Do you believe in life after death? Do you believe that upon death we enter into an eternal state? Do you believe, in other words, that the conscious self lives on after death in another place, and continues that existence forever? Most people do. Most people refuse to believe that this world is all that there is, that we have arisen from oblivion and to oblivion we shall return, never to experience conscious existence again. Most people believe that we will live on. Certainly all Christians believe in life after death, in life in eternity, in our continuing conscious existence in another world forever.

The Bible teaches this, and teaches that there are two destinies for humanity. It is true that we will all live on forever. However, some will live on in the presence of God in heaven, and others will live on excluded from that presence, in hell, in the company of the devil, his demons, and the wicked from throughout all the ages. Heaven is a place where all good of this world is amplified and perfected: where the pleasures of sight and sound, and especially of relationship and mind, of soul and spirit, are enjoyed without dilution; where all that corrupts and harms is removed; where God supremely is to be enjoyed, as He wipes the tears from our eyes, as He banishes death, mourning, crying, and pain, and all things are made new; where He gives for our thirst refreshment from the spring of the water of life without cost (Ps 16:11; Rev 21:3-7).

Hell, on the other hand, is a furnace of fire, a place of darkness, of isolation, of weeping and gnashing of teeth, “where the worm never dies and the fire is not quenched” (Mt 8:12; 13:42; Mk 9:48). There will be those who, like the rich man who showed no regard for the poor man Lazarus, will lift up their eyes “being in torment” and will cry out with him that someone might “dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame” (Lk 16:23,24).

There are two destinies for humanity, and one of two destinies for each of us personally, either heaven or hell, blessing or curse, pleasure or torment. The Bible generally, and the Apostle John specifically, teaches us that our destiny is wrapped up in our response to Jesus Christ. This is the gospel of John 3:16: everlasting life for those who believe, but the rest perish.

The Apostle John wrote his gospel, on the one hand, that the unbelieving might believe and have life, eternal life, in Christ Jesus:

but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. (Jn 20:31)

He wrote his epistle, on the other hand, for those who already believe, “in order to give them assurance, the certainty that they have eternal life,” explains Morris.[1] The Apostle explains,

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 Jn 5:13)

He writes to those who already believe in the “name,” that is, the person of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the fullness of His humanity and divinity, and in the efficacy of His atonement, “that you may know that you have eternal life.” “Assurance of salvation is important,” Morris continues, “important enough to have caused this whole letter.”[2]

Since there is life after death, since our conscious self lives on forever, can anything be more important than that we know for certain that we will spend eternity in heaven and not hell, with God and not with the devil, with the angelic host and not the demonic horde? What could possibly deserve more of our time and attention and energy than this? Certainly nothing in this world, the form of which is passing away, can begin to rival our concern for the hereafter (1 Jn 2:17). The Apostle John wrote that we might know. What has he written? Let us read on and give the next world our focused attention.

Faith

We can know that we have eternal life if we have faith. Those who overcome the world (vv 4,5) and have eternal life (vv 11-13) are those who believe. The Apostle John writes of assurance specifically for those “who believe in the name of the Son of God” (5:13). This is the single crucial factor in assurance. Faith in Christ. The social test, love, and the moral test, obedience, repeated throughout this epistle, are necessary as signs of faith, but faith in Christ is the one necessary thing. The Apostle John, moreover, has insisted on specific faith content or theological content for those who have eternal life. How can I know that I have eternal life? Because I believe in the Jesus of the gospel. In the preceding verses he has identified true Christians as those who believe that “Jesus is the Christ” and “the Son of God” (5:1,5). This theme is elaborated further in verses 6-12.

Plummer calls verse 6 the “most perplexing” in the Epistle.[3]

This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. (1 Jn 5:6)

What does it mean that he came by “water and blood”? Some have interpreted this phrase as a reference to the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Others, such as Calvin, have understood it to refer to the blood and water that came from the side of Jesus when it was pierced on the cross. It seems to me that the best understanding of the phrase, one which goes back to Tertullian (ca 160–ca 220 AD), affirmed by the church fathers Oecumenius (sixth century) and Isho’dad of Merv (fl.c.800),[4] and is the view of most modern scholars, is that of the baptism (“water”), or his baptizing ministry,[5] and the crucifixion (“blood”) of Jesus. Remember, the gnostics were saying that the human Jesus was united with the divine Christ at his baptism, and the divine left the human just prior to the cross, so only Jesus, not the Christ, suffered there. These false teachers found it inconceivable that the Son of God could die, so they explained it away. They rationalized the gospel, as Hamilton says, “configuring it to what they thought appropriate and acceptable.”[6] There will never be a shortage of people connected with the church who will want to reduce the gospel to what they perceive to be rational. They will edit and explain away whatever conflicts with contemporary canons of reason, be it the miraculous, or the scientific, or the moral. The Apostle John then is saying, in Zerwick’s words, “not only he who was baptized was the Son of God, but also he who was crucified.”[7]

The “water and blood” are combined with the Spirit in verses 7-10 to form three witnesses to the gospel that we are urged to receive.

