Jesus defined it for us —or told us how it is to be obtained:
John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Notice that He didn’t say that life eternal
is going to heaven to live forever when you die.
Nor did He say it is to know … me
(or myself), but rather to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
The true God
refers not to the God the Pharisees thought was their father (John 8:41), but rather to the God that God Himself (in the form of Jesus) came to reveal. (See Declaring His Generation.)
In contradistinction to Jesus
(referring to the man) or to Christ
(referring to His divinity), Jesus Christ
refers to the man who recognizes that I and my Father are one
(John 10:30), the man who knows that the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works
(John 14:10), the man in whom the Word has been made flesh (see The Word Made Flesh) —not the flesh
that reaps corruption
(Galatians 6:8), but the flesh
that has been merged with Spirit, the flesh
that can see God
(Job 19:26), that can see the glory of the Lord revealed
(Isaiah 40:5).
Jesus is saying that we will not experience life eternal
until we, like Jesus the man, recognize that our true identity is also the Christ which was before Abraham
(John 8:58), that we are born of God, not man (Matthew 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.) (See “In” the World But Not “Of” It and One With God). We must let the same mind be in us that was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation
(Philippians 2:5-7). Then, and only then, will we find ourselves living the life which can be found only in the way of righteousness
in which way there is no death
(Proverbs 12:28). We will at last be experiencing life eternal.
Anything that is eternal is by dictionary definition lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning.
The writer of Hebrews has much to say about the power of an endless life
(7:16). He is speaking of Jesus Christ being a priest, not in the Levitical priesthood (which could make nothing perfect (v 11), but after the order of Melchisedec,
King of Righteousness and King of Peace without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God
(v 3).
We must have this same revelation, that we, like Jesus Christ, are sons of God
(1John 3:2) and also that this same Jesus Christ, the first begotten of the dead,
hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father
(Revelation 1:6) —whom Jesus told us was also our Father (John 20:17; Matthew 23:9). We must know that the Life that we are had no beginning and will have no end; then we can experience the power of that endless Life.
When that revelation is ours, we know that we have passed from death unto life
(John 5:24; 1John 3:14) —Eternal Life.
John 17:3 (KJV) And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
The true God
who sent Christ (God Himself) into the world in the form of Jesus also sent that same Christ into the world in the form of whatever your name is. When you know that, as Jesus knew it, the Christ (Father) that dwells in you will do the works of the Christ that dwelt in Jesus did (John 14:12) —for it is one and the same. For God so loved the world that He gave Himself to be us (John 3:16).