Here is my perspective. In the final analysis, immortality is pointless if I try to cut God my Creator out of the picture. And so when I think of the Bible’s teaching on the subject of eternal life, I think about more than living forever. I also think about the quality of eternal life. You see, for me, the longer I have lived, the more I equate life itself with my relationship with God; not just the air I breathe in and out.

This is why, when we study the subject of eternal life in the Bible, we have to think of both “quantity” and “quality.” Yes, eternal life is just as it says: eternal. When we die, we will be resurrected in a new body to live with the Lord forever. But our life with the Lord will also have a holy “quality” to it. It will be filled with joy. It will be worth living forever in the presence of a God who is worth knowing forever.

It is possible to be breathing, but to be dead on the inside. But it is also possible to be dying physically, but to be more alive than ever.  In Luke 24:1-6, we find one of the passages that describe the resurrection: “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen!”

Because Jesus rose from the dead, we can life.  And life, for the Christian is so much more than merely breathing.