John 8:52
Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
These words were spoken in the court of the temple in connection with the services of the Feast of Tabernacles. After the evening sacrifice great lamps were kindled there to commemorate the pillar of light that guided Israel in the desert and to express hope that the Messiah would come to shed His light upon Israel. They belong to the discourse beginning with the declaration to be the light of the world giving the light of life to followers, the self-revelation as the light of life recorded in John 8:12-59. They are part of the Jews' continuing disbelief and rejection of Jesus, which ends in an attempt to stone Him after He declares that He existed before Abraham.
The Jews understood the promise that whoever keeps His saying will never see death to mean that His followers would never physically die. Because Abraham and the prophets had died, they accused Him of having a devil and challenged His greatness. In that exchange He answered that the Father honors Him, that He knows the Father and keeps His saying, and that Abraham rejoiced because he saw His day. Abraham saw the incarnate Saviour by faith when he was tested by the command to offer Isaac, and rejoiced in the promise of Christ as the Lamb slain for the sins of humanity.
The promise means that keeping His saying takes away death as final loss and takes away its weight. To the believer death is therefore a small matter of little moment, only a sleep of silence and darkness, and such a person never truly dies. This is because the believer's life is hidden with Christ in God, to appear with Him in glory when Christ who is the life appears. The promise will be completed at the second coming, when His voice from heaven penetrates the graves and unbars the tombs and all the precious dead come forth to glorious immortal life. The same power that raised Him will raise and glorify His church with Him, when in the glorious morning victory God brings all who sleep in Jesus with Him and crowns them with immortality.