Today, with death constantly making it loud and clear that it is the master and we are it's slaves, nothing seems to be a fairy tale more than the concept of a never ending life of an individual. We, the slaves in this setting, resign to fate at a point in our lifetime and meekly answer, "yes my lord" as the phase we all dread seize us. Then we die; dust returns to dust, from whence it came, and spirit to whomever gave it to us (Ecclesiastes 12:7). 

As is the unique norm of humans; making the best of what is available, we have tried to explain away this dread that lords over us. These explanations have spawned different views of death and life. The most popular are that we somehow don't really die but we transition from one form to another of beings. Hinduism and Buddhism embrace this as the concept of reincarnation where a person might be experiencing life today as a human being but when they die/transit they will emerge as a chicken, or an elephant or a donkey in the next life! Others are more confined to human to human transition whereby if someone dies right now in 2020 he might be born as someone else son or daughter in 2024! Actually, today in the medical Fields, the latter concept of human to human transition is gaining ground. Some scientists have even embarked on experiments to determine the soul energy and its possibility of flowing from one person to another. The hypothesis is that, upon death, the soul gets entangled as quantum energy in the universe until right conditions enable it to flow into a new conception of a new being.

It is the truth embedded in our human DNA that moves us to come up with such explanations. Though dangerously warped, and insufficient to explain the intricate nature of life and death they bear the fact that whomever brought us into existence never created us to die. Deep inside everyone of us, be it an atheist, an idolater, a secularist, a believer in God, name it, there is a stubborn yearning for a never ending life. We all don't want to die after such a fleeting life. We all want it: eternal life.

But what is eternal life and how did the creator set it to be? 

We may not understand it fully but let us try and use the revelations that we have from HaShem to grasp the little that we can.

Now, let us start with life. From Genesis 2:7, we are told that HaShem gave Adam his breath of lives and Adam became a living soul. In Hebrew that phrase living soul is nefesh Chai. Lest we bite too much that might prove hard to chew, let us concentrate on living/life concept. This word Chai is written in Hebrew as letter Chet and letter Yud; two letters to symbolise the concept of life. In the concrete understanding of Torah letter Chet may represent a wall, a partitioning, a skin that partitions the body or an entity from other entities, or an embodiment of a phase. All these may apply depending on the context at hand. Letter Yud may represent the yad/hand, the works, the acts that bring into existence or into being or that create, the acts that bring about an experience. Again, the meaning is contextual.

It is also important to note that Torah says in the same verse that HaShem gave Adam nishmat chayim: that is breath of lives. He gave him capability to experience not one life but several lives. 

Back to the two symbols of life (letter chet and letter yud), our two symbols for life may mean the experiences/works/actions/consciousness that bring out the embodiments of different phases of an entity. In short, when Adam became a living soul/entity, HaShem worked in him the capability to experience the different phases of consciousness of Hashem. 

Since Elohim is eternal; without beginning and without end, then this consciousness of HaShem in Adam would be eternal.

But how so?

Yahshua defined eternal life in John 17:3 as follows, ".....this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true Elohim and Yahshua Messiah whom thou hast sent...." Now, our human mode of communication, speech, may limit our understanding of knowing Elohim and Yahshua. But let us try to understand what is to know another person.

Obviously, there are different levels of knowing a person. My knowledge of my wife would be deeper than my knowledge of my new friend, or my childhood friend, or my sister for that matter. This knowing Elohim is being empathetic of Elohim. It is delving into the being of Elohim so deep that we can even tell what Elohim is thinking right now. For how can you say you know a person if you cannot even know what she/he is thinking?

I Corinthians 2:11 explains that we will never know HaShem that much unless we have his spirit.

And that is precisely why Yahshua came. Yahshua came as son of man/Adam/dust (Mathew 25:31 & Hebrews 2:14-17):  the lowest of existence; lower than the most base human having taken up all the cumulative sins of all humans (Isaiah 53). Yet, he rose up from that lowest point; even from death, and knew HaShem so much that he could read the mind of HaShem, and break the seals; the hidden mind of HaShem (Revelation 5).  He therefore became the author of our salvation and our faith. (Hebrews 5:9 & Hebrews 12:2) That is our hope brethren: i.e if Yahshua did it, having taken all the sins of the world, so we too can, with our individual sins work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12) and know Abba in totality: that is develop the mind/consciousness/character of HaShem in us in totality.

Yahshua enables it because he lives in us and we have his mind (I Corinthians 2:8). With the Spirit of HaShem in us we should grow in knowledge of Yahshua and subsequently that of HaShem from one phase to another (II Peter 3:18). That is, we should experience the consciousness of HaShem from one level of life/consciousness to another as it was intended from the beginning. And since HaShem has an infinite mind/consciousness, then it will be life infinite/eternal.

Eventually, the bar of standard for this growth is such that we will be Elohim; just as John 1:1 depicts Yahshua being Elohim. Actually we will know Elohim as much as he knows us as it is explained in 1 Corinthians 13:12, "....For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known..." I long for that time brethren when I shall know Elohim as much as HE knows me.

By Ev. Boniface Muthii