What would someone pay to be able to live forever? Is there any cost too great, any deed  so difficult, any requirement so hard that anyone would not perform it, if they could live forever?

The Bible claims to have the answer to the question; “What is the cost of Eternal Life?”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

According to the Bible, the cost of eternal life is the Life of Jesus Christ.

Many people have stated that they do not understand how the life of one person could pay for the sins of every person who has lived on the earth. The problem here being that heavenly principles are sometimes difficult to understand in earthly terms.

Jesus had a similar problem in getting Peter to understand how eternal things work when He tried to explain to him that He must go to Jerusalem, and while there He would “Suffer many things, be killed and then be raised the third day…”

Peter’s response to Jesus was to rebuke the Lord and tell Him;  ”This shall not happen to You!”

Matthew 16:21-22 “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”

Jesus told Peter that the reason that he could not understand Jesus need to go to Jerusalem and die there, was that Peter was thinking the way that men think, and not the way the God thinks.

Matthew 16:23 “But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

From man’s limited knowledge of eternal principles, he cannot understand how the life of one man could be substituted for the lives of billions and billions of people who have lived on the earth over the course of all human history. How could Jesus death on a Cross remove all of the combined sins of every people, for all time?

Long before the Lord ever created the Heavens and the Earth, He knew in advance that man would sin and thereby be separated from Him.

In the Old Testament there was a principle that was established called: “Substitutionary Death”. The life of an innocent could be substituted for the life of the guilty.

According to old testament law in the book of Leviticus, a person who had sinned could bring an animal for a sacrifice, and offer the innocent life of the animal in place of the guilty life of the one who had sinned.

Leviticus 4:1-4 “Now the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a person sins unintentionally against any of the commandments of the LORD in anything which ought not to be done, and does any of them, if the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer to the LORD for his sin which he has sinned a young bull without blemish as a sin offering. He shall bring the bull to the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the LORD, lay his hand on the bull’s head, and kill the bull before the LORD.”

As a priest would lead the animal to the altar to be sacrifice, the person who had brought the animal for their sin, was told to “lay their hands upon the head of the animal”. As the priest prayed over the animal who was about to be sacrificed, he asked the Lord to transfer the sins of the guilty person who brought the lamb, into the innocent animal, and thereby transfer the guilt of the sinner from himself into the sacrifice.

This transfer of guilt was portrayed in the old testament as being “a picture” of what Jesus would do in the future. The animal did not actually take away the sin, but instead simply “covered them”.

When Jesus came to Earth in the form of a man and became a sacrifice for the sins of all men, He made it possible that everyone could have their sin removed as though they never existed. As Jesus laid down His life at the Cross, the sins which were only covered by the old testament sacrifice of an animal, were now permanently removed by “The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

Before Jesus came and made His sacrifice for all sins at the Cross, those who had died were held in “The lower parts of the Earth.” In this center part of the Earth, there were two chambers. The first a holding place for those who were looking forward to the coming of God’s Salvation for their sins. And a second chamber where all those who had rejected God’s promise of Salvation were held to await their final judgement at the Great White Throne.

In Luke Chapter 16, Jesus gives us a vivid description of these two chambers in the deep recesses of the Earth and what they were created for:

Luke 16:19-31 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.  But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.  And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.”

Chamber one, a place of comfort called “Abraham’s Bosom”. Created for all those who died believing in a coming Savior.

Chamber two a place of torment called “Hades”. Created for all those who had rejected God’s requirement to believe in a coming Savior for sin.

Because a permanent sacrifice for man’s sin had not been completed by Jesus as yet, no person in the old testament could enter heaven before Jesus died. It was one of these two compartments in the lower parts of the Earth, that was the destination of all those who died during the Old Testament Days before Jesus died on the Cross.

Today a person is said to be “Saved” when they look back in history to the time when Jesus came and made a sacrifice for their sins and that person believes this. Before Jesus arrived, God required that a person would look forward to the coming of the Savior in order to be Saved.

In the same way that we look back at Jesus and are saved, those who lived before the coming of the Lord, looked forward to His coming and were saved. All people throughout the entire course of human history are saved in exactly the same way. Either by looking forward to the coming of the Messiah, or looking back to the fact that He has already come and died upon the Cross.

According to the Word of God in the Bible, no person can go to heaven unless their sins are covered by the Blood of Jesus Sacrifice on the Cross.

