Eternal Life

The Bible speaks of eternal life as something people ask about, seek, receive, inherit, and hope for. The word or idea recurs in at least 42 verses across 13 books and 33 episodes.

Several Gospel passages frame eternal life in direct questions: a man asks what good thing he should do to have it, while others ask what they must do to inherit it (Matthew 19:16; Mark 10:17; Luke 10:25). In John, the text connects eternal life with believing in the Son (John 3:36), hearing the speaker’s word and believing the one who sent him (John 5:24), and knowing the only true God and the one sent, Jesus Christ (John 17:3). One passage says, “I give them eternal life,” and adds that they will not perish (John 10:28).

The collected language also contrasts eternal life with eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46), calls it God’s gift in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:23), and describes it as the end associated with freedom from sin and service to God (Romans 6:22). Titus speaks of the hope of eternal life and of becoming heirs according to that hope (Titus 1:2; Titus 3:7).