A Lifetime or an Eternal Guarantee

by Chuck Cordon

At one time or another, we have all likely encountered a Lifetime Guarantee offer. Whose life does the guarantee refer to: yours or the guarantor's? Practically, you may apply the value of the guarantee to your own life, but in reality, the guarantee can only be honored if the guarantor lives to honor it. In Deut. 7:9 Moses tells us that only the Lord God is God, and that He is the faithful God, keeping covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments unto a thousand generations. This later expression “a thousand generations” would have meant metaphorically “for all time.” We call this perpetuity, meaning while in force and subject to the conditions by which the terms were made. That is, the covenant was conditional to the keeping of God’s commandments.

The Almighty God is ever present to faithfully honor His promises of covenant and mercy. Heb. 6:18 declares that the Lord cannot lie, and again at Heb. 13:8, that He is forever the same. The Apostle John, testifying of the Word; “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men…that was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world” (John 1:4-9). This Word, as revealed to us, is none other than Jesus Christ. Life and Light were bestowed on those who received (believed) upon Him, …who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of men, but of God (John 1:12-13). “Most assuredly, that which is born of flesh, is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” Jesus tells Nicodemus (John 3:6). “Most assuredly” is the expression of guarantee which John captures Jesus uttering 50 times in 25 verses in his Gospel narrative. Yet again, there is a condition to His covenant promise, and the necessity of keeping His commandments is specified. In the constancy and unchangeable nature of God, why should we expect His covenant authority to change? As to the promise of eternal life in the Kingdom of God, “unless one is born again of 'water and the Spirit'” (1:6), is necessary and immutable. Is it random or haphazard then that the next passage in John captures John the Baptizer declaring, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36)? There was no question or point of confusion in what John taught, or those who believed in Jesus were doing, for both John 1 and John 3 make it very clear that the response was baptism (immersion in water) as a manifestation of this new birth, (John 1:24-28 and John 3:22-26).

By so much more, we are told, Jesus has become a surety (guarantor) of a better covenant, in that He continues forever and has an unchangeable priesthood. “Therefore, He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” (Heb. 7:22-25). Let the record state, John will declare: “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:11). Now how’s that for a guarantee?!