When Jesus was crucified and died,  during those three days that He is said to have laid in the grave, the Bible records that Jesus “descended into the lower parts of the earth”. While there He preached the Gospel of His Cross to all those who had died before He came to make His sacrifice.

Ephesians 4:8-9 “Therefore He says: “When Jesus ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” (Now this, “He ascended, what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?”

1 Peter 3:18-20 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,  by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.”

According to 1 Peter 3:19-20, one of the purposes of Jesus descending into the lower parts of the earth, was to preach to those who had died during the flood of Noah. The Bible describes the fact that for 100 years Noah witnessed to the world that God was going to cover the entire earth with water.  This was to be done as judgment for man’s sin, but before this happened, God offered all those who would believed Him,  salvation by entering the Ark.

The Bible records the fact that no one except Noah’s family believed God and entered the Ark. All the other inhabitants of the Earth perished in the great flood and upon their death, were taken to Hades in the lower parts of the earth, as described by Ephesians 4:9. During part of the three days that Jesus died, He preached to these in Hades, that God had kept His promise and brought a Savior.

The first compartment that Jesus describes in Luke chapter 16 was called “Abraham’s Bosom” or “paradise”. It was the place of rest and comfort where all those who were waiting for Jesus to come and make His sacrifice were held. When Jesus ascended back to heaven on the third day, He took with Him those who were held in Abraham’s bosom.

Ephesians 4:8-9 ”Therefore He says: “When Jesus ascended on high, He led captivity captive…”

This compartment called “Abraham’s Bosom” was permanently closed after Jesus resurrection and does not exist today.

Jesus records that the rich man who was in Hades was conscious, and that he felt regret for the decision that he had made in rejecting God’s Salvation that led to his being brought to this place of torment. The rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to the rich man’s house and warn his family that Hell was real and that Hell was the destiny of all those who made that decision to reject God’s Salvation.

Luke 16:27-28 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father Abraham, that you would send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’”

Abraham told the rich man that there was “a great gulf fixed” between Abraham’s Bosom and Hades, and no one could cross over it once they had died and were taken there.

Luke 16:26 “And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.”

The decisions that are made while alive on earth to either accept Jesus as Savior or reject Him, are sealed upon a person’s death and cannot be changed.

All these who have been in Hades since the flood of Noah, and all those who have died since that time, having rejected God’s plan of Salvation, are to be held here in Hades until the end of the one-thousand reign of Jesus on the Earth.

The next major event to happen on the Prophetic time clock is the “Rapture of the Church. After this, the seven year Tribulation Period will take place. Then at the end of seven year Tribulation, Jesus will return physically to Earth with His Church and will begin His reign over the Earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords for one thousand years.

All these in Hades will remain there until the one thousand years are completed. Then they will be raised back to life to stand before the Great White Throne judgment where they will be found guilty of rejecting God’s offer of forgiveness through Jesus Cross. These will be cast alive into Ghenna, the Lake of Fire. The Bible calls this “The Second Death”.

Revelation 20:7 “Now when the thousand years have expired…”

Revelation 20:11 “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them.  And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.“

Today when any person who believes in Jesus Christ as their Savior dies, they are immediately taken into the presence of the Lord in Heaven.

2 Corinthians 5:8 “…to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

As the person who believes in Jesus feels their body slip away and cease to function, their spirit is lifted out of their body and ascends immediately into Heaven. This was made possible because Jesus sacrifice for their sins has been completed.

When Paul was stoned to death, he described what happened to him in 2 Corinthians 12:4. As soon as his body ceased to functiong, he was “caught up into paradise.”

2 Corinthians 12:2-4 “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”

When Stephen was testifying to the Jews how every generation of Israel had rejected God’s prophets and their message of repentance, those who heard him speak were filled with rage and took up stones to kill him.  As Stephen was about to die, he said this:

Acts 7:54-58 “When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at Stephen with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him.”

The cost of eternal life for a human being, is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Only Jesus lived a perfect, and sinless life and by that perfect life was qualified to offer His life in exchange for ours. Secondly, because Jesus is the Living God who created the Universe, His life is more valuable than anything else in the Universe.

How can one man offer His life for all men? It depends on who that man is. If he was a  man such as Buddha or Mohammed, Krishna or Joseph Smith who were all sinners themselves, their life does not have enough value to even save themselves.

If on the other hand, the life that is to be offered is that of the Eternal God, who humbled Himself and took the body of a man. This life has eternal value.  Because Jesus also lived a perfect and sinless life, His life is more than valuable enough to pay for the sins of all men.

