by Lee Turner
Only one being has eternal life, and that is God; so, eternal life is Christ’s
life.
At a point in time, he came to Earth and took on a human body (John 1:14).
But the life he lived in that body is the same life he had always lived as God.
He lived in a human body for about thirty-three years, then ended his
earthly existence at the cross where he bore our sins.
He died, was buried, was raised, and returned to heaven where he continues
to live the same life he has always lived (Hebrews 13:8). Christ always
existed in eternity past and will always exist in eternity future. Wouldn’t it be
great to have this kind of eternal life?
But, we were born of Adam and not of Christ when we arrived in the physical
world. Since we are born spiritually dead, our greatest need is spiritual life.
We received physical life and psychological life by our human birth. This
physical birth gave us temporary human life. Unfortunately, every human
will die.
To escape this living death condition, we must be born again into a spiritual
life by a spiritual rebirth (John 3:3). We were taken out of Adam’s life and
placed into Christ’s life at the cross.
“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become
for you wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, holiness and
redemption…” 1 Corinthians 1:30
We were taken out of the old Adam life and put into Christ by the Spirit of
God. Once we are in Christ, we are in an eternal existence–a life that is not
based on time. Our new eternal life is not an extension of our life; it is
entering into Christ’s life–a life which spans the past as well as the future.
This new life is traced back, not through our first ancestor, Adam, but back
through Christ.
Being in Christ means being in him eternally. We were chosen in him before
the foundation of the world, (Ephesians 1:4) and we are already seated with
him in the heavens (Ephesians 2:6). We not only have the eternal life of
Christ now and throughout eternity, but we also have a new past! All of our
guilt is gone. We are free to enjoy our present life without the emotional
damage of our past physical life.