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One of the earliest hymns in the Christian Church contained the lines
"Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give you light."
( Eph. 5: 14)
These lines sum up the attitude of the New Testament. From the first page of the New Testament to the last, the belief in eternal life with God is affirmed. The early Christians are in a real sense "the community of the resurrection." They know that God's power is greater than death's power, because God has conquered death by raising Christ from the dead (see Chapter 7). This is the charter for their existence. And it changes everything.
No more is the idea of God's power over death a pious hope. It is a hard-shelled fact. Christ has been raised from the dead, and those who believe in him can be "partakers of his resurrection." The New Testament, in other words, does not hotly debate and argue about this belief, because it is the backbone of every other belief.
Jesus takes it for granted, in an almost offhand comment, "You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just" ( Luke 14: 14). He defends belief in eternal life in debate with the Sadducees (who denied it), although he makes clear that the resurrection is not just a reproduction of the conditions of this life. Eternal life is one of the recurring themes of the Fourth Gospel and the attitude there underlined is expressed by Jesus, "This is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life" ( John 6: 40).
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