Life Begets Life
Welcome to another Still in the Storm Substack post.
Today, I want to talk about a big topic.
Life.
The entire creation, the human body, and the Bible all relate to life.
But, what is life?
Let’s pause here and do a quick exercise.
Take a few seconds and think about the word ‘life’.
What pops into your head?
It’s definitely one of those words that probably means a lot of things to a lot of different people.
Let’s now try to narrow it down
The Bible is in many ways as good a reference as man can get so, I’m going to start and likely end there.
If you read the Bible you will encounter the word ‘life’ throughout both the Old and the New Testament.
Generally speaking, there are two main usages of the word ‘life’.
The first one I want to talk about defines the life of all animate creatures which includes plants, trees, animals, birds, fish, beasts and humans.
The Greek word that is translated into this form of life is bios and it is where we get the word ‘biology’ or the science of life.
You can think of this as animated life from birth to death.
All the living things that God creates in Genesis are encompassed by this word.
Note that it’s finite and limited. We also usually visualize it on a linear time scale.
It is important to understand that life, regardless of the form, is the foundation of the law and principle of all living things including being, development, and reproduction.
However, in the midst of all of this there is yet another form of life.
A ‘life’ that is wholly other
Understand first that it is not impossible to have bios without this other form of life.
It’s completely different and separate altogether.
The Greek word for it is zoe and it is eternal or Divine life.
This is God’s life which is spiritual in nature and is truly immortal.
In fact, this form of life is completely outside of our concept of time.
It is superior in every way to what we know as life in nature.
This life form that we are now talking about is the very substance of God and as such it is outside of our measure of time.
C.S. Lewis even went so far as to suggest that the proper way of thinking would be to visualize our construct of time (and thus the idea of bios) as being inside of God or eternal life (zoe).
“If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn.”
- C.S. Lewis from “Mere Christianity”
It is important to note that we humans do not possess this life naturally and that there is nothing we can do to obtain it.
The only way to recieve it is as a gift, that of grace.
To fail to have this other form of life though is in fact to fail of your Divine destiny and God’s ultimate intention.
Before we move further, I want you to remind you that the natural creation is a vast symbolism.
Although there is much splendor and mystery in nature it all points to something much greater.
Whatever we see in natural life is but a representation of a counterpart which exists in Divine or spiritual life.
The visible reveals the invisible.
This is at the heart of creation and God’s desire to have beings which will bear His image.
Life comes from life
Although there is much more to be said on the topic of life and how nature reveals the Divine, I want to wrap this article up by making one further point.
There is a question which sparked quite a battle in science that revolves around the topic of life.
It is essentially whether life occurs via spontaneous generation or if it only proceeds from previously living organisms.
In otherwords, can life come out of nothing or must it come from life?
That is no small question but, fortunately many scientists regardless of their faith or spiritual beliefs have concluded that life can only come from life.
What a revelation!
Oh and it comes with a spiritual counterpart too.
The same must be and is true for spiritual life as it is for natural life.
To gain spiritual Life it must come from The One who is living and to be “born of the Spirit” requires that it is this Life which must be implanted into the person.
Well, guess what?
We have a gracious God and He has already bestowed upon us this gift of Life.
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of all mankind.” - John 1:4
“And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.” (1 John 5:11-12)
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Until next time,
Mike
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Great post!
God created time for us! He has never been limited to time as He is the Alpha and the Omega. I like to boil it down. God is essentially in a helicopter above the timeline so He sees past, present and future as one. That explains His omniscience!
When we accept Christ as our Saviour then the Holy Spirit indwells us and we ‘jump’ from the Adam timeline leading to death to the Christ timeline that is eternal!!
So profound and beautiful!
Beautifully written Mike and thanks be to God you are a spiritual brother!