# Eternal life (Christianity)

Eternal life traditionally refers to continued life after death, as outlined in Christian eschatology.

## Quotes

* Eternal life turns on nothing more and nothing less than knowledge of the true God. Eternal life is not so much everlasting life as personal knowledge of the Everlasting One.
** D. A. Carson, in The Gospel According to John (1990), p. 556
* I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty six. Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilise the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan I realised that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older souls than others, and so they know more. The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men’s minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.
** Henry Ford, interview in the San Francisco Examiner (26 August 1928)
* Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
** John, 3:14–16
* Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
** Jesus, in the Gospel of John 5:24-25 (KJV)
** Variant translation:
** He who hears my word, and believes him that sent me, has eternal life, and comes not into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
* This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
** Jesus, in the Gospel of John 17:3
** Variant translation:
** Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
* We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
** 1 John 3:14 - 15
** Variant translation: We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
* This is eternal life; a life of everlasting love, showing itself in everlasting good works; and whosoever lives that life, he lives the life of God, and hath eternal life.
** Charles Kingsley, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 209
* Athirst for personal salvation, the West forgets that many religions had but a vague notion of the life beyond the grave; true, all great religions stake a claim on eternity, but not necessarily on man's eternal life.
** André Malraux, Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951), part IV, Chapter I
* Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
** Attributed to Rossiter W. Raymond, reported in Hubert Carleton, ed., St. Andrew's Cross Vol. XXIV, No. 12 (September 1910), p. 12. Later transcribed into a song by Carly Simon, released on her 1990 album Have You Seen Me Lately.

## See also

* Afterlife
* Eternal rest
* Eternity
* Immortality
* Impermanence
* Heaven
* Hell
* Life
* Mortality
* Necromancy
* Occultism
* Spiritism
* Undead

## External links

* Authority control: WorldCat search