11.1 Defining Life
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
I think I now understand why defining the term, “life,” has been so difficult. Life is speaking of a number of different things, all related and all connected together, yet quite different in themselves. More than that, we cannot really use separate words to speak of these various concepts that are life, because each one of them IS life, and each one is an integral part of life.
But why are we placing LIFE here? Very simply – LIFE is what you and I have entered into this Covenant with God to obtain for ourselves. We want LIFE. In the midst of death, we have tasted of Life and found it good. – We want to live!
Life in the Holiest. Life, as we must have Life, is found for us only inside the Holiest of All. Although Life is continuously flowing out from the Holiest, yet it’s source is here alone.
Having entered the Holiest, we have eaten and drunk of the strongest taste of Life in our Christian experience, yet it remains taste only. We are determined to be sealed forever in and as Life. That is, we are not satisfied, we will not rest, until the incorruptible Life of God Himself is our very and only life, not just in all Substance, but also in all appearance. We groan for the Resurrection, the redemption of our bodies.
His Life and Our Body. We, having bodies of an outward form, have entered into this Covenant with God Almighty in order to win His Life for our bodies. God, having Life as the essence of His being, has entered into this Covenant with us humans of flesh in order to win our bodies for His Life.
Yet “body” and “life” are synonymous, you can’t really have one without also having the other. Yet God has no body. And we are not yet alive forevermore. This is another one of those impossible realities God likes to call “a mystery.”
Energeia. Let’s layout briefly the different things that are life before we attempt a model.
First, life is animation, that is, energeia, that is, fire. Picture a robot, standing there without movement or light. Suddenly, the robot “turns on,” lights appear and it begins to move around. What happened? Energy, that is, fire in the form of electricity, has suddenly coursed through the wires of that robot, giving its parts the power they need to turn on and move around. Thus James said that the body without the spirit is dead and Paul said that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead gives LIFE to our mortal bodies.
Incorruptible Life. However, the Spirit, the fire, “gives” life; that means that life is its own quality distinct from Spirit. Then, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus presents life as something to enter into, something to inherit, something “future,” that is, of the age to come.
Yet John, in his gospel, presents Jesus as life right from the start. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26). It is this life that is Father’s own energeia, His own animating force, that we mean when we say, “Incorruptible life.” And this unmeasurable LIFE is the core meaning of what we enter this Covenant to win, yet not the entire meaning.
Sustenance. Life is also sustenance. Thus Jesus said that we live only as we feed on Him. The life is IN the blood. In his book, In His Image, Dr. Paul Brand shares about his experience as a young doctor in London when he saw the “life” in an injured person diminishing with the outflow of blood and how an infusion of blood brought a return to that animation.
The energeia of life is in the blood. That means four things. The blood carries in itself the nutrients and the oxygen each cell needs, both to build and to energize. The blood also emits its frequency that heals, AND it carries away the wastes.
Words Are Life. Now, all of this is but one arena of life. Life has two other arenas, quite different, yet inseparable from this first arena that is life. The second arena of life comes out from Jesus’ statement in John 6:63: The Words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are Life. – Words are life.
Typically, the word “life” in the New Testament is the Greek, zoe. But when we say that “words are life,” only in that way of thinking can we also use the word “life” for the Greek, psuche, or soul, that is, the story of our lives. Thus, sustaining all things by the Word of His power means, sustaining all things by the Story of His life force.
Life as Story. This arena of life refers to our “life,” that is, the period of time during which we live on this earth, that is, the sum total and breadth of our life experiences. Life, then, is our own story. Inside of this meaning the “life” of the age to come refers directly to another story fitting itself into and becoming our story, that is Jesus’ own self-story. Thus we say, “Let me tell you about my life.” And an “autobiography” is to write the story of one’s own life.
Bio is also a Greek word used in the New Testament to mean “life.” But it is used to refer to the things of daily life, or, specifically, the material things we need in order to “live.”
Quality of Life. Thus, inside this arena of “life,” we find the concept of the quality of life. Picture a child growing up in poverty and abject abuse, turning to drugs and dying of an overdose while still a teenager. That person would call their “life,” nothing short of hell. Picture a child growing up in a kind and loving home with the plenteous provision of the earth and good training in respect and wisdom. That person would not be blamed for calling his or her “life” heavenly.
Thus life, our story, is marked by its quality – and this is one reason why we turn all things meant for evil into goodness. The five fruits we have seen, then, coming out from the Fire of God, are elements of the quality of life.
