God Is Life
Life. Real life, life in Christ is the God-imparted, illustrative, comprehensive, and fundamental primary source, which makes us who believe on Christ a living soul, living as in animated and dead as in inanimated. It is the essential “something” which God imparted to us because of the sacrifice of the Son, Jesus. In the N.T., speaking of “imparted things”, from God’s perspective, it is to give something away which is always present and at work, that runs forward in the power of God’s livingness. That’s what God means when He says He “imparts” something to us. That same concept also holds for Genesis 2:7, as in when God imparted “the breath of life…”. After the fall is another story. After the fall of mankind, without Christ, we are no longer able to do anything other than breathe and choose, meaning we are NOT all children of God. Some love to say, “We are all children of God.” Ummm, no, that’s not true. In order for us to be blood relatives, we must also choose Christ. Just because we all have dirt, breath, and have the ability to choose in common does not make us blood kin folk. We can only be in the family of God through Christ, and Christ alone, who is the only way to live in the brilliance of life that is always present and at work, running forward in the power of God’s livingness.
In John 3:16, “everlasting life”, “life” being the Greek word, “zoe”, means, “the state of one who is possessed of vitality or is animated”. Again, to be “alive” is to be animated. To be dead is to be inanimate. Life … real life is the gift of God, and is accessed through faith in Jesus Christ. That animating faith also imparts a new nature to us which results in fellowship with God in Christ, never to be interrupted by death.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that “… if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” The Lord alone has absolute life in Himself, and He alone is the source of all life, and i’ll say it again, although it may be difficult to accept for some: Just because we breathe and choose doesn’t mean we are alive. Breathing is not necessarily evidence of life as God purposed, but more the evidence of being given, by God, the right to breathe, act, and choose. Life, as God intends it for us, is something far more dynamic than simply breathing and choosing.
All have been given, by God, the right to breathe, act, and choose. Romans 5:12, “… through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned”. Without Jesus Christ we have lost our animation and have become inanimate. Sin did not kill us, the breaking of fellowship with God brought death, and sin was the result. Being animated means we have weight to accomplish and influence, but to be inanimate means we are weightless to make a difference, a real difference in the state of the universe.
God is NOT angry with us and does not hold us in contempt or disdain, for the Almighty loved the world so much, Jesus gave His life as a sacrifice and offering for the sin of the world, and an offering is something given of value and comes with a vow. 1 Chronicles 1:24 paints a picture of a foreshadowing of things to come when David refused to give a burnt offering which cost him nothing because he knew the offering without cost was valueless. God gave the offering of Christ, His Son, who was the ultimate offering, and His vow was that, as believers, He would no longer be angry with us. (Isaiah 54:9-10) God vowed to redeem us if we would repent, give us a destiny and an inheritance, adopting us as royalty, share with us His attributes which are of endless worth, and would love us all the way back to Himself forever. All the wrath of God was poured on the Son at Calvary. Are you OK with that, or do you feel you need to suffer, and be flogged a little extra so you feel worthy to receive God’s gift? Not only did Jesus die for us as an offering, but He rose from the dead because “In him was life (zoe) and the life was the light (or fire) of men”, John 1:4.
Now THAT is value that is not possible to ignore and is over the top, past infinity, and beyond anything the world or darkness can offer. God is life. Life cannot be gotten or bought in easy dispensers, pull tab cans, or zip open sacks, neither does life just happen, as is commonly advertised in today’s advertising medium. Life is exclusively in God Almighty alone, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, One God. God is life.
In John 10:10, Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” That is “abundantly”, in the sense of beyond our imagination, superabundant in quantity, superior in quality, and by implication excessive. Life in those terms can NOT be touched by the universe. Only God has it and we are, simply put, dead in the water without it.
Habakuk 2:19 uses the phrase “no breath at all”, in reference to idols, the whole scripture declares “Woe” upon those who seek knowledge and life from wood and stone, which are created materials; materials which possess neither life or knowledge, nor can impart life or knowledge to anyone. Men, all too often, look to escape God, looking for knowledge and life beyond the Lord, worshiping and serving the creation rather than the Creator, often celebrating the donkey instead of the Savior who rode on the donkey (Matthey 21:1-11).
God is life, the only life, super-abundant, superior, and excessive. He is extremely God and there is no other.