1 John and Eternal Life: Notes from Last Night’s Study

by | Nov 22, 2011 | Monday Study Notes | 0 comments

Here’s the notes from last night’s study on eternal life in 1 John.

1. What God Revealed to us when Jesus Came was Eternal life (1:1-2)  “That which was from the beginning” (v.1) is “the word of life” (v.1) …that is – the “life which was with the father” was “manifested” in a way that could be seen, heard, and touched.   See John 1:4
It came in a man, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth.
– He was fully human and lived in our history.
– So, it is something God has always, and something we do not have. He had to reveal it to us.

In other words, we didn’t have it in ourselves. It lives in God, God revealed it in Christ to people who were dead. So, apart from Christ we are dead. No “divine spark.”

2.  This life is not only to be seen, it is also “a promise to us” (2:25).  
The life which God showed us in Jesus—the life of God—is also for us.

3. This life is for us to “have.”  (5:11-12) It is a life to be in us, experienced.
To be “Born of God” is to experience a new life inside:

  • It is the same life which in “in Christ.” (Jn 1:4, 4:13-14, 5:26, 6:51, 7:37-38, 10:10)
  • It is resurrection life, life that defeats the world and sin and death. it overcomes (5:14)
  • It is divine life – growing, moving, spontaneous, reproducing
  • it emits faith (5:1), obedience (2:29), love (3:14, 4:7)

Four Questions:

1. Is my hope fully on God’s only source of eternal life?
Am I born? Love, Obedience, Faith, Victory

2. Am I experiencing this new life active in me? (am I bearing fruit?)
Is my Christianity in essence an experience and an outflow of life?
Life is:  spontaneous, growing, moving, reproducing, victorious? Is your love, faith, obedience?

3. Do I depend on Jesus daily for my life? (am I: eating? (Jn 6) abiding? (Jn 15))

4. Is my life today shaped by the promise that I will live forever?
Or does it look like I only have this life to live? 

And here’s the verses that were up on Powerpoint: 

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”   John 1:4

“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but 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.” John 4:13-14

“For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.” John 5:26

“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.” John 6:51

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37-38

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10