The burden that the Lord puts upon my heart for this time is on a subject that is very basic, and yet it is most essential and central in the thought of God. We would like to share together this time on this matter of life.
God willing, we will begin with the issue of life this morning, and then continue with the law of life, the battle for life, and the practicality of life.
Revelation 1:17-18:
And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.
And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last,
And the Living One; and I became dead, and behold, I am living unto the ages of the ages,
And I have the keys of death and of Hades.
John 10:10, the second part:
I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
John 12:24-25:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone;
But if it die, it beareth much fruit.
He that loveth his life loseth it;
And he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
John 20:31:
But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
And that believing ye may have life in His name.
Dear heavenly Father, we do commit Thy Word into Thy hands and trust Thy Holy Spirit to quicken it into our hearts. We pray that Thy Word will be in us life and spirit. It is all for Thy own glory. In Thy precious name, amen.
There is one thing that runs through the whole Bible, from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, and that theme is life. God is a living God. He is the God of life. His very nature is life. Whatever is not of life is not of God.
Whatever He touches always produces life. Whenever God deals with His people, the purpose is always life.
The Lord Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” Therefore, it is important for us who have any relationship with God, or who want to have any dealing with God, that we focus our attention upon this matter of life.
Unfortunately, we find that it is very easy for us to be distracted from the central theme of life and drawn into something other than life. Not only are we often occupied with the things of this world, but even in our spiritual pursuit, we sometimes pursue something other than life.
Sometimes we pursue having ourselves at the center. Sometimes we are occupied with God’s works instead of life. Sometimes we are after success, popularity, and many other things that draw our attention away from life itself.
We produce many things that are not life. Therefore, I think it is very important for us to go back to the very basics and consider together before the Lord this matter of life: What is life?
You know, at the very beginning of Scripture, we find that God puts before man this issue of life. God created man in His own image. Now, brothers and sisters, do you ever think why God created us in His own image? I think one reason is that He may give His life to us.
God used the red earth to form the body of man, and that is the reason man is called Adam: red earth. But after God had formed man, God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of that man.
Now, in the Hebrew, we find that “the breath of life” is actually “the breath of lives”; it is plural in number. Probably this is just a plurality of excellence, but it does have a particular meaning. Probably the breath of lives means that when God breathed this breath into the nostrils of man, this breath of life became the spirit of man.
Then, besides the spirit of man, we find that man became a living soul. In other words, in this breath of lives, God not only created in man a human spirit, but God also gave to man an animated life, a soul life. God made man a soul, a personality, a consciousness of one’s own self—the ability to move, to speak, to act, and to do things.
But we must not mistake this animated life that God has given to man, so that man may become a living soul, for the very life of God. Why? Because this life given to man is a created life. It is an animated soul life, or, to put it another way, the life of the soul. It is not the uncreated life of God Himself.
At the same time, we find that the spirit created by the breath of God is not the Spirit of God. It is the human spirit. It is an organ ready to receive the life of God, an organ ready to receive the Spirit of God, Who is the Spirit of life.
But thank God that He created man as a tripartite being. We have a spirit, we have a soul, and we have a body.
Then God put man in the garden of Eden. Now, the garden of Eden is a garden of pleasure, because Eden means pleasure. In this garden, God planted all kinds of trees—fruit trees, good for food. In other words, God provided food for man’s body.
He created us with a body, and this body needs nourishment. So God created all these good fruit trees as food for man. How good is our God?
Then, in the center of the garden, God planted the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, the life in the tree of life is not the soul life, the created life, the animated life that God gave to man. It is another kind of life. It is the uncreated life of God Himself.
Somehow, mysteriously, God put His life into the form of a tree. Why is it so? Because God wanted His life to be available to man—not only available, but receivable. Just as you can take a fruit, eat it, and absorb it, God put His life in the form of a tree so that man could receive it into his spirit.
Then we find that beside the tree of life is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If the tree of life is the food of the spirit, then the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the food of the soul.
