1 John 5
11And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12So whoever has God’s Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life.
13I write this to you who believe in the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. (1 John 5:11-13, NLT)
The Daily DAVEotional
When I was in college, on the last day of instruction for every class I ever took, someone would ask the professor what was going to be on the final exam.
It makes sense. Everyone wants to know what is going to be tested so they can adequately prepare for the test. Can you imagine not having any idea how the instructor was going to evaluate your knowledge and progress?
Nobody studies for a test by just guessing what will be covered on the exam and how they will be evaluated. It’s actually quite foolish.
And yet, this is exactly how many people approach life.
According to Pew Research in December 2023, over 70% of Americans believe in an afterlife, while over 60% of Americans believe in hell.
(https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/12/07/spirituality-among-americans/)
How exactly though does one determine whether they will go to heaven or hell?
In my many years of ministry, I have engaged with thousands of people regarding issues of spirituality and the afterlife. When asking people the question of whether they think they will go to heaven when they die, I found that most people think they will make it. But when asked the follow-up question of how God decides who makes it into heaven and who doesn’t, most people aren’t quite sure.
It’s interesting to me that most people aren’t sure how God decides who makes it into heaven, but they’re fairly certain that they will make it to heaven.
This is because people overwhelmingly believe that getting into heaven is a matter of being a good person and most people think of themselves as good.
But is this how God evaluates a person’s eternal destination – their goodness? And if so, what is the threshold of “good” that is needed? What kind of goodness score must one get in order to pass the test and make it into heaven? How would a person even evaluate their own level of goodness?
You would never study for a final without knowing what is going to be on the test and how your grade is going to be tabulated, but concerning one’s eternal destiny, which is a far more important outcome than your grade in a class, many people simply guess and make assumptions about how God evaluates them.
Fortunately for us, we don’t have to guess how God evaluates eligibility to enter heaven. He doesn’t make us wonder what His standards are. Here in 1 John 5, He tells us quite explicitly how He decides. In fact, we’re told that we can KNOW for certain whether we have eternal life or not.
What is the standard? It’s not what most people think. It’s not goodness, which is really just a subjective spectrum that most people have erected in such a way that no matter what bad things they have done, they think of themselves as good.
According to this passage, eternal life is based on the Son, Jesus. Those who have Jesus have eternal life. Those who do NOT have Jesus don’t have eternal life.
This standard is actually a lot easier to evaluate than some subjective idea of goodness. You either have the Son or you don’t. If you have the Son, John tells us that you can KNOW that you have eternal life. You can be 100% certain.
But if you don’t have the Son, you can be 100% certain that you don’t have eternal life.
The question for us then is how do we get the Son? Stay tuned.
Reflection
Do you believe there is an afterlife? What does the afterlife look like? What is the source of your information about the afterlife?
How do you define goodness? What makes a person “good”? How do you think God defines goodness? How good do you think a person needs to be to make it into heaven and live with God for eternity?
If you were to die tonight, how sure are you (on a scale of 0-100%) that you would make it into heaven and live with God for eternity? How would you rate your chances?
This passage says that eternal life is based on the Son, Jesus. How do you think a person can “have” the Son? What do you think is involved in getting the Son and having eternal life?
Photo by RDNE Stock project: https://www.pexels.com/photo/teacher-proctoring-his-students-during-an-examination-7092593/
The Lowedown 