Quote:
Originally Posted by ThankfulForever777
Hi,
I’ve reviewed the paper and have a few comments:
1. You’ve done a great job reviewing all 137 verses where the Greek word "zoe" is used in the New Testament.
2. I’m unclear why you disagree with translating the Greek word “eonian” as “everlasting” or “eternal.” Could you clarify your reasoning?
3. I’m also missing a clear connection between “the life of the man Jesus Christ” and “eonian” life. For instance, in John 10:10, Jesus does not say that He came so that they may have His “zoe” life but simply that they may have the zoe life, and have it to the full.
4. I do not have a problem with this example of the eternal / eonian life explanation: “Living forever-and-ever in and by one’s own human life which he already has in himself and is experiencing now in this present age, but without his sinning (the deeds) and without sin (the sin nature) in a harm-free and trouble-free environment. (E.g. Mr. Jones will live as Mr. Jones forever and ever; and he will do so without the indwelling sin problem and what it produces, in a state of “sinless perfection”; and it will be without any of the hassles that he encountered in this age: he will continue to be living on into eternity as Mr. Jones.) Again, in this scenario, he will still be living by his own natural life, not by Christ, the eonian life. This person is also missing out on “the eonian life”.” (page 18)
5. Personally, I believe that the eternal life is our human life, transformed through faith in Christ, repentance, Holy Spirit, and knowing God in a personal relationship with Him and Jesus Christ. I don’t view the eternal life as a mystical or divine nature but rather as human and natural life redeemed and connected to God. I think we were created as humans and will remain humans even in the eternity.
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Response to #1
This outline was written by another brother and I was there when he passed it out and went through it.
Response to #2
Yes, this concept of eternal and everlasting can be confusing, but you have to think about it and consider the verses under discussion. This “eonian” life is connected with the life of the man Jesus. The word “eonian” in the NT is
not modifying the life of man, nor the life of God. The word “zoe” (or life) in the NT is referring to either the life of man, the life of God, or the life of the man Jesus. But in addition to the life of the man Jesus, the word “eonian” is added to His life alone. If the word “eonian” was strictly related to eternal or everlasting in regards to time, then it should be added to the life of God, because God is eternal. But nowhere in the NT can you find “eonian” modifying the life of God. So why is that? Because it has to do with the life of the man Jesus. It only connects, modifies the life of the man Jesus. So, what is “eonian” life? In the outline it says, “This life is not just the life of man, the human life, neither is it just the life of God, the divine life, it is a life that is constituted with both the life of man (the human life) and the life of God (the divine life); it is both of these together as one life”. Simply put, Jesus is this “eonian life”. Only by means of the eonian life is God expressed in humanity.
Response to #3
Yes, Jesus said “I came that they may have life (zoe)…” I believe He (Jesus) is not referring to the human life because the people He is talking to already have life (zoe, the human life). Moreover, He came so that they might have this life, His life, the eonian life. If He did not come, they would not get this life, His life, the eonian life. We get another life after being born again. When we receive Him, we get what He came to give, His eonian life.
Response to #4
I used to think this way also before I read the outline. But I see now that the eonian life means much more than just an eternal or everlasting life related to time. You have to understand that the human life without God is no good. The human life we received from our mother and father is not acceptable to God and is to be terminated according to Gal. 2:20. That verse says: “… I have been together crucified with Christ yet I am living; not I yet is living in me Christ …” And that is the Eonian life that we are living by. In Gal. 6:14 – But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. That “I” in this verse is my natural life because now we live by another life. It is Christ living in me. And how is Christ living in me? It is by the Eonian life. Why? Because the Eonian life includes the humanity of Jesus. We don’t die physically but spiritually our natural life does, it is crucified, terminated, and we live by another life now, the Eonian life.
Response to #5
The eternal life is not our human life. Our human life has nothing to do with God’s plan. Our human life is to go to the cross. See verse 2Cor. 4:7-12:
(v.7) But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. (v.8)
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed;
we are perplexed, but not in despair; (v.9) Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; (v.10) Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that
the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. (v.11)
For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (v.12) So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
This is divinity manifested in humanity but it is the humanity of Christ being expressed by the believers. And this is what God is after in creation. Remember Adam’s choice in the Garden to live a human life or a natural life without God was unacceptable to God. God’s purpose for man was to express Him (God) in His creation. And it is through the life of Jesus, the Eonian life, that we become “partakers of the divine nature” as Peter said. And the divine nature is in His humanity, we get His humanity and divinity in the Eonian life. And we become sons and daughters of the living God and He will be in us, and we will be in Him as Jesus was in the Father and the Father in Him.
To be transformed in this life, our human life, happens because we are living by another life, the Eonian life. We cannot know God just by our human life. God dwells in unapproachable light and we cannot get to Him. He (God) has to come out to us, and the way He came out to us was through His Son. We cannot experience God by Himself, there is no way because He is Spirit and unapproachable. It, our experience of God, has to be in Human form, and that human form was the life of the man Jesus which is the Eonian life.
There is nothing mystical about the eternal life or divine life because Jesus clearly discusses this concept with Nicodemus in John Chapter 3. It is altogether a spiritual matter or a spiritual re-birth. But that event of being born-again did not start until Acts chapter 2.
Yes, we live in eternity as humans but with the Eonian life. You are not there by yourself but with Him in you as part of the new creation. This is what God was after with Adam but he fell and missed out getting the divine life, there in the Garden of Eden.