Life Together. But there is an entirely other arena that is also life, and that is the life of the Body, corporate life, or life together. This arena of life is, in actuality, the thing God entered this Covenant with us to obtain, that is, a many-membered Body. Inside of life together, all the elements of life continue to function, yet between and among us together rather than just as individual members. Inside of life together is encouragement and grace, uplifting and strength. Many together can do what individuals working each by themselves can never achieve or know. Life together is the highest quality of life, but only when each member is healthy and complete.
Union – Communion – Expression. In essence, we have described spirit – soul – body as the three arenas that are this word, “life.” The spirit, zoe, is the energeia of life, the soul, psuche, is the story of life, and the body, bio, is the expression of life. (Although these Greek words fit nicely where I placed them here, yet they are also sometimes interchangeable.)
Union – Fellowship or Communion – Expression. One in the Spirit, in communion together through our life stories, and one expression of Christ. Remove the Spirit and everything dies. Remove the Story and everything dies. Remove the Body and everything dies. Life is being complete, all three arenas of life utterly entwined.
A Model of Life.
This diagram is the Model of Life that I am picturing. In fact, this is the exact operation of the physical universe. The red and blue lines spiraling around each other are the two mighty charges that together are the Birkeland currents flowing down the arms of our galaxy and bridging from one galaxy to the next. Electricity in space is always this double spiral. As these two mighty bands of power “pinch” they become visible as light, that is, as a star, the “body” that expresses the power.
The Source of Life. Those scientists that understand and study the electrical nature of the universe state that there is NO indication of the source of all that mighty power lighting all the stars. Thus, if you will look back at the model, look to the left side, the place where those two mighty bands of power begin. There is a very large circle there on the left, a circle that is entirely invisible. The circle on the right, then, is the visible representation of the invisible circle on the left, the source of all this LIFE.
We translate these things, of course, entirely into the Father as the Source of life, Spirit and Word, always together, as the bridge of life, and the Body of Christ as the expression of life.
The Physical Profits Nothing. It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. – In Him was life and the life was the light of men.
If there were no binary electrical currents flowing through space, then the sun, of itself, would be nothing other than a huge gas “planet,” without energy of any kind. The light that lightens our world does not come from the physical sun, but is rather the discharge of the binary electrical current far out from the surface of the sun. The body of the sun serves only as the discharge point by which the light and heat that is in the Birkeland current can become visible and felt.
Yet we understand that Spirit cannot be without Word and Word cannot be without Spirit - binary.
Death. There is a word in the New Testament for “spirit only” – thanatos, death. There is a word in the New Testament for “word only” – thanatos, death. The first is the death of Gnosticism; the second is the death of legalism. We cannot know the life of the Spirit without the self story of Jesus in our own mouths. We cannot know the self story of Jesus without the energeia of the Spirit. Spirit without word is the exaltation of self, the narcissist; word without spirit is rules and control over others, the bully. Life is not 50/50; life is 100% Spirit intertwined in all ways and at every point with 100% Word. Yet life must have a Body to be known. Life without a Body does nothing for anyone.
Jesus Sent. As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. The Son is every Word God speaks, yet the Son is also a human life-giving Spirit. We know the Father by knowing the Son, Jesus Sent (and Jesus-Sent requires Spirit and Word together). But we cannot know the Father separate from His Body, thus to know the Father is also to know ourselves and to know one another. And this is, according to Jesus, LIFE! Age-abiding life.
So, in all of this HUGE bunch of stuff we are calling “life,” what, exactly, did we enter this Covenant to win for ourselves?
A Second Model of Life. To answer that question regarding Covenant, we must have a different model of the same thing, that is, of Life.Life is in and out. Life coming in is Christ; life within is Christ; and life flowing out is Christ. Life is into, within, and out to. If any one of those three movements or energeias of life were removed, the other two would cease as well.
If there is no Source outside of myself, then my own story is fantasy. If there is no story of Christ that is my own, then I have nothing to give. And if life is not together, life flowing out from me to you, then Father is left without a Body.
What Is Life? And yet, as complex as all these models and descriptions of LIFE might be, we have hardly begun our study of life. You see, we are not yet ready to answer our question – What is this LIFE we entered the Covenant to win for ourselves?
In the next lesson, we will approach life from a similar, though different, point of view – the model of human DNA, a structure that finds its full expression only in the formation of a body. And in the third lesson, we will expand on the five qualities of LIFE coming out from the five pieces of furniture.
Yet Life together requires something else as well, something found in the Blood – the everlasting action of forgiveness.