This Is Eternal Life

On the night before His death, after He had spoken with His disciples at length, Yeshua lifted His eyes to heaven and prayed. The prayer fills John 17. Near its beginning, He says in one sentence what eternal life is.

John 17:3 This is eternal zoe ζωή dzo-ay'(life), that they may know You, the only alethinos ἀληθινός al-ay-thee-nos'(true, genuine) God, and Yeshua Messiah whom You have sent.

Life Defined as Knowing

Many readers expect eternal life to be defined by its length, as life that never ends, or by its place, as life in heaven. Yeshua defines it by a relationship. “This is eternal zoe(life), that they may know You.” Eternal life is not only endless time; it is knowing God.

The verb is ginosko γινώσκω ghin-oce'-ko, the Greek word that carries the double meaning of the Hebrew yada: knowing a fact, and knowing a person from the inside. It is the verb Luke uses for Mary’s words when she said she had no knowledge of a man, and the verb Matthew used when he wrote that Joseph did not know her until her Son was born. Yeshua uses it here for the knowledge that is eternal life.

And He says whom this knowledge is of. “You, the only alethinos(true, genuine) God.” The word for “only” is monos (μόνος), alone, the one and no other. The word for “true” is alethinos (ἀληθινός), which the YLV glosses as “true, genuine,” the real one as opposed to every counterfeit. Eternal life is to know the one God who alone is real, and with Him the Messiah whom He sent. Yeshua’s “only” stands where Israel’s confession has always stood: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The God whom it is eternal life to know is the one God of the Shema, and no other.

This is not knowing about God. A person can know many facts about God and not know Him at all. The knowing that Yeshua calls eternal life is the knowing of Genesis 4:1, of Hosea 2:22, of Jeremiah 31:34: nearness, belonging, union. In Yeshua’s own words, that knowing is now the definition of eternal life.

I Never Knew You

Yeshua used the same verb in another place, and there it decides the last day. It comes near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, where He speaks of the day of judgment.

Matthew 7:21-23 Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of the heavens, but the one who does the thelema θέλημα thel'-ay-mah(will) of My Father who is in the heavens. Many will say to Me on that day: 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demon(individual evil spirits to be expelled)s, and in Your name perform many dynamis δύναμις doo'-nam-is(miracles, power)?' And then I will declare to them: 'I never knew you — depart from Me, you who work the anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness).'

These are some of the most sobering words in the New Testament. The people in these verses are not unbelievers. They call Yeshua “Lord, Lord.” They have prophesied in His name, cast out demons in His name, and done mighty works in His name. They bring before Him a record of religious work, and they are confident. The passage does not say that their works were imagined. It says that the One in whose name they did them never knew them.

His answer to them is this: “I never knew you.” The verb is ginosko again. He who knows all things knew about them, of course; nothing about them was hidden from Him. What He says is that He never knew them in the sense of Genesis 4:1 and Hosea 2:22. They had done much in His name, and yet He never knew them. And the reason is given in the same sentence: “depart from Me, you who work the anomia(Torah-lessness).”

Anomia is built from nomos νόμος nom'-os, Torah, with a prefix that means without: life without Torah, Torah-lessness. It is the same word Yeshua used when He said, “Because anomia(Torah-lessness) is multiplied, most people’s love will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). The people whom Yeshua never knew are those who worked anomia. And the person who enters the kingdom, in verse 21, is “the one who does the thelema(will) of My Father who is in the heavens.” The line is drawn between doing the Father’s will and working Torah-lessness, and on that line rests the question of whether Yeshua knows a person.

Known by Him

The apostles say the same thing in plain words. John, who recorded the prayer of John 17, wrote this in his first letter:

1 John 2:3-6 And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. Whoever says "I know Him" but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the aletheia ἀλήθεια al-ay'-thi-a(truth) is not in such a person. But whoever keeps His logos λόγος log'-os(word), truly in this person the love of God has been perfected; by this we know that we are in Him. Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.

“And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” The verb is ginosko once more. John gives a test for knowing God, and the test is keeping His commandments. He does not say that keeping the commandments buys the knowing. He says that keeping them is how we know that we have come to know Him. The one who says “I know Him” and does not keep them “is a liar.” And in the same breath John speaks of love: “whoever keeps His logos(word), truly in this person the love of God has been perfected.”

Yeshua Himself spoke of this knowing as a shepherd speaks of his flock.

John 10:27 My sheep hear My voice and I know them, and they follow Me;

In His words, knowing is not separated from following; the sheep He knows are the sheep that go where the Shepherd leads.

Paul says it from the other side.

1 Corinthians 8:3 but if anyone agapes(loves) God, this man is known by Him.

If anyone loves God, Paul says, “this man is known by Him.” Here the word of this book’s whole study, agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay, and the word of these chapters, knowing, stand in a single sentence. Love toward God, as we read near the beginning of this book, is keeping His commandments (1 John 5:3). Knowing God, as John says, is shown by keeping His commandments. And the one who loves God is known by Him. These three sentences belong together, and they say one thing.

The Whole Line

The line runs from the first marriage to eternal life. The union of husband and wife was the first picture. The betrothal of Hosea promised that the people would know the LORD. Jeremiah promised that all of them would know Him, with His Torah written on their hearts, because He would forgive. Mary conceived by the Spirit where no human knowing had been. And Yeshua names the goal of it all: to know the only true God and the One He sent.

One Question

So the question Scripture puts to every reader is not only whether you know about God. It is whether He knows you. On the last day, many will say “Lord, Lord,” and some of them will hear, “I never knew you.” The same Lord has told us, through His apostles, how a person may know that he has come to know Him: “if we keep His commandments.”

Yet the order of creation, a man and a woman, one flesh, knowing each other under the blessing of God, did not stay unbroken. Genesis also records how that order was trampled, and what God did when the whole earth was corrupted before Him.