"The Words of This Life": Eternal Life (Affirmation & Critique, Vol. 31‪)‬

This issue of Affirmation & Critique is part of a series called “The Words of This Life,” a title taken from Acts 5:20. While we may be pressing the literal meaning of this expression, we wish to indicate that there are certain key words that signify important aspects of our Christian life and our church life and that these key words are, for the most part, common to all New Testament believers. However, we are also acutely aware that across the millennia many of the common words of this life have been understood variously by the different Christian traditions. Examples abound: faith, eternal life, grace, oneness, glory, church, worship. At first blush, words like these may seem to be simple and to have only one possible meaning (that is, the one in our own minds). But the facts of history make clear that many of these words mean immensely different things to Christians of different traditions, and it is worthwhile to consider whether to accept the traditional meanings or not, especially in light of a careful consideration of the Scriptures. To this end, in the issues of this series we will focus on some of the words of this life, considering their meanings from both biblical and traditional perspectives. Sometimes these perspectives will match; sometimes they will not. But our hope is that in our presentation the biblical perspective will be accurately relayed and will confirm, establish, and enrich—and perhaps even test and adjust—our readers’ understanding of these crucial words that relate to our Christian life and church life. May the Lord make us sufficient for these things.