You know, our soul needs food too, and knowledge is the food of the soul. The knowledge of good and evil is the highest knowledge in the universe apart from life. Why? Because sometimes we think that, today, we live in a technological age, and with all this scientific knowledge we think that is the highest knowledge. No. Scientific knowledge is not the highest knowledge in the world, because scientific knowledge is knowledge of the physical world.
The highest knowledge in the world is the knowledge of good and evil: rational knowledge, reasoning, morals, and ethics. This is the highest knowledge in the world, and this is the food of our soul.
Why did God put these two trees before man? On the one hand, we find the tree of life: God’s life, uncreated life, offered to man. On the other hand, we find the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said, “There is a knowledge, the highest knowledge man can ever have. It will develop your soul to the highest degree, but you will live an independent life.”
On the one hand, God says, “Here is My life. If you take My life, you will live by My life, and you will live in the spirit. You will be a spiritual being, and you will be in constant communion with Me, even to such an extent that you may know My will and be able to do My will. But you will live a dependent life upon Me, a life together with Me.”
On the other hand, God says, “Here is another kind of life. If you choose, you may develop your own soul. You may gain a knowledge of good and evil. You may feel yourself as if you are God yourself. You do not need anybody.” But the end of that will be death.
So God put these two trees before man and let man choose what kind of life he wanted to live: whether he wanted to live by the life of God, or whether he wanted to live by a developed soul; whether he wanted to depend upon God, or whether he wanted to be independent of God and make a god of himself. God said, “You may choose.”
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is very attractive. You know, when Eve looked at the tree, she saw that it was very attractive. It was good for food, and it would give knowledge. Satan even suggested that she would be as God.
In other words, knowledge is so attractive. It makes us feel great, that we are truly somebody. We know; we are God. But it leads to death.
The tree of life is not very attractive outwardly. Why? Because if you receive the life of God, you have to be dependent upon God. You will be reduced to nothing, nobody, that God may be all and in all to you. And that is not very attractive to us.
No wonder our forefathers chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead of the tree of life. Now, do not blame our forefathers, because we choose the same thing. Through all the centuries, you find that human beings always choose knowledge that puffs us up and makes us feel great, somebody.
We do not want to choose life, because it humbles us. It reduces us to be nothing, that God may be all things to us. We, as human beings, do not like that. We do not choose life; we always choose something other than life. That is the tragedy of mankind.
Because our forefathers chose the wrong tree, they were driven out of the garden of Eden. Then God set the cherubim on the east side of the garden with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life.
In other words, God had offered His own life to man, but because man rejected that life, the way to the tree of life was, as it were, blocked. Sin entered into this world. Sin ruled over man, and the wages of sin is death.
So far as man is concerned, it is a hopeless situation. Man cannot get back into the garden to partake of the fruit of the tree of life. If he dared to do that, the cherubim with the flaming sword would certainly cut him to pieces.
So far as man is concerned, life—God’s life, once offered but rejected—seemed to be forever blocked from man. But thank God, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
In other words, God never gave us up. He began to work. As our Lord Jesus said:
My Father worketh even until now, and I work.
God works unto life, and the way He did it was that He sent His only begotten Son into this world.
You know, the Gospel of John is a gospel of life. I think it would be very helpful if we could go through the Gospel of John and just look at life. You find that God sent His Son into this world for what purpose?
In John 1:4, it says:
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
In other words, when our Lord Jesus came into this world, the very life of God was in Him, and He came to bring that life back into this world. He came to offer God’s life again to mankind.
In John 1:12, it says:
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name.
Here you find that our Lord Jesus came to offer life again to mankind—God’s own life.
If you read John 2, you find that He turned the water into wine. In other words, our soulish life, the life of the soul, is flat as water. But the life that He came to offer is like wine. It is full of flavor, it enlivens, and it satisfies.
Then, in John 3, you find our Lord Jesus speaking to Nicodemus on new birth: “You must be born again,” born from above.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
That whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
In John 4, you find Him speaking to the Samaritan woman, and our Lord Jesus offers living water to her. That living water will become a fountain within her, springing up unto eternal life. She will never thirst again.
