I am a little bit of a perfectionist. Maybe I have a touch of OCD. I like to get things right and it kills me a little every time I find out that I have it wrong. This leads me to pick at details.
It is interesting to note how both God and the devil are attributed to being “in the details.” I do not know if there is any psychology behind which phrase you utilize, but the main point is the value and virtue of getting details right. So, honestly, I can get a little nitpicky when it comes to God and the Bible, or life in general. It is one of things my wife and daughters love about me.
Do you ever get that feeling where you know something and you have to get it out? That is where these “Nitpicky Pastor” posts are going to come from. They are kind of soap-boxy and may elicit strong feelings. Hopefully they encourage us to think about these concepts more. Like this first post…
Are you familiar with John 3:16? It is a staple of Bible memorization. “For God so loved the world …” Can you finish the quote? In this verse we find God’s unfathomable promise to those who choose to put their faith in Jesus.
I learned this verse in the mid-1980s from the King James Version. It was probably close to my first exposure to “thee” and “thou” and verbs ending in “eth”. I guess my brain dropped the King James-ness of the verse as I assumed my memory was of the New International Version (NIV1984) or New King James (NKJV). All three of these make use of one important word which newer versions swap out. Can you guess what it is?
If I have not lost you between the explanation of “Nitpicky Pastor” posts and the intro to the actual message of this post, or if you have an eye on the title, you have a 50/50 chance of getting the mystery word right.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 NKJV ~ bold added)
All three of these versions – KJV, NKJV, NIV1984 – translate the Greek word aiōnios as “everlasting”. In his 1828 dictionary, Noah Webster defined everlasting as “Lasting or enduring for ever; eternal; existing or continuing without end; immortal.” It is used to describe that which is “Perpetual; continuing indefinitely” or “endless; continual; unintermitted” [without interruption].1
Several “modern” and popular translations have a different take on the word everlasting. They prefer the word eternal. The phrase “have eternal life” appears in the ESV, CSB, NLT, NIV2011, Amplified, J.B. Phillips, LEB, NASB, and NRSV.
We might come to the conclusion that since so many translations repeat this word that it must be correct. But I have to break out my Nitpicky badge and provide a rundown explaining why everlasting is better than eternal.
Translating from a Theological Bias
First, consider one of the reasons we have so many English translations of the Bible in the first place.
There are different kinds of translations, from word-for-word to thought-for-thought to paraphrase, and different reading level goals for some translations. When shopping for a new translation, or if you are going to defend your favorite from critics, be sure you know the answers to those questions first.
Another reason is because teams of translators often have a common theological perspective and allow it to shape their translation. I have received numerous calls over the years attempting to recruit me for a Hebrew course with the argument that the New Testament wrongly translates the original Hebrew. However, the writers of the New Testament are actually quoting the Septuagint (or LXX), which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament; a translation that reveals Jewish theological biases of the day.
Theological bias in translation can lead to errors of various kinds. However, it can also help us make choices for a “better” word than the one we could select by default.
Spoiler Alert: This is not just an issue between 21st Century English and ancient languages. Even today, not every language uses every word the in same way. Neither does every word in every language only have one meaning.
A theological understanding of the words everlasting and eternal help us determine which one to use in the context of John 3:16.
Is being “Eternal” a Universal Possibility?
The promise of John 3:16 is an offer to “whosoever believes”. That is extremely inclusive. Revelation provides a glimpse into the time following “the great tribulation” to portray “a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (7:9 CSB).
As we evaluate the difference between everlasting and eternal, we have to consider whether both are available to all who would believe in Jesus, from every corner of the planet, every people group, from Jesus’ resurrection until His triumphant return.
The short answer (because we do not want to fall into the long answer here) is that no human being can be or become eternal. The ability to exist eternally is not universal. It is exclusive, and exclusive to God.2 It is not possible, to the point where even God cannot make it possible, for us to become eternal.
Humanity’s Limit vs. God
Here is a look at the definition of eternal from Webster’s 1828 dictionary: 3
- Without beginning or end of existence.
- Without beginning of existence.
- Without end of existence or duration; everlasting; endless; immortal.
- Perpetual; ceaseless; continued without intermission.
- Unchangeable; existing at all times without change; as eternal truth.
Each human life has a beginning. It has a starting line, a point A, a first moment. If you following a person’s life history backwards, there is a point where that journey ends, because there is a point where the individual has no history.
For as long as the dimension of time exists, human flesh and bone is limited to it. Despite the exciting ideas of Back to the Future, Bill & Ted’s adventures, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, or Avengers: Endgame, time travel is not a biblical possibility. It is all written; it is done or going to happen. Only God is able to exist outside of time’s limitations. He knew all of history before it unfolds for us, and He is able to step in and out of time as He desires.
This is because God is eternal. It is a characteristic of God, part of what it means to be God. Time is one of His creations, a tool not a limitation.
The existence of time is part of what makes human free will possible. A common thread of modern time-travel stories is that if we come to knowledge of what is going to happen, it will influence our decisions. Instead, we have to take it on faith that our choices will have a positive influence on our future.
I’m willing to guess your track record is like mine in that regard; not the best. Since we can hardly trust ourselves to make right decisions regularly, many fail to trust God to know what He is doing. Yet the only eternal One sees every twist and turn, and we can trust that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28 NIV).
Everlasting PLUS
It is better to communicate the forever life promised in John 3:16 and elsewhere aseverlasting. Honestly, we have a difficult time being responsible for today. I do not want the responsibility of reaching back into eternities past and trying to keep them straight. Instead, I will work on today and look forward to eternities future.
I am not responsible for what happened before me (a different kind of “B.C.”, before Chris). My future, though, is promised to continue forever. Paul talked about the imperishability or immortality of our future spiritual bodies.
For the life of this world men are made like the material man; but for the life that is to come they are made like the one from Heaven. So that just as we have been made like the material pattern, so we shall be made like the Heavenly pattern … For this perishable nature of ours must be wrapped in imperishability, these bodies which are mortal must be wrapped in immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:48-49, 53 PHILLIPS)
This clearly aligns with everlasting life, a life that continues forever but is not eternal.
Amazingly, our everlasting life comes with a plus, much like the entertainment companies which keep releasing new programs with a “plus” (+) added to them. We leave behind our material, worldly existence for “one from Heaven.”
We never cease to be the Creation of God. We are adopted as His children, but we are not made His equal; God remains our God (Revelation 21:3). Yet He does not leave us in our fallen, material existence. He returns us to the glorified existence we were created for. Everlasting life plus sounds pretty good to me.
Footnotes:
- https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/everlasting ↩︎
- Jesus is not even a true case of exception. The Son of God is eternal, Whose existence and essence are the same as the Father and the Holy Spirit, and Who was active within the Godhead prior to Creation (Colossians 1:15-20). Yet the physical, earthly life of Jesus, the Son of Mary, had a starting point. We have glimpses of the Son of God in the Old Testament, but not the presence of the physical body of Jesus. ↩︎
- https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/eternal ↩︎
Chris MacKinnon 