In Jn 17^ we read what has to some extent the manner of a definition : 'This is life eternal, that (IVa) they should know thee the only true God, and iiim whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.' So far as this text furnishes a definition, it seems clearly to imply that ' eternal life' consists in such a knowledge of God and of Christ as involves a personal experience of vital fellowship. It carries with it the love and obedience which, according to Jn 14=s, bring the Father and the Son into the believer's inmost life, so that they ' make their abode with him.' In view of the use of iva in 4^ IS''' 18" we need not refine so far as (with Westcott on this passage) to maintain that the connective here retains its telic force and indicates an aim and an end, a struggle after increasing knowledge rather than the attainment of a knowledge already in possession. But it should not be supposed that any present knowledge of God and of Christ is inconsistent with incalculable future increase. While the essence of this Divine life consists in the knowledge of the only true God and His anointed Son, such knowledge is not the whole of eternal life, for other ideals with their addi- tional content are also set before us in the teaching of Christ and of His .\postles. Whatever else is true touching this saving knowledge of the true
God, its present possession is one of the great realities in the personal experience of the believer. In 1 Jn 5""'^ the gift and actual possession of this eternal kind of heavenly life are made emphatic : ' God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life ; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.' This language is incompatible with the thought that the ' eternal life ' spoken of is merely a pro- mise, a hope or an expectation of such life in a future state, as some of the older expositors main- tained.
This heavenly kind of life in Christ, conceived as a present experience of salvation, is further con- firmed and illustrated by what Jesus said of Him- self as 'the bread of life' and the giver of the water that springs up into eternal life. We have, no doubt, the enigmatical words of profound mysti- cism in Jn 6^"^. Jesus declares that He is ' the bread of life,' wliicli ' giveth life unto the world.' 'I am the living Imad which came down out of heaven : if any iiiuii cut ..t t ln^ liread, he shall live for ever: yea, ami llic Lic^id wliich I will give is my flesh, for the lile ut tUu world.' 'Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloo'd, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and driiiketh my blood hath eternal life : and
1 will raise him up at the last day.' ' He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my Ijlund ala.lcth in me, and I in him.' ' He that eateth lue >liall live because of me.' ' He that eateth tliis bicad >hall live for ever.' These emphatic repetitions of state- ment would seem to put it beyond all question that their author meant to teach that the Son of God, sent V)y the living Father, ' lives because of the Father, and imparts the eternal life of the Father to every one who believes in Him. Of this living bread the believer now partakes, and ' hath eternal life' (vv."-"). This liie also is conceived as attaining a certain goal, or receiving a definite consummation 'at the last day.' For it is a per- manent possession, and of a nature to advance from strength to strength and from glory to glory. The eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man have been thought by some expositors to refer to the partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; but such a reference to an institution not yet estab- lished, and utterly unknown to His Jewish oppo- nents, would have been strangely irrelevant. The life eternal into which the believer enters involves, as matter of course, all due allowance for Divinely appointed conditions, aids, provisions and means of nourishing the life itself ; but to exalt these unduly is to divert the thought from the more central ami profound mystic conception of Christ Himself as the life of the world. So the remarkable sajings of Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum, recordeil in Jn 6'-'^^ are but another form and a mystic expression of His emphatic declaration in 5^ ' He that heareth my woid, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judg- ment, but hath passed out of death into life.'
The exact meaning of the word ' eternal,' when used to qualify ' the life,' is best understood when the life is conceived as issuing from the eternal Father, and so partaking of His Divine nature (cf.
2 P 1*). Having life in Himself, and giving to His Son to have life in Himself ( Jn 5^), He imparts the same life to all who believe in the Son ; and that life is in its nature eternal as God Himself. It is an eternal kind of life which belongs to the unseen and imperishable things (cf. 2 Co 4'*). In the Johannine writings the word 'life' or 'the life,' and the phrase 'eternal life,' are used interchange- ably. The latter is the more frequent form of expression, but it is evident that the writer often employs ' the life ' in the same sense. This life is