not so much about receiving therapy but about receiving Christ and His good gifts? 

Romans 6:3-4 says: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”  

If you have children not yet baptized, do not delay, but run to the baptismal font. If you yourself have not been baptized, present yourself before the font to receive the gift of Holy Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and adoption as God’s dearly beloved son or daughter. 

Living eternally means going to church to receive God’s Word. It means receiving the Lord’s Supper every time it is offered, for in it you receive the medicine of immortality. Living eternally is a life devoted to worship and prayer. It is a life of service, participating in acts of mercy. It is a life lived in the middle of sin, death, and suffering, with the Lord bearing you up. It is about faithfully working in your various vocations and insodoing bearing witness to Jesus, the true source of eternal living. 

We have been created by God to live, and we have been redeemed through the blood of the Son of God, Jesus to live eternally. It is to this life God has called you. 

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Rev. Robert Mohns is Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC)’s West Regional Pastor.

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