Real Life in Christ - New Evangelizers

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” John 17:3

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus speaks about bringing life. But this is no ordinary life: it is eternal life.

However, one of the great mistakes we make, according to Pope Benedict XVI, is that we think of “eternal” life as primarily about the after life. On this view, Jesus promising that if we follow Him that we will go to heaven. To be sure, this is a teaching of the Christian faith that we hold to be true. But to think of “eternal” life as only about the future and not the present is a mistake. There is so much more to the “eternal” life that Jesus brings.

To help us understand, we must remember that the New Testament was primarily written in Greek. In this language, there are two words for life: bios and zoe.

Bios is talking about earthly, physical life. This is why the study of life is called “biology.” Bios is that thing we possess from the moment of conception until death. I had a great biology teacher who once broke down biological life into two imperatives: food and sex. What he meant by that was that the two biggest drives in our biological nature is to find and consume nutrients and to procreate. If you’ve ever wondered why foods that are heavy in sugars, salts, and fats taste so good if they are “bad” for you, it’s because from a fundamental biological persepective they are not bad. According to some evolutionary biologists, because we have a taste for these things, we are able to bring in enough nutrients and calories to live long enough to procreate. Once we have done that, we are a successful biological life form. It is true that later in life that these foods will not lead to longevity. But from the perspective of bios, that does not matter. What matters is that you have eaten enough to survive to the point of having children.

And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with our biological nature per se. God made us as these physical beings whose bodies are repaired by eating. And he designed us to bring about new life by entering into marriage and sharing our bodies with each other. All of this is in accord to God’s plan. But if this was all we were meant for, then this could also describe all of the beasts of the world. They also eat and procreate. But we are more than beasts. We are made in God’s image and likeness.

This is where zoe comes in.

As far as I understand it, in the entire Gospel of John, Jesus never uses the word bios. He only uses zoe. Jesus is not really interested in bringing us more biological life. In fact, he introduces the great paradox of dying in order to live: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies in remains but a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24). An increase in zoe could lead to a shortening of bios.

You can see this confusion in both John 4 and John 6. When Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well, He tells her that if she drinks the water He gives that she will never thirst. She thinks he is refering to physical water for her biological life. When Jesus speaks to the crowds about how those who eat the Bread of Life will never die, they are thinking in terms of biological death.

But Jesus is talking about something much bigger than that. He is talking about zoe: eternal life.

As I wrote above, one of the big misconceptions is that zoe is only talking about an after life. The reason why this is potentially problematic is that this view falls right into the hands of atheistic views like Marxism. Karl Marx called religion “the opium of the masses.” He meant that religion is like a drug that dulls you to the pain of this life with the hope that things will be better in the next. In his view, hope for heaven blinds you to reality.

But when Jesus speaks about eternal life, He is speaking about life here and now. However, he is not talking about biological life. Instead, He is speaking about spiritual life.

When Jesus speaks of zoe, He is talking about entering into the Divine Life with God. I ask my students if I could cut off the branch of an apple tree, bring it into my house, and then have it grow apples. They all say no, because the branch is no long attached to the tree. When I ask them what the branch shares with the tree that lets it grow fruit, they tell me this: they share life.

Jesus said “I am the vine, you are the branches.” (John 15:5). The vine is not just near the branch or like the branch. The branch and vine share life. Zoe means that we share life with God: He lives in us and we live in Him.

And this is not something that we have to wait to happen until after we die. If you look at the saints, they are the ones who lived zoe. They experienced the fullness of life in God. Because of this, they were filled with the most fulfilling human experiences of any people who ever walked the face of the earth. Their lives were powerful and invigorating adventures, even when ladden with the heaviest of crosses. Even in the midst of all their struggles, even when bios was taken from them, they never lost the joy of zoe.

My wife and I prayed for children, but that has not been part of God’s plan for us. In the view of bios, I am failure. And this would be true of all priests, religious, and holy virgins. In fact, one of the reasons that those like St. Paul embraced celibacy was in witness against this. Christians do not look down on marriage and family. But celibacy is a witness that the apex of life is not bios, but zoe. The most successful life is one that is fully lived in Christ.

Life in heaven is an extension of this Christ-life we are living here on earth. This means that we don’t have to die in order to begin experiencing the joys of heaven. We don’t have to wait until the end of bios to begin experiencing the joys of zoe.

Eternal life begins here in time.

And the time to live is now.

Copyright 2025, WL Grayson

W.L. Grayson

I am a devoutly Catholic theology teacher who loves a popular culture that often, quite frankly, hates me. I grew up absorbing every movie, TV show, comic book, science fiction novel, etc. I could find. As of today I’ve watched over 2100 movies and tv shows. They take up a huge part of my life. I don’t know that this is a good thing, but it has given me a common vocabulary to draw from in order to illustrate whatever theological point I make in class. I’ve used American Pie the song to explain the Book of Revelation (I’ll post on this some time later) and American Pie the movie to help explain Eucharist (don’t ask). The point is that the popular culture is popular for a reason. It is woven into the fabric of our lives and imaginations, for good or ill. In this blog I will attempt to bring together the things of heaven with the things of earth. Of course this goal may be too lofty for someone like me.