When does our Eternal life start? Does it start the moment we accept Jesus and are born again? Or does it start when we die? Or from the moment we are resurrected? When does it start?
There are 2 deaths, earthly and eternal. Jesus is concerned about eternal death.
We are to know by His word, if we believe in Him
we will receive eternal life. However, we do not actually receive the reward of eternal life until He returns. The reward (eternal life with Him) is given at the 1st resurrection, he will raise the saved dead first, and saved living at the time will be translated. All the saved receive eternal life at that time.
Revelation 22
12 “Look, I am coming soon!
My reward is with me (the gift of eternal life)
, and I
will give to each person according to what they have done.
1 Thessalonians 4
The Return of the Lord
13 Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope.
14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him (who died earthly death believing in Him, before His return).
15 By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise.
17 After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
We have to be changed before we start our (actual) eternal life with Him.
1 Corinthians 15
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;
43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
We will have a spiritual body. Uncertain what this body will look like, but a body non the less.
So, the actual eternal life with Him (and our realization of it) starts at His return and it will be in a new body.
Amen.