Everlasting Life – The Gift of God or Not?

Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That seems pretty straight forward.  A gift is something received without any expectation or requirement of compensation.  In other words, it is free.   The word eternal means infinite duration which in this case should be understood as never ending as it obviously has a beginning if it is a gift.  However, a review of contemporary Christian views on eternal life shows that not everyone understands what constitutes a gift nor do they know what eternal actually means. 

There are those who accept the words of Scripture as written and assign the common meanings to them.  People who hold that understanding know it is possible to know you have everlasting life with the assurance of being with God in Heaven when you die.  They agree with the Apostle John who wrote the following:

John 20:30 & 31 - And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

1 John 5:12-14 - He who has the Son has [a]life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, [b]and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

However, there are some who teach you can’t really know for sure.  They usually fall into 1 of 2 groups.  Those who teach you can receive the gift of everlasting life, but will lose it if you fail to maintain a proper Christian life style.  The other explains it as believing in Jesus Christ grants you probationary acceptance that will be judged at death to see if you actually qualify for the real thing.  While they each follow a different rationale, they both end up at the same place; no one can be certain they have actually received eternal life until they die.   But what did Jesus Christ say?

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.

Jesus Christ Himself said the only requirement to receive the gift of eternal (everlasting) life was belief in Him as the life giver.  The Bible says He took away the sin of the world when He died on the cross.  His resurrection 3 days later proved He has the power to give eternal life.  In order to buy into the proposition you can lose everlasting life or must also live a certain life style to finally receive it suggests there was some deficiency in Christ’s death and resurrection which we have to make up.  
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So, what could that be?