"Truly, truly, Isay to you, he who believes has eternal life." (v. 47)

No one wants to die. Yet, who among us would like to live forever? This is our paradox. This is our dilemma. To die means the end of what we are and have; it signifies also the cessation of whatever yet we had hoped to be. But wouldn't living forever be equally undesireable? For it holds out endlessness and sameness, like Shakespeare's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ..." Such would not be much even of a respite from sheer nothingness. On the other hand, however, who would want to play a harp throughout all time, or listen endlessly to "The Hallelujah Chorus"?

It is obvious, on second thought, that such questions and thinking are colored and even determined by our worldly concepts. Our idioms come from the vocabulary …