In John 5, the Lord says:
Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life;
And these are they which bear witness of Me;
And ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life.
In John 6, the Lord Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” If you eat of Him, you will never hunger. If you eat of Him and drink of Him, you will never thirst.
In John 7, our Lord Jesus says:
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.
He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
Life abundant. In John 8, our Lord says, “If you believe in Me, you shall never die.” Then the Lord Jesus says, “I am the light of life.” In John 10, He says, “I came that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.”
In John 11, the Lord Jesus says, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” In John 12, the Lord says, “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.”
Here you find that God sent His beloved Son into this world for one purpose: to bring His life to man once more.
Now, how did He give His life to us? Of course, we know that He gave His life to us through the cross. In 1 Peter 2:24, it says that our Lord Jesus came to bear our sins in His body on the tree:
Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree,
That we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness.
You know, the cross is a tree. Today, people may wear a cross around their neck, and it may be gold or silver, highly polished and refined. But we must remember that when our Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, it was not polished wood. Nobody would bother to do that to crucify a criminal. They simply cut a tree.
So our Lord Jesus was crucified on a tree. He bore our sins in His body on the tree.
In Galatians 3:13, it says:
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.
When our Lord Jesus died on the cross, He was cursed. Why? To Him, that cross was like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We live by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and because we live by that knowledge, the result is death.
Here you find that our Lord Jesus took upon Himself our sins, and He died for us on that tree. Because the tree of the knowledge of good and evil leads to death, He died for us.
But thank God, that cross not only represents the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that brings in death; because our Lord Jesus died on the cross, to us it becomes the tree of life.
There He released His life to us. He is like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies. By dying, He releases the life within Him, and that life is given to all who believe in Him. So, to us, it is the tree of life.
The Lord Jesus said, “No one can take My life. I lay down My life, and I can take it up again.” It is very important to see what kind of life our Lord Jesus had while He was on earth.
When He was born, He was called Emmanuel, God with us. In other words, He is God, and yet He came into this world to become a man. He is perfect God and perfect man.
He has that eternal life, the uncreated life of God, in Him. Yet He came to become a man, and He also received a created human life. So you find that divinity and humanity, divine life and human life, joined together in Him. He is the God-man, Emmanuel.
His life is a divine-human life, and His soul life was always subject to His spirit life. There was no separation in Him, because He was sinless, holy, and blameless.
Now, this is the life that our Lord Jesus had in Him. Can God die? God cannot die. He, being God, has eternal life. How can that life die? It cannot die.
But man can die, and man does die. So here you find that when our Lord laid down His life on the cross, that which died was the human life in Him. Because His human life was perfect and sinless, He could be our substitute.
We are sinful; therefore, if we die, we die for ourselves. That is our end. But He, being sinless, need not die, and yet He died for us. That is substitution. Because He is the Son of God, one man died, and we all died.
If you read carefully the Gospel according to John, you will find that the same English word, “life,” represents two different Greek words. These two different words apply to our Lord Jesus.
For instance, in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.” The life there is zoē, eternal life—the life of the highest quality, the principle of life, God’s own uncreated life.
It is a life that is in God, a life given to the Son, and a life that the Son gives to all who believe in Him. So the life He gives to us is that uncreated life of God: “that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.”
But when you read the following verse, John 10:11, “He layeth down His life for the sheep,” the life there is psuchē. It is the soul life, the human life, the animated life.
So you find that when our Lord laid down His life on the cross, He poured out His soul like water, as we find in Psalm 22. His soul life, His sinless human life, was poured out as a substitute for all of us.
And if you read John 12:24, you find that a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies. If it dies, it bears much fruit. The life in that context is God’s own life given to us.
Why? Because in John 12:25, the Lord Jesus says:
He that loveth his life loseth it;
And he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
He that loses his life—the life there is human life, soul life—but if you lose it in this world, you shall keep it unto life eternal. That is zoē, eternal life. In other words, in giving up the soul life, you can redeem or save your soul life even unto eