I share my birthday with my first child. Lauren was born at home with the help of our midwife Susan and quite a bit of effort on Nancy’s part at 10:30 PM on my 25^th birthday. This event brought me a mixture of both smugness and awe. Smugness because I had accurately predicted the date of her birth five days earlier. Awe because the miracle of life is beautiful beyond anything I can express.

I got to catch Lauren when she was born. My hands were the first to touch her. My eyes were the first to see her pointy head and screaming face. Her head isn’t pointy anymore. That lasted about three days. She doesn’t scream anymore, that lasted off and on for three years. I almost dropped her. It was an overwhelming, terrifying, invigorating, stunning experience. I remember drawing her to myself and praying a blessing over her before I handed her to her mom, who, after all, had done all the work. I passed on the generous opportunity presented by our midwife for me to cut the cord. No thank you.

Life. What is it? When Lauren was born I remember our midwife taking her and beginning to check her for various vitals necessary to indicate her health.

Her life.

 Is that what life is? Respiratory function, circulation, muscle response, temperature? Lauren is fifteen years old now and she certainly has all of the physical indicators that reassure us she is living. But there’s a vibrancy about her that goes beyond what a doctor could measure. She carries an energy of joy and purpose, a creative force, a weight of significance that is more truly descriptive of her life. The same is true in all three of my kids. As Lauren grows in her own connection with God through Christ, I see something even more difficult to describe forming in her, something eternal, something glorious. What is life?

Life in the Gospels

Life is a constant theme of scripture. In the New Testament we discover a savior who came to give his life.

“even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  (Matthew 20:28, ESV)

Not only did Jesus come to lay his life down, he himself is life. Life is something he possesses. It is also something he is.

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4, ESV)

“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live ” (John 11:25, ESV)

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, ESV)

Life is something we need to lose in order to find. This method of discovery seems to exclude lots of people who would prefer to do the finding without the losing.

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39, ESV)

“For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. ” (Matthew 7:14, ESV)

But life is what Jesus came to bring us.

“but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  (John 4:14, ESV)

“For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.” (John 5:21, ESV)

“For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. ” (John 6:33–35, ESV)

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ” (John 6:63, ESV)

“Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” (John 6:68, ESV)

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. ” (John 10:10, ESV)

 “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent ” (John 17:3, ESV)

What is this life that Jesus came to bring us? It is certainly more than lung function, heartbeat, and brain activity. It goes beyond the capacity to feel, think, and desire. The life Jesus gives is an eternal kind of life, but even this is insufficient for this phrase might tell us Jesus came so our heartbeat, breathing, and brain function will continue forever. Jesus’ kind of life does more than merely continue into infinity. It nourishes. It satisfies. It’s relational and intimate, experiential. It is spiritual and divine. To think of eternal life simply in terms of infinite chronology fails to acknowledge the qualitative essence of Jesus’ kind of life by focusing exclusively on the one trait that is quantitative. Jesus is the Way to God. He is the Truth about God. He is the Life of God. Through Christ we can again be connected to God. This is life.

Life in the Beginning

Life appears as a multilayered, difficult to pin down, kind of thing right from the beginning. In a very real sense, all living animals, even bugs, have the breath of life.

“And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. ” (Genesis 1:30, ESV)

But the creation of man is separated from the rest of the creation narrative.

“then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. ” (Genesis 2:7, ESV)

We see the creation of Adam’s body when God formed him from the dirt. We see life enter his being through what I can only picture as a kind of holy CPR. But this breath of life, though exactly the same in verbiage as the breath of life in Gen 1:30, has a very different result. Man became a living creature. Other translations say “living being.” Still others say “living soul.” Man became a soul. He became a person, a self, one capable of connection to and relationship with God. Adam was alive. Of course this means his heart was beating, his lungs were breathing, and his brain was active. More than this, it means Adam was self-aware, a complex being with a capacity for learning, reason, feeling, and choice unique within all creation. But even more than this, it means Adam was connected to God. He wasn’t simply a soul. He was a living soul.

When we see the idea of life in the Old Testament through the lens of Christ in the New Testament, it becomes very clear that the kind of life that matters most is God’s kind of life, the kind of life man only experiences when he is connected to God relationally, experientially. It is a Father/Child relationship. It is an owner / steward partnership. It is man being fully alive because his source is God who is himself life.

What is Death?

“And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ” (Genesis 2:9, ESV)

“but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” ” (Genesis 2:17, ESV)

Death is the absence of life. God, as a good parent will, made the boundary very clear as well as the consequence. If you eat the Knowledge of Good and Evil you will die. So Adam did eat of this strange fruit that was knowledge. And that very day Adam died. Understanding what Adam lost that day will help us more clearly understand what life really is. If death is the absence of life, then life can be defined as whatever Adam lost that day.

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. ” (Genesis 3:7, ESV)

They ate the fruit and the first thing that happened was a new awareness, a foreign feeling, a consciousness of self that had never occurred to them before. If prior to that moment they had never been self-conscious in this way, what exactly had they been conscious of? In that moment they lost their God awareness, their connection, their focus upon the One who had up to this point filled all their awareness with his worth, beauty, and sufficiency.

“But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ” (Genesis 3:9, ESV)

It is certain that this question does not indicate any confusion on God’s part regarding Adam’s location. Nevertheless something has changed, and this question helps us begin to see exactly what. “Where are you?” points to separation. Man has lost his connection to God. This separation is further demonstrated in verse 23.

“therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ” (Genesis 3:23, ESV)

No longer will God be man’s source. Going forward, man will be his own source. His own ingenuity and labor will be his sustenance.  What is death? It is disconnection from God, self-consciousness, and self-reliance. If this is death, then what is life? Life is connection to God, being supremely aware of God, and relying fully upon God.