We Have Passed From Death Into Life

24 “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.
John 5:24 (NLT)

The above verse is about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The moment we believed in the message of Jesus, we have eternal life. We will never be condemned for our sins and we have already passed from death into life. In this article, we shall study in depth on the above results of believing in the message of Jesus.

Eternal life.
The moment we believe in the message of Jesus, we have eternal life. What is eternal life? Another word for “eternal” is “everlasting”. Our lives will never end. Hollywood’s term for this is “immortality”. If you have watched a lot of action or adventures movies, you would have came across stories about people who went through tough challenges to seek immortality. They want to live forever. I believe such stories give a good reflection of our desire as a species to live forever. There are even researchers working round the clock in discovering the secrets to immortality.

As Christians, we have an unfair advantage. We already have what others are trying so hard to achieve. We became immortal the moment we believe in the message of Jesus. Please note that I said, ”message of Jesus” and not just “Jesus”. Why? If I am to say “believe in Jesus”, it has a wide meaning. Some people can misunderstand it as believing in the existence of Jesus. There are many people who are not Christians and believe in the existence of Jesus. They do not have eternal lives and are not immortals. They need to believe that Jesus died for their sins and receive him as their Savior. Only then can they become immortal.

What does it mean to be immortal? Death has no power over us. We can live each day with joy and hope in our hearts without fearing being killed by diseases, accidents or acts of terrorism.

“In that case, why do Christians still die?”
I will address this part at the end of this article in order to avoid duplication.

Let us move on to the next result.

Never Be Condemned For Their Sins
Why do we need the assurance that we will never be condemned for our sins? Obviously we still occasionally commit sins. If we never have sins, we will not need this assurance. After all, how can God condemn me for my sins if I have no sins?

How can we benefit from this assurance? We don’t have to fear sin anymore. Jesus will never go against us for our sins. Jesus is always for us against our sins. God is on our side and sin can never separate us from our God.

This is also the area where religious churches fail in. The common way religious churches used to combat sin is to use condemnation to threaten their members into not sinning. In the minds of the religious people, if they threaten their members long enough, everyone will live holy lives. However, if you look into the Christian history, religious Christians were the ones who committed the worst genocide and other human rights violations. Religious Christians became terrorists long before Osama bin Laden was born. Obviously, we need Jesus on our side to overcome our sins and not religion.

No matter what sins that are bothering you right now, you must always be assured that God will never condemn you for it. His desire is to help you to win. He will never force you to do anything you don’t like. Despite the lies from religion, God will never resort to blackmails.

Today, we do not intentionally sin because we don’t like sin. Sin is no longer our nature. No matter what benefits sin is tempting us with, we can get more through faith. We rely on our faith for our prosperity, not sin. Should we make mistakes and commit sin, we can get up, shake off the dirt and move on. We will never be condemned for our sins.

We have already passed from death into life.
It means we don’t have to go through death anymore. I am aware that there are many Christians who died and I am convinced that they are in heaven now. However, Jesus has told us in the above verse that it is not necessary to go through death. We have already passed through it. We don’t have to pass through it again.

We do not have to die. The sting of death is gone. Of course, if I die, I will be in heaven but I choose to take advantage of this privilege. The benefit of this privilege is, we no longer have to fear death. There are a lot of uncertainties out there: plagues, terrorism and natural disasters, but we can still live boldly because they have no power over us. We have passed from death into life.