Everlasting Life – The Believer of John 3:16

Who has everlasting life? Is it the man Jesus spoke of in John 3:16 when he said,
"whoever believes in him (speaking of himself – DS) should not perish but have
everlasting life" (NKJV) or is it the man he spoke of in John 5:24 when he said, "I say
to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life"
(NKJV)? First, Jesus says in the former passage believe in him for everlasting life
while later in the latter passage he says hear my words and believe in him who sent
me (God the Father).

Many cling to John 3:16 with the idea being that all Jesus requires of man for
salvation is a belief in Jesus without ever giving any real serious thought as to how
Jesus would define a believer in himself, one whose faith is sufficient to save. They
merely assume they know so every man becomes a law unto himself, declares
himself a believer, and is in his mind (and often in his family and friend's minds)
saved without ever offering any real concern about God's commands or any serious
obedience to them. Many have made no real attempt in years to worship God or
read his word let alone put him first in their life yet they are saved. We go to the
funeral home for visitation and we hear how this man or woman is now in a better
place.

Jesus never taught even once what such men have assumed. John 5:24 offers a
commentary on John 3:16 as do many other passages throughout the New
Testament concerning who the believer of John 3:16 is. When Jesus says in John
5:24, "he who hears my word" (and, of course, believes in God the Father) will have
everlasting life he is not adding to what is required of man for salvation for hearing
the word of God has been required of man every since Adam and Eve. But, who is
the believer in Jesus who will be saved? Who is that man? It is the man who hears
Jesus' word. A man cannot hear Jesus' word, disregard it or consider it unimportant,
even unnecessary, and at the same time in truthfulness say he believes in Jesus.

It goes without saying when Jesus spoke of hearing his word he was not speaking of
hearing with the physical ear but of heeding the words or put another way of
obeying those words. The next verse, verse 25, makes this clear. "Most assuredly,
I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of
the Son of God; and those who hear will live." (NKJV) The dead spoken of here are
not the physically dead but the spiritually dead and the meaning is not that just by
hearing Jesus speak one would be saved but rather if you hear what he says and
you believe it enough to act on it (obey it) you will live. No man has truly heard
Jesus who does not believe what he says enough to take him at his word and obey
him.

Further proof is provided in John 5:38 (a verse in the same chapter) where Jesus
speaking of himself tells those he was speaking to, "Him (me, Jesus – DS) you do not
believe." (NKJV) They heard him okay with the physical ear but they had not heard
him in the sense Jesus spoke of in John 5:24. They were not heeding the message
he was delivering.

Jesus closes this conversation in verses 46 and 47 where he says, "For if you
believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me. But if you do not
believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:46-47 NKJV) You see it
is not enough to just believe in Jesus that he is the Son of God. (See John 12:42-43
as an example of those who believed that but were nevertheless lost.) You must, as
Jesus put it, "believe my words" and that is where the rub comes in with so many
people. They are glad to believe in Jesus as being God's son, to believe in Jesus as
being the Savior, but they are not glad to believe in other words he spoke and
indeed reject many of them. Belief cannot be a smorgasbord of Jesus' sayings
where we get to go down the line and say I will take this, and I will take that, but I
will have none of that. How can we do that sort of thing and say we believe in
Jesus? Do we really believe him if that is what we do? If we don't "believe him" how
can we say we "believe in him?"

Most people do not believe Jesus when he said, "He who believes and is baptized
will be saved" (Mark 16:16 NKJV) but rather believe "He who believes and is
baptized, or not (either way), will be saved" (Mark 16:16 - man's version not God's).
In the Great Commission, as found in Matt. 28, Jesus commanded that disciples be
baptized (Matt. 28:19) but man while he says he believes in Jesus says it does not
matter whether a disciple is baptized on not. He can be saved without it, says man.
Yet, this very man declares his faith in Christ, faith in the very being whose word he
questions. Believe in Jesus but just don't believe everything Jesus says seems to be
the idea. You will then be saved by faith in Jesus.

The world may believe this kind of perverted logic (?) but I am not among their
number. It all comes down to a question of "what is belief in Jesus?" Of what does
that faith consist? We are worlds apart on that. To believe in Jesus is to believe
what the Son of Man, the Son of God, said. If you can't believe or won't believe
what the Son of man - the Son of God - said you are not a believer in him. If I can't
believe a man's word out in the everyday world it is quite a stretch to say I believe
in him. It is no different in the Bible as one considers Jesus and his word.

When Jesus declares a man has everlasting life based on a certain condition then
that condition becomes mandatory and is not a matter of personal preference as to
whether it is required for salvation or not. The same holds true if he phrases it
some other way – for instance uses the term "eternal life," or the phrase "is saved,"
or the words "will see the kingdom of heaven." Whatever Jesus states as necessary
to salvation under any and all such descriptive terms is required of man, man's
thoughts to the contrary notwithstanding. To fail to believe Jesus (fail to believe
what he says) is to fail to believe in him.
A good example of what I am talking about is found in Matt. 7:21 where Jesus says,
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but
he who does the will of my father in heaven." (Matt. 7:21 NKJV) If you really believe
in Jesus you must believe what he said here and thus understand that salvation is
dependent on keeping the commands of God. You will either believe that or else
you will not believe Jesus and thus do not believe in him in any sense of having a
faith that will save you.

We must always remember that while we are saved by faith it is only a certain type
of faith, a faith that is inclusive of trust and obedience. James makes light of a non-
obedient faith, "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but
does not have works? Can faith save him?" (James 2:14 NKJV) "Faith without works
is dead." (James 2:26 NKJV)

So, in closing, I ask who is the believer of John 3:16 who has everlasting life? I
answer by saying he is not the man most of the world thinks he is. He is a man who
has the faith of Abraham of whom the Bible says, "By faith Abraham obeyed." (Heb.
11:8 NKJV) To what extent did Abraham obey? To the extent he was in the very act
of offering Isaac as a burnt offering to God because God had commanded it before
God stopped him. This is the Abraham of whom the Bible says is "the father of all
those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be
imputed to them also." (Rom. 4:11 NKJV)

The believer who is blessed of God, the believer in Jesus of John 3:16, is the believer
who does not question Jesus or declare some of his commands as unnecessary but
obeys them all to the best of his ability because in believing in Jesus it necessarily
follows that he believes Jesus. He only is the true believer of whom it can be said
he has everlasting life.