An Exciting Look at Two Verses
By John Gavazzoni

While walking this earth in the flesh, Jesus explained what (in the Greek) He meant when speaking of zoe aionios...English: eonian life (some prefer the spelling, aeonian life). He is recorded in the Gospel of John, chapter 17 vs 3 declaring what that life IS, then after His resurrection, as the Spirit of Truth, speaking through His disciple, John, He expanded on His explanation as recorded in John's first epistle, chapter 5 vs 20. (Quick note: yes Jesus, who called Himself, THE Truth, now among us as the Life-giving Spirit, IS, Himself, THE promised Spirit of Truth.) In my opinion, all the other translations I'm aware of fall short of the preciseness by which Jonathan Mitchell deals with the Greek of the above verses as found in Jonathan Mitchell's Translation of the New Testament, Expanded, Amplified (and with) Multiple Renderings. They are in our brother Jonathan's text as follows:

Jn. 17:3; Now THIS is (or: exists being) eonian life (living existence of and for the ages; life pertaining to the Age [of Messiah]): namely, that they may progressively come to intimately and experientially know You, the only true and real (genuine) God--and Jesus Christ, Whom You send forth as an Emissary (or: as well as Jesus [as the] Anointed One, whom You sent off as a Representative).

1Jn. 5:20; yet we have seen and thus know that God's Son has arrived and is continuously here, and He has given thorough understanding (comprehension; faculty of thought; intelligence; intellectual capacity; input through the mind) to the end that we would constantly know [other MSS: so that we constantly know] by experience the True One (or: in the real [situation]; in the midst of Reality): within His Son, Jesus Christ. This One is the True (Real; Genuine) God, and Life pertaining to and having the qualities of the Age (or: life having its source in the Age [of Messiah]; eonian life; Life of, for and on through, the ages).

Consistently Jesus and John chose the Greek word, "zoe" here borrowing...if I may call it that...from the Koine Greek speakers and thinkers who used it to denote life on a transcendent plane; a quality of life above what the common man could understand or appreciate, or participate in. "Zoe," I would say, was for the educated of that society, those of a philosophical mentality. Using that fact as a springboard, Jesus and John, so to speak, sanctify the word to refer to the Life of God, or the Life which is God, or Life in union with God, as compared to, for instance, "psuche," and/or "bios," referring respectively to what we would call soul-life and physical life, or life lived on one or the other of those supposed inferior planes of existence.

Therefore, "zoe aionios" as used by Jesus and John, does not only have to do with duration, i.e., life pertaining to the Age or ages, as skeletally it would seem, but has to do with a quality of life. According to our two chosen verses, it's THE Life of intimate, experiential, communing life that one has in union with Christ, sharing His relationship with the Father. In expanding on His Jn. 17:3 explanation, in 1 Jn. 5:20 He adds the factors of the arrival and continuing presence of the One, Himself, in whom is that life, plus the understanding given to us by Him. When we read at the end of the 1 Jn. passage, "This One is the True (Real; Genuine) God, and Life pertaining to and having the qualities of the Age...," Eonian Life is as it is described from the beginning of the verse. To repeat: eonian life IS the arrival and continuing presence of that One, along with His giving to us the intimate knowledge of the True God. John also wrote, "He who hath the Son hath life." Jesus has come... and to resort to redundancy... His presence is presently present, never leaving right up to when "the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall fill all the earth, as the waters cover the sea."

The added explanation of "zoe aionios" as having arrived and is remaining, has the clear implication that the very timeless life of God became timely...out of the dimension of the eternal/timeless into time, to be here with us where He's needed; Emmanuel, God with us. The quality of divine life took on an age-quality. It is the eternal/timeless life of God in Christ, effectively at work in the here and now. In a word, God sent His Son into the world, and sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts; THIS IS eonian life. He has arrived, and as One present, He continues to come to us in so many Life-giving ways. By His coming to us, we come to Him. The former is the dynamic of the latter. His arrival draws us to Himself. Yes, we come to Him, but by the dragging power of His coming to us.

Don't forget that fundamental truth, dear reader: God sent His Son, and if He had not, we could not come to Him, and by Him to the Father. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father except by Me," exclaimed Jesus. And right He was.