Have you ever thought about an everlasting life? Most religious creeds teach eternal life as the gift received in heaven, the kingdom of God, after one’s death. But according to Christian Scripture, Christ Jesus himself said, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death” (John 8:51), and “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). How is one to understand and experience what he meant?
One of the distinctive and prominent points Jesus made in his teaching and healing practice was to always see God as “our Father” (see, for example, the Lord’s Prayer, at Matthew 6:9). The Bible implies that God was a tangible, loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful presence to Jesus. In everything Jesus said and did, he gave credit to his Father. His fundamental understanding of God and of his relationship to this Father was the basis of his healing ministry.
It was and still is radical to understand God as our Parent. And because the Bible describes God as Spirit, this means that God’s children—Spirit’s offspring—are spiritual. The kingdom of heaven within us is realized and eternal life becomes the only life, when we lose consciousness of mortality and instead take in the reality of one all-encompassing Spirit. This reality is not far off; it’s as close as our own hearts as they yearn for God.
