Bible Study Insights — 1 John
April 21 2025
We had a visitor the other day while it was still dark outside. An owl came hoo-hooing. It sounded like it was right outside our window. People had told me that there are owls on the Island, but one never came this way before. I’ve seen an eagle soaring by us before gliding back down to the river.
Summertime brings frequent visits from the turkey vultures as a flock or as several scouts gliding on the rising air currents from as low as the tree tops to barely visible dots in the sky…
We feed the songbirds, too, and enjoy their hanging around and enjoy their tweet-tweet-tweeting.
Squirrels come around all the time, frolicing through the trees… and stealing our apples in the Fall. Beyond the beauty and intricacies of God’s beautiful creation — our natural world, I wanted to write about something more transcendent.
Actually, I wanted to rediscover an idea I had for an essay. I started writing it months ago, and rediscovered it this morning,.. but all I found was a blank page with just a possible title.
Just the same, from reading the Apostle John’s first letter to his home church which he had established, there are some encouragements for Believers… and some challenges for Unbelievers.
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” — 1 John 1:1–2, NIV.
Here is the subject I am writing about which is underlined in the above verses: eternal life.
From a much younger age, around my brief stint in College, Philosophy 101, I began wondering if there was a difference between Eternity and Infinity.
My initial thought about infinity was that it was a mathematical measurement of time and distance or a combination of both. Now, when I hitchhiked to California, I traveled around 3,000 miles, and the fastest time it took to get there was somewhere in the vicinity of 3 days.
Some Scientists have theorized that time is infinite as well as the expansion of the Universe. Both are infinite.
Yet, I do need something less ethereal, more finite, and more practical…That’s the problem about philosophy, you can’t really get your arms around it. It is an infinite circle and an existential waste of time. It may be interesting and even challenging for a little while, but it is more or less like an exercise bike that works the brain cells, but after all, that bicycle is stationary and won’t get you anywhere you need to go…
So, there’s that.
Back to the Bible and the eternal…
While my Bible reading disputes, at least, the speculation that the Universe’s existence as never-ending and an infinite number of parsecs, simply an unmeasurable distance, does that mean it is infinite or eternal? It’s clear to me that the universe is not eternal.
You see, let me point out that for about a century now, Scientists have seen the facts in Hubble’s theories, and recent long range telescope explorations of the Universe has proven that it did — to the dismay of the atheistic Scientific community — have an actual beginning. More recently, they have also seen that it eventually will collapse back upon itself.
Doesn’t that sound more Biblical than not? Doesn’t that sound more like God created everything, and God will also bring everything He created to a close? It seems almost like evidence, doesn’t it?
At the same time, what I’ll call “The God Theory,”is strongly resented and rebelliously resisted by that atheistic Scientific community.
Beyond their personal objections that there is no God above or anywhere else… they are endlessly developing prejudiced counter arguments. They seem personally morally obligated to procure theories to counter the Biblical story of Creation. What they have developed are nothing more than a confusing mishmash of poorly disguised and indefensible mythical yarns.
Look at John who was a Disciple of Jesus who became an Apostle (missionary) was otherwise just an ordinary man. His occupation was plainly a working class job — Fisherman. He became an extraordinary man, serving God, establishing and supporting churches with letters of encouragement and wisdom.
He wrote down his experiences as Jesus’ Disciple, having spent most all of his days with Him. He was exiled, but still kept working out his faith. Towards the end God gave him the Book of Revelations.
Do you actually think that this ordinary working class guy became a liar and purveyor of deception? Is that your excuse for not believing his words? And it is an excuse… a poor and pitiful excuse…
Look at what John says . We walked with the guy. We talked with Him.
When they ate together, and walked together through the crowds, don’t you think they even bumped shoulders with HIm?
In John’s first letter he uses the phrase “eternal life.” I’ll end this essay trying to explain its difference from infinite life.
I have come to understand the difference in this way: infinity never begins or ends, while eternal is always now.
Heaven will never run out of time… nor do I think of places to go.
Yes. Infinite and eternal are similar in that they are talking about time. Yet, now, from Science, we know there was a beginning and there will be an ending. The Bible agrees. We had a beginning, and we will have an ending.
Maybe we should think about how to get ready for that event…
We realize there was a time before us and there will be times after we’re dead and gone. (I’m no longer afraid of death… but I am afraid of the dying part. There’s a lot in life I already miss…)
I think Believers’ time ends, and then, their lives enter the eternal, the “forever now.” We should be working with Jesus to get us ready, because when our physical and finite life ends, our opportunity ends with it.
Have you tried knocking on the door?
No answer? Try knocking harder! It’s called importunity.
Patty and I know He’s home… We’ve let Him in…
GLOSSARY — “eternal”
Strong’s Lexicon
Meaning: age-long, and therefore: practically eternal, unending;
Usage: “The term emphasizes the concept of timelessness and perpetuity, transcending the temporal limitations of the earthly realm.”
HELPS Word-studies — operates simultaneously outside of time, inside of time, and beyond time… does not focus on the future per se, but rather on the quality of the age (165 /aiṓn) it relates to, Thus believers live in “eternal (166 /aiṓnios) life” right now, experiencing this quality of God’s life now as a present possession.
Thayer’s Greek Lexicon
1.without beginning or end, that which always has been and always will be:
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance
From aion; perpetual (also used of past time, or past and future as well)
