‘I have come that you might have life—abundant life.’ John 10:10
In a single, powerful sentence the writer of John’s Gospel tells us why Jesus came: so that we might experience ‘abundant life.’ Boy, have the mega-preachers and the success-mongers grabbed on to that one!
‘God wants you to be successful and happy! Come to this church/seminar and you will have everything you want: a trophy Life Partner, all the money you could need, success in your work, and a perfect family.’ (Sounds like Lake Wobegon on steroids. . .)
It’s actually Deuteronomy all over again. (Bad joke. . .) ‘If you are healthy, wealthy, and successful, it is because God loves you. If you are not, then you are not living right, and God will not bless you.’
But that’s not the message of Jesus. First, we need to understand that word ‘life.’ It occurs 55 times in the Gospel of John, half the time with the adjective that has been translated ‘eternal.’ Now we have tended to think of ‘eternal’ as meaning really, really long, infinitely long, life. Something like ‘living forever.’ In John, however, that word ‘eternal’ in the original language does not mean linear time. It means having a life of quality more than quantity. In fact, it is something that happens now, in the present.
Listen to John 5:24-25: ‘Someone who hears my word and trusts the one who sent me, possesses (present tense) eternal life… and has passed (completed action in the past) from death into life.’ Apparently, we don’t have to die to win!
And here in our passage, John 10:10, the adjective is ‘abundant,’ which has the sense of ‘pressed out in all directions, full, rich in quality of life, whole, complete.’ For the Jesus we get to know in John, the ‘life’ he came to invite us into is not about what happens to us on the outside (like wealth and success), but a way of experiencing an internal fullness, wholeness, and deep joy in each moment of this present.
