Life In The Son

In Acts 3:15 Jesus Christ is called “the Prince of life.” Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10b). John 1:4 tells us, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” 2 Peter 1:3 declares of Jesus that “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life” (3a), and in reference to Jesus, Acts 2:28 proclaims, “You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.” Jesus is the “author of life” (Acts 3:15, NIV), and it is of utmost importance that we realize that the origin of abundant life is Jesus Christ; and His abundant life is everlasting and eternal.

Pastor Jack Hyles once wrote, “When the average person thinks of eternal life, the first thing that would enter into his mind is endless life. Certainly endless life is included in eternal life, but there is far more than endlessness to eternal life. It is not only endless, but it is boundless . . . It means life all the way on, all the way back, all the way up and all the way down . . . Eternal life is more than duration or longevity . . . It is a quality of life that we have now.”(1) We will discover this morning that life in Jesus Christ is everlasting, both now and in the age to come.

Jesus is Called the Bread of Life (vv. 47-51)

47 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

Jesus stated here, “He who believes in me has everlasting life” (v. 47). In John 3:36 Jesus said, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life.” If we believe in Jesus we have “everlasting” life. The word everlasting means, “Lasting or continuing for an indefinitely long time.”(2)

Whenever I hear the word “everlasting” I am reminded of Everlast boxing gloves. I recall living near Moberly, Missouri where the Everlast Boxing Equipment company is located. The building where the company first began production has been abandoned for a new facility; however this presented a bit of irony. I remember driving past this old building countless times, with the glass broken and weeds growing between cracks in the parking lot, and seeing the huge logo “Everlast” worn and faded by the elements. Nothing about that run down building appeared to be “everlasting.”

It is hard for us to imagine anything lasting forever – especially life – because our fragile human bodies perish so quickly; but Jesus tells us we can have a life that never ends (I will speak in greater detail about this in a moment).

Next Jesus said, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die” (vv. 49-50). We find here that right after Jesus referred to everlasting life He also spoke of never dying. For many years, beginning in A. D. 1513, Spanish explorers started a quest in the New World to locate the Fountain of Youth (first explorer was Juan Ponce de León), for its fabled waters were to contain restorative properties regenerating one’s youth, thus resulting in remaining forever young. Life in Jesus is like finding a fountain of youth.

In John 4:14 Jesus stated, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” It is a travesty that countless people wasted their lives in search of the fountain of youth, when it is found in Jesus. In Jesus we never die.

Jesus mentioned the “manna in the wilderness.” Manna was the substance God sent from heaven to sustain His people Israel while they journeyed and wandered in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. The manna only sustained the Israelites physically, and it was temporary. The shelf life of the manna was only one day. The manna helped the people make the lengthy journey through the wilderness, but whenever they grew old, or whenever they got sick, they still died. The manna did not give them everlasting life. Jesus says, however, that when we partake of Him we will not die, for He is “the bread of life” (v. 48).