The Bible declares that it was the Blood of Jesus Christ that had enough value to remove the sins of every person who has lived on he Earth:

1 John 1:7 “… the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

There is not enough wealth in the entire world to pay the price that a single man owed to God for his sin. The price required to pay for the sins of all men is equal to the cost of the Universe, for that is what the value of Jesus life was when He offered it for all of us.

If you want to know how much God loves you:  It was more than the value of everything else in the Universe, or He would not have allowed His Son to die for you. Jesus was more valuable to the Father than anything else in this vast Universe, and yet He was willing to pay that price to save all of us.

If a person would like to know how much God hates sin: All they have to do is to look at what Jesus went through at the Cross as all the sins of the whole world were heaped upon Him. Imagine how horrifying it was for Jesus, who had never personally experieced sin, to have all the world’s sin poured into Him. Jesus was “Made sin” for us, so that we could become the righteousness of God…”

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Some people believe that if you are a “Good Person” that God will accept you and allow you to go to heaven when you die.

The error of this belief is that there are really no truly “good people”. There are many who have done lots of good things in their life, but they are still sinners. Once that first stain of sin is upon a person, from that moment on, they are simply “A Sinner’. Just as from the moment that a person tells their first lie, they become “A Liar”.

The Bible records that “no one is righteous”, and that “All have sinned an fall short of the perfection that God requires”

Romans 3:10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one…”

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”

All men are equal in this respect, they are all sinners under a death sentence…

God had said that “The Soul that sins, shall surely die”.

Ezekiel 18:4 “Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father As well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die.”

God required the death of the sinner for his sin. In order for God to be found truly righteous, He must do what He had said that He would do. The sinner must die. If God did not carry out this death sentence for sin, then He could never have been found to be “Righteous” or “Just”.

According to the law of justice, when a law has been broken, a penalty must be paid.

This is where Jesus comes into the story. God could accept the life of someone else for the penalty that man owed for his sin, if that life was valuable enough. It had to be a perfect life and it had to be valuable enough. Jesus fulfilled the rquirements of both of these in every way.

This is why it is foolish to look to any other man, religion, or method of obtaining eternal life, except Jesus. All other men are sinner and did not live a perfect life. No other man had the value that the life of the Creator of all things has. These are unique qualities that only Jesus possesses.

Some people say that the Bible and Christians who claim that Jesus is “the only way to heaven”, are narrow minded, biggotted, and dogmatic.

Let me illustrate why one way is the best way:

If you asked me how to get back home and I told you that there was only one good and trustworthy road that was near by that you could take. Would you be grateful that I told you how to get home, or would you argue with me that I didn’t tell you more than one way to get home?

If on the other hand,  I began to tell you that there were thousands of ways to get home and it was up to you to figure out which way was best, how would you feel? Confused, angry that the way home was so difficult and complicated?

God wanted to make Salvation as simple and easy to understand as possible: Just believe in my Son and His death and Resurrection for your sins, and I will give you eternal life.

At the Cross where Jesus gave His life for you, an exchange took place. All the righteousness that God is, replaced all the unrighteousness that you are.

Philippians 3:9 “and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith…”

Every sin that you have, or ever will commit, was taken away as though they never happened. Imagine that. When you believe that Jesus death on the Cross and Resurrection from the dead, paid for all of your sins, your sins disappear as though they never existed.

The Bible says that when you believe that Jesus did this for you, that you are “Justified” in the sight of God.

Acts 13:39 “…and by Jesus everyone who believes is justified…”

Romans 3:24 “...being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 5:9 “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

1 Corinthians 6:11 “…But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

The root meaning of the word “Justified” is: JUST-AS-IF-I had never sinned.

The truth is, that unless a person is perfect, they cannot get into Heaven.

Matthew 5:48 “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.“

Many people have come to believe that if your good works outweigh your bad works during your life, that God will accept you into Heaven. The truth is that God will not permit anyone into Heaven who is not perfect and without sin…

Romans 10:3 “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

The reality is, that now that Jesus has paid the price for all of your sins: past, present and future, all you have to do to have your sins removed from your record permanently, is to repent of those sins, believe Jesus died and rose for you and accept it.

