Jesus in Never-Never Land

What can we learn from his double negatives?

Tonight, I find myself in a cemetery at dusk. It is totally serendipitous: I have time to kill, so to speak, before a banquet at a large country church and I’m restless. So, I begin to wander and quickly find myself in the quiet serenity of this graveyard, facing an enormous tree, its fingers reaching up into the darkening sky.

A somber setting like this is a good place for my musings on the double negatives of Jesus. I recently came across one in my study of the Gospel of John and my curiosity sent me to find all examples from the gospels.

They’re fascinating.

First, let’s understand what referring to. In the Bible, doubling a word is a way to add emphasis, to increase its weight. So, when Jesus says, “No, not” (in the Greek ou me), he is conveying the power of the statement, as if he’s stopping, mid-sentence, with the aside, “Seriously, hear me on this: NEVER!”

Just from John’s gospel, the points he’s punching up vary. But there is a common theme, and it’s quite pertinent to my surroundings tonight. Here are few samples (in my version):

“The ones coming to me I will no not cast away.” John 6:37

“Those who keep my word will no not see death.” John 8:51

“I will give them eternal life and no not shall they perish.” John 10:28

“Everyone believing in me shall no not die.” John 11:26

They’re bold statements, made bolder by the underscored negative.

Surrounded by gravestones, I find these also a bit puzzling. They seem like airtight promises that we can bypass a place like this, like they’re tickets for the express train past death to the next world. But our aging bodies remind us that can’t be what Jesus meant.

We are all going to die. It’s painfully obvious.

But Jesus is emphatic that death is not our destination. When he says we shall not see death (8:51), he uses a word that implies a length of time. We won’t gaze upon it, contemplate it like a captive spectator at a lengthy play. When he says never shall they perish (10:28) he negates the idea that they will be fully destroyed, body and soul. And the simple shall not die (11:26) has a direction attached to it: shall not die away from. Shall never be separated from the Father.

In all three of these verses, the phrase “to the age” gets absorbed in the translation. But it speaks of eternal life (literally “of the age”).

This matters to me. All of my siblings are in declining health. I think about aging and dying often these days. I wonder what it means that my life right now has God’s ageless quality to it. I think perhaps calling it perpetual life might help.

Jesus wants this concept to take root in us like a massive tree growing in a graveyard. You will never, NEVER die. This life, given to us the moment we believe in him, cannot be taken from us. It will outlast these pathetic mortal bodies.

In John 11:26, Jesus finishes his bold never-NEVER statement to Martha, then asks her, “Do you believe this?”

It’s a good question for us, too.

Great God, giver of perpetual life, speak to us in these emphatic nevers. Work this assuredness deep into our souls that it will change the way we see ourselves, and ultimately, the way we live out our lives.

Reader: How do these doubled negative statements affect you?