The Essence Of Divinity

Eternal life is the very essence of divinity, the divine life of Deity. That divine life is what Jesus made possible for us. This is what every religion in the world yearns to have. Everyone in the world, whether they believe in God or not, somehow or another, all want this divine nature. They're looking for that life, but they don't know how to get it or what it’s all about. They have the intuition within themselves that the human person was created to be much more. The human being isn’t supposed to merely exist, die like an ordinary animal and be forgotten forever. They believe there's something about the human person that lives forever, and they're looking for that “thing.”

Yes, they are right, but the only way to get it is to know Jesus and receive Him into your heart. He is the true God and eternal life: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). 1 John 5:20, “…and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”

Then in John 10:27-28, He said something most remarkable, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish….” Ponder again what we just read! You have to have or be something to be able to give it. Jesus Christ gives eternal life because He is eternal life and He imparted that life to you when you were born again.

Now that you’re born again, you’ve passed from death to life (John 5:24). 1 John 5:11-12 says, “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

Notice the tenses; it’s in the past: God’s testimony, His witness is that He has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son, Jesus. Anyone who has Jesus has life. Anyone who hasn’t received Jesus doesn’t have that life. Only Jesus gives eternal life. Hallelujah!

The Resurrection Gave Us Newness Of Life

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

If Christianity were all about salvation from sin, there wouldn’t have been the need for Jesus to rise from the dead. His death on the Cross would have been enough; it paid for all our sins and guaranteed complete propitiation. However, that’s redemption and not Christianity!

Redemption refers to saving someone by paying a price. When Jesus died, He paid the price for man’s redemption with His own life; He did that for all humanity; not for Christians. The Christian isn’t the man that Christ died for. Look at it this way: when Jesus hung on the Cross, in the mind of God, we were all hanging there too (in Him), for He was our representative. When He cried out, “It is finished,” and gave up the ghost, we also died in Him.

Now, here’s the big thing, which Satan didn’t see coming and the angels still marvel at and seek to look into: Christianity is based on the resurrection of Jesus, and not on His death. The resurrection of Jesus Christ gave us something far beyond redemption; it ushered us into a newness of life. We’ve been raised up together with Christ (Ephesians 2:6).

Romans 10:9 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” It lets us know that salvation comes by believing in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the subsequent confession of His Lordship. A Christian is one who identifies with the resurrected Christ. The Christian has no past, for the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature…”; meaning that he is a new species, one that never existed before.

No wonder James declares that “Of his (God’s) own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (James 1:18). Being born again, therefore, you’re not the “redeemed”; you’re the fruit of the redemptive work of Christ. Redemption was consummated with His death, but Christianity came from the resurrection.

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51).

Many misinterpret Hebrews 9:27, which says, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” They conclude from this verse that every person must die once. But the actual rendering is that because it was appointed for men to die once, Christ died once for all humanity.

His death was the fulfilment of that appointment, not a statement that every individual is doomed to die physically. The Gospel of Jesus Christ abolishes mortality. 2 Timothy 1:10 says, Christ Jesus abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. This is a present reality for those in Christ. You’ve been brought into immortality deathlessness. Immortality means you don’t die.

Some argue that men like Enoch and Elijah who were taken by God without dying must return to earth to experience physical death. This is also absurd, as it undermines the essence of the Gospel and the victory of Christ over death. The Lord Jesus declared, “...I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die...” (John 11:25-26).

The revelation of eternal life is vital. John wrote, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life...” (1 John 5:13). Eternal life is the nature of God imparted to the human spirit at the New Birth, and you must live daily with the consciousness that you have passed from death to life. Life works in you now that you’re born again.

This knowledge and revelation is necessary for you to walk in the fullness of God’s plan for your life. Mortality has been defeated, and you’ve been called to walk in the realms and reality of immortality. The generation of the Church that hears and acts on this message is the generation of the Rapture, and we’re that generation.