And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth. (1 Jn 5:7)

“The Spirit,” he says, “bears witness.” How so? The Holy Spirit convinces our hearts that the witness of the Apostles, what we now have in Scripture, is true. John and the Apostles are witnesses, eyewitnesses, to the truth of what they have seen and heard (1:2; 4:14). “But behind their witness,” explains F. F. Bruce, “lies the witness of the Spirit (cf. 3:24; 4:13).”[8] This is what Jesus promised. “The Spirit of truth . . . will bear witness to me; and you will bear witness also” (Jn 15:26ff; cf. Acts 5:32). The Spirit is “the truth,” even as Jesus is “the truth,” and the word is “the truth” (definite article; Jn 17:17). The Spirit bears witness to the truth of Jesus in the Scripture by convincing our hearts of its veracity. This is what the theologians have called the “internal witness of the Holy Spirit,” “His Spirit bearing witness to our spirit” (Rom 8:16). Further, the Apostle John writes,

For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. (1 Jn 5:8)

The Spirit, the water, and the blood are all said to “bear witness.” To what? To the full humanity and divinity of Christ. How do the three bear witness? The water (that is baptism), and blood (the crucifixion), are historical witnesses. To these the Spirit adds an experiential witness in our hearts. The three are in agreement, the historical witnesses of water and blood and the experiential witness of the Spirit. Smalley says, “the spiritual criteria for validating Christological truth are both objective and subjective, outward and inward.”[9] In other words, it is the whole truth about the whole ministry of the whole Christ which must be believed. It is not just the “Spirit of Jesus” that we believe in, but the historic Jesus, His full humanity and divinity, His space-time life, death, burial, and resurrection, of whom the Spirit bears witness through the enscripturated testimony of the Apostles. 

The Apostle John calls us to receive that witness.

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son. (1 Jn 5:9,10)

Three witnesses fulfill the biblical requirement for valid testimony (Deut 19:15). The Apostle argues from the lesser to the greater. If we receive the “witness of (three) men” in the courtroom, then we ought to receive the greater three-fold “witness of God.” In rejecting Christ we not only reject Him, but also God’s witnesses, objective (in history was recorded in Scripture) and subjective (the inward testimony of the Spirit). The Father bore witness to Christ at the baptism (Mt 3:17), at the transfiguration (Mt 17:5), at the entry into Jerusalem (Jn 12:28), and throughout His earthly ministry. He continues by His Spirit, in the preaching of the word to bear witness today. Reject these witnesses, and one makes God to be a “liar.”

There are those who have never received Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; who have heard of the life and ministry of the historic Jesus; who have also felt the Spirit bearing down on their conscience, telling them that they must repent and surrender themselves to Him, but that witness has been resisted. Some have hardened their hearts and refused to listen. Some have not received the Spirit who witnesses. This is to make God a “liar.” Some are like Stephen’s audience, “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears” who “are always resisting the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51). “Today is the day of salvation,” say the Scriptures (Heb 3:7ff). Do not resist when He begins to speak to your conscience. Do not close your heart to His voice.

Life

We know that we have eternal life not only because we believe, but because that promised future life is our present possession. The result of genuine faith, “genuine” in that it is set on the divine and human Lord Jesus Christ and is accompanied by love and obedience, is eternal life. This life is also a “witness,” a fourth witness to the truth.

And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. (1 Jn 5:11)

“God has given,” that is, has already given us this eternal life.” The concept of “eternal life” is both quantitative, life that lasts forever, and qualitative, the “highest kind of spiritual and moral life,” what Jesus called “abundant life” (John 10:10).[10] It is life with God in heaven, a life of joy and peace, of satisfaction and fulfillment, a life without sin, suffering, or pain. This eternal life is a present possession. It is not just pie-in-the-sky. Our relationship with God begins now, and consequently eternal life begins now (Jn 17:3). Of course we only know “in part” (1 Cor 13:9). “We ourselves groan within ourselves,” says the Apostle Paul, as he characterizes our current experience (Rom 8:23). We do not know this life in its fullness. It awaits consummation in eternity; but we do have it. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Ps 34:8). We have beheld His beauty (Ps 27:4). We know that a day in His courts is better than a thousand outside (Ps 84:10). We have hungered and thirsted after righteousness and been satisfied (Mt 5:6). The world says we’ll only be satisfied by pursuing illicit pleasure, but that is a lie. In Christ we rejoice in the Lord always. We have a peace that passes understanding, and a joy that is inexpressible and full of glory (Phil 4:4,7; 1 Pet 1:8). We find ourselves in a world of insatiable appetites and incurable discontent. Yet in Christ we have learned to be content in whatever circumstances we find ourselves (Phil 4:11,12). Our God supplies all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:19). We know God. We know that our sins are forgiven. We have experienced what John promised, fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Spirit (1:3).

There is only one condition that one must meet. One must come to Jesus Christ. Eternal life “is in His Son.” There is a great gulf between God and humanity, with only one bridge connecting. That bridge is Jesus. The only way to God and eternal life is over the bridge (Jn 14:6). We can’t go under it. We can’t fly over it. We can’t go around it. We must cross the bridge.

He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. (1 Jn 5:12)

If one wants “the life,” the abundant life, eternal life, it is found only in the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle John writes categorically. To have the Son is to have “the life,” to not have the Son is to not have “the life.” We return to verse 13:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 Jn 5:13)

Surely we can see that those are wrong who say that we can never be sure of our salvation. The Apostle John writes, “that (we) may know,” so that we would not be left in doubt, wondering, fearing, never knowing, facing eternity as a day unknown. The Apostle says we can know, we can be certain, confident, assured of eternal life, sure that we shall escape hell. We are not consigned to live in fear of damnation. We have the witness of history (water and blood), of the Holy Spirit, and of our experience of life right now. If we have the Son, we have life, eternal and everlasting.

Do I have eternal life in Christ Jesus? This is the one question I must answer and answer soon. I can postpone questions of vocation and location. I can postpone questions of marriage and children. There are many things in life that can be put on hold. Not this. I can know that eternity is settled. Why not settle it? Why delay? Why wait? Turn to the Son and believe and receive life.