.
● John 6:53 . . Truly, Truly, I say to you: unless you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.
The kind of life about which the Son of Man spoke is supernatural.
● John 6:54 . . He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.
Note the grammatical tense of "has eternal life". It's present tense rather
than future, indicating that when people correctly dine upon Jesus' flesh and
blood they obtain eternal life right then and there, no delay and no waiting
period.
* Eternal life and immortality are not the same. The one speaks of a soul
that's immune to death and the other speaks of a body that's immune to
death. Although it's possible to obtain eternal life now, immortality has to
wait until our resurrections. (1Cor 15:51-54)
For example Jesus had eternal life prior to his crucifixion (John 5:26, 1John
1:1-2) but he didn't obtain immortality till after his resurrection (Rom 6:9,
Rev 1:18) And according to John 5:24, the apostles had eternal life too; but
it didn't prevent their demise; they're all gone because eternal life doesn't
prevent one's body from losing its youth.
Now the thing is: eternal life is a very core element of New Testament
Christianity, viz: people who lack it also lack unity with God's son, i.e. they
are literally quite christless.
● 1John 5:9-13 . .We accept human testimony, but God's testimony carries
more weight because it is the testimony of God, which He has given about
His son. . . . And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and
this life is in His son. Whoever has the Son has the life; whoever who does
not have the life, does not have God's son.
There are well-meaning Christians out and about insisting that no one
obtains eternal life until they cross over to the other side. Beware making
that mistake because when people wait to obtain eternal life when they
cross over, then they spend the remainder of their stay on earth in a
christless spiritual condition. Needless to say: that is very dangerous. (Rom
8:9)
Pop Clock Update: 3,763 days have elapsed since beginning the thread. If
the figures in post #1 are within reason, then something like 220,440,303
new arrivals have checked into the fiery sector of Hades since Dec 10, 2014.
_