Double Talk?

When Jesus talks with Martha just before He resurrects her brother, Lazarus, Jesus says,"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:25-26, NIV). Is this double talk?

If we go back a few chapters in the book of John, Jesus said that whoever hears His word and believes God the Father who sent Him has eternal life and won't be condemned because "he has crossed over from death to life." (See John 5:24; emphasis added.) If I put these few verses together, I come up with one conclusion.

Those who died in Christ before His resurrection will live, even though they died. Lazarus, John the Baptist, and the rest of the Old Testament saints did die, but now they're very much alive. As for the rest of us?

It might look like we died when we do die physically on this earth--just like Lazarus and those others. But actually we died when we became believers. So we really have already passed from death into life. Awesome truth that's not double talk.

Or, as Sergeant Joe Friday would say, "Just the facts." SDG.