20250311

two possible destinies

1 John 5:4b-12 (JDV)

1 John 5:4b This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.
1 John 5:5 Who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
1 John 5:6 Jesus Christ — he is the one who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood. And the Breath is the one who testifies, because the Breath is the truth.
1 John 5:7 Because there are three that testify:
1 John 5:8 the Breath, the water, and the blood — and these three agree.
1 John 5:9 If we accept human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that he has given about his Son.
1 John 5:10 The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony God has given about his Son.
1 John 5:11 And this is the testimony: God has given us permanent life, and this life is in his Son.
1 John 5:12 The person who has the Son has life. The person who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

two possible destinies

The apostle John had a way of taking ultimate reality and boiling it down to simple statements that captured its essence. For example, he divided the whole of the human race into two categories – two destinies. He said “The person who has the Son has life. The person who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” By that he meant that the objective of life today is to gain a permanent life in the future, and only those who are in Christ will accomplish that objective. Jesus implied the same thing when he said “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have a permanent life.” He spoke of only two eternal destinies: to perish forever, or to live forever. Those destinies will each begin with a resurrection. Believers will experience a “resurrection of life” but unbelievers will experience a “resurrection of judgment.” That judgment will culminate in the second death.

There are two possible destinies. Both are permanent, but only one involves life.