1 John 5:11 - Exposition

"And the substance of the internal testimony is this—we are conscious of the Divine gift of eternal life, and this we have in the Son of God." St. John's ζωὴ αἰώνιος is not "everlasting life:" the idea of endlessness may be included in it, but it is not the main one. The distinction between eternity and time is one which the human mind feels to be real and necessary. But we are apt to lose ourselves when we try to think of eternity. We admit that it is not time, that it is the very antithesis of time, and yet we attempt to measure it while we declare it to be immeasurable. We make it simply a very long time. The main idea of "eternal life" in St. John's writings has no direct reference to time. Eternal life is possessed already by believers; it is not a thing of the future ( John 3:36 ; John 5:24 ; John 6:47 , John 6:54 ; John 17:3 ). It is that life in God which includes all blessedness, and which is not broken by physical death ( John 11:25 ). Its opposite is exclusion from God.