Christian faith is not the immortality of the soul or a general belief in an afterlife. In seeing the death of Jesus as the giving of his life for others. Christian faith is not the belief that after death comes life or that death leads to life. It is the belief that LOVE is life and leads to life.
It was not physical death of Jesus, but his death as the expression of his free and loving self-giving that constitutes its religious and theological significance in the New Testament. To die for others is not just to die, but is the most free personal act of life and of the affirmation of life in loving faith and hope and the Christian believe that this life, the life of Jesus of Nazareth, constitutes true life, a life that is stronger than death and survives death. The Christian believes that the life and death of the risen Christ reveals and communicates the invincible and eternal life and love of the Triune God.
In John's theological reflection (1 Jn 4: 7-9) we are told that love leads to life because such a life is sharing in the life of God who is Love itself and to share his life is to have been touched by the Eternal in time. "This is the Eternal Life," says the Gospel of John, "to know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (17:3) To know Jesus of Nazareth in the Paschal mystery, in his dying as a loving self-giving in faith and hope, is to know something of God's life, eternal life. To share in such a life is to share in a life that is eternal, an eternity known in loving faith and hope. In the farewell discourse in John, Jesus could say: "I am the way and the truth and the life" (14:6) That is, the life the lives and offers to others is the true way that is life and leads to life. He could also say to Martha, who knew that her brother would rise on the last day, that he was the resurrection and the life (11:25), that his life and death revealed the meaning of life and resurrection.
Christian faith....
is the belief that Love is life and leads to Life
BUL 18/09
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