No man passes into eternity. For he is already in it. Frederic William Farrar
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a Catholic priest, philosopher, and mystic credited with making the observation that, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” It means we have lived as intelligent spirits before this mortal life. Our birth in this world was not our beginning and the death of our bodies will not be our end. We are eternal beings.
I decided to look up the word “Eternal” one day and had an Aha! moment. The word as defined in Webster’s Dictionary means, “existing forever; without end or beginning; having infinite duration; timeless.” What that means is there has never been a time when our spirits didn’t exist.
The Church does say we will live for eternity in heaven or hell, but not that we have always lived. But I see it in the Bible. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” Eph 1:4 says: “Before he made the world God loved us”. That goes way back. The other day I heard a radio bible preacher say, “Jesus called my name before God said, ‘Let there be light’”. That goes ALL the way back. These were mysterious sayings impossible to understand until I learned the proper meaning of the word ‘eternal.’ Now I see how they could be possible.
My life is eternal by nature. It always was, and it won’t end when this body dies.
That changes everything.