Romans 10:13 For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”

One day, Jesus was asked what a person must do in order to please God, this is what Jesus said:

John 6:28-29 “They replied, “What does God want us to do?” Jesus told them, “This is what God wants you to do: Believe in the one he has sent.” (NLT)

There is no good work, no payment that can be made, not penance or punishment that a person can do to make themselves acceptable to God.

Titus 3:5 “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”

If you will simply believe what God said: That you are a great sinner in need of a Great Savior, and that Jesus death and resurrection fully satisfied God’s requirement to punish your sin, then He will save you.

Romans 4:5 “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness”

What is the Cost of Eternal Life?

Complete surrender of your will.  Not just an intellectial acceptance in your mind that Jesus is the Savior, a great teacher or one of the ways to heaven.  There must be a reaction in the heart, that you believe that you are in need of a Savior because you are a sinner, and that Jesus is the only answer to that need.

Romans 10:10 “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Then there must be a verbal confession that you believe that Jesus is your Savior and the one to whom you are trusting in and looking towards to give you the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

Finally, there must be a continual attachment to Jesus for every remaining day of your life. A constant desire to grow closer and closer to Jesus and know Him intimately.

John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing”

Matthew 10:22 “…But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

…And there needs to be a changed life:

It is very important to continually judge your own life. Not based upon what other Christians are saying or doing, but examining your life in comparison with Jesus life.

1 Corinthians 11:31 “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.”

Philippians 2:12  ”Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”

Looking to model yourself, your behavior and your actions, by how Jesus lived. When there is need for improvement, improve. Where there is need of action, take action. Where there is daily need for the repentance of sin, repent and move on.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.“

Remember that although you have been “Born Again” by surrendering your life to Jesus as your Lord and Savior, this new birth is of your Spirit, not you body. You still live inside the same old body that wants to have it’s way and loves to sin. So, there is going to be a tremendous struggle now. Your spirit wants to please God, but your body couldn’t care less.

Galatians 5:17 “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”

Every person who has received Jesus as their Lord and Savior, constantly goes through this struggle. About two-thirds of the new testament was written by Paul. He is perhaps the greatest example of the kind of life that someone who is seeking to follow Jesus, should strive for. Yet, when you read Romans chapter 7, you see that even Paul had a tremendous struggle between his spirit that has been born again, and his old flesh which is constantly at war with his spirit.

Romans 7:18-23 “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”

Romans 7:24-25 “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”

This struggle between the flesh and the spirit will be with you until the day that your body dies and you are finally free of it. The only way to overcome the flesh is to spend time building up the spiritual side of your life.

Prayer, daily Bible study and devotions, fellowship with other Christians who are also seriously seeking to become more like Jesus. Becoming a part of a local church where the primary focus of the church is to teach the ENTIRE Bible from Genesis to Revelation, so that you have the “Full counsel of God’s Word” as a foundation.

Finally, be bold and tell everyone you meet what Jesus has done for you and what He means to you personally. It is not a great knowledge of the Bible that is required to begin to tell people about Jesus. What they need most to hear from you is how this new relationship has effected your life.

Look for the “fruit of the Spirit” in your life:

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control.“


These character traits start very small and grow very slowly over the entire course of your life. You are not suddenly in this brand new relationship with Jesus and all of a suddden you are perfect in all of these “fruits” listed here in Galatians 5:22-23.

Notice that the first and most important “fruit” is Love.

Love for other believers and love for those who do not know how wonderful Jesus is yet, should be apparent in your new life right away. Maybe not super strong yet, but a definite change from the way you used to be.

Next; The natural bi-product of genuine love in your life is more joy.  Real joy, lasting joy that does not need everything to be going perfectly in your life to truly be happy. Joy that comes from a knowledge that your relatioship with God is now right and your sins are forgiven. Heaven is your home, and God is going to take really good care of you for the rest of your life. Through good times and bad, He will cause everything to turn out for good, because you love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

As you are filled with increasing love and joy, now you will finally find the peace that you have searched for all of your life. This will enable you to be longsuffering in your struggles with people, and things that happen in your life. Out of these first fruits will flow more kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and yes…. even the all ellusive “self control”.

The Cost of eternal life has already been paid for all of us. Believing it and accepting it, by acknowledging that Jesus is the answer to all of your deepest heart desire is the only logical step to obtaining eternal life. This single decision begins a new an exciting life, the likes of which you cannot even imagine how wonderful and fulfilling it is going to be.

May the Lord continue to bless your life in every way, as you seek and search for Him with all of your heart.

Rob Robinsonen.