The reply given by the Johannine Jesus appears at first to confirm this by saying, «If a man has faith in me, even though he die, he shall come to life», but then proceeds to add quite a new interpretation of the resurrection power of Christ in the words, «and no one who is alive and has faith shall ever die».13 C. H. Dodd concludes that «the «resurrection» of which Jesus has spoken is something which may take place before bodily death, and has for its result the
possession of eternal life here and now... The evangelist agrees with popular Christianity that the believer will enter into eternal life at the general resurrection, but for him this is a truth of
less importance than the fact that the believer already
enjoys eternal life and the former is a consequence of the latter.»