When it says we "have" eternal life, we "have" it in the same way we "have" an inheritance. We "have" it because it belongs to us and we are trusting the promise of a trustworthy person to give it to us when the time comes.
I don't entirely disagree C&Z. But I do disagree about when we receive eternal everlasting life. I don't think that any doctrine could be made more clearly than the fact that we have everlasting or eternal life when we believe in Christ for salvation. Christ has already made us eternally alive through His Spirit within us. What makes people disavow this is that they cannot see this life is through our spirit by His Spirit within us. When we know and enter the Kingdom of God through the Spirit of Christ when we are born again or from above it is not physically that we enter there, but spiritually. How can we be certain of this truth? Because Christ has told us that the Kingdom of God is not NOW of this world, nor can it be seen through physical sight because the Kingdom of God is within us. The reason it is so hard to accept this truth is because most are too focused on a physical or material Kingdom of God they think shall be on this earth.
I'm confused and I apologize if I got you wrong. I thought you were saying that we are promised a spirit body of some kind.
Our spirit is the breath of life within our flesh, giving physical life to our body. Man's physical body of flesh and bone was created from the dust of the earth, and through the breath of life from God which is spirit, man became a living soul. We possess NOW, from the moment we are born again of Christ's Spirit, eternal everlasting spiritual life or life in our spirit through the Holy Spirit, and that is the part of faithful mankind that shall NEVER die. When our body dies as we are all destined to, our spirit is raised (not resurrected) a spiritual body of believers to the heavenly Kingdom of God, where we shall be until time given this earth for man to be born again has ended. And that will be when the seventh trumpet begins to sound. That's why both John and Paul tell us that death of our body is not the death of our spirit. In heaven we shall still be living souls there.
"I respectfully disagree with the idea that one can exist as a spirit or soul without a body. Although in conversations concerning spirituality we may refer to ourselves as having three parts - body, soul, and spirit - it's important to understand that each part is interconnected. If the body dies, so does the soul and spirit. If the spirit dies, the body and soul die with it. And if the soul dies, the entire being dies. Therefore, it's incorrect to assume that one part can live without the others."
This is not true! Man became a living soul through flesh & bone together with spirit (breath of life). When the spirit in man is born again through the Spirit from Christ, our spirit has everlasting life and can never die. Our body of flesh & bone dies, but our spirit still a living soul is alive forever IF before death we were born again through Christ's Spirit. When Paul writes in 1Cor 15 that the body dies and is then raised (not resurrected) a spiritual body in heaven, it is not only individual believer but corporately. Just as we are a physical body of believers on earth, so too in heaven we continue to be a spiritual body of believers there.
Only the spirit in those who die in unbelief are said to be in the grave in silence and darkness, but the spirit of those who physically die in faith, returns to God who gave it a living (spirit) soul.
The body of flesh and bone cannot continue to have life without a breath of life (spirit) and so it is a corpse. And the spirit within man without the Holy Spirit is also called "the dead" and is in the grave in silence and darkness. But the spirit within man that has the Spirit from Christ continues to be alive after our flesh & bone has died, and returns to God in heaven a living soul, a spiritual body of believers there.
Including John the Apostle as we can see in Revelation 20. :) John says that thrones were set up and that some were raised from the dead. These people are the first resurrection.
John NEVER, nor does anyone else speak of the "first resurrection" as anything or anyone other than Jesus Christ. He is the first resurrection from the dead and shall never die again. It is by partaking of Him before our physical death, that we have partaken of His resurrection life and are of the first resurrection through Him. That's why when we are baptized it is written that we are buried with Him into death, and risen with Him through faith that is of the operation of God who raised Him from the dead.
Colossians 2:12 (KJV) Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
Romans 6:4 (KJV) Therefore
we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Where in this verse does John write that some were raised from physical death? It says only that these martyred saints during their lifetimes, symbolized a thousand years, lived and reigned with Christ, and after they were martyred for their faithfulness they were still souls alive in heaven after physical death. There will be only one physical resurrection for all who have died in an hour coming when the last trumpet sounds. Nowhere in Scripture can we find there will be two bodily resurrections separated by one thousand years.
Revelation 20:4 (KJV) And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and
I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Revelation 20 reads that way to me. The thousand-year reign of Christ is recorded in Luke 17. In that context, Jesus refers to the millennial kingdom as "the days of the Son of man."
No, sadly many, like you read the passage in this way. It's called reading our doctrine into the passage. Luke 17 is of no help for you, Jesus gives no indication for a millennial Kingdom. In fact He says that His Kingdom if NOT of this world when the Pharisees demanded to know when the Kingdom of God should come. His answer is that His Kingdom does not come with observation and that we should not look for the Son of man on the earth, for we shall not see Him or His Kingdom here now, because the Kingdom of God is within you.
Luke 17:20-23 (KJV) And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see
it. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after
them, nor follow
them.
We are living in the days of the Son of man. We have been since He came to earth in human flesh. All the prophets of Old have written about this time when the promised Messiah/Redeemer would come, and since He has come we are now and have been living in these last days known as the age/day/time of the Gospel of grace. The time given the Church on earth for building the spiritual Kingdom of God as the Gospel is proclaimed unto all the nations of the world through the power of the Holy Spirit. This time shall come to an end when the spiritual Kingdom of God in heaven is complete and the seventh trumpet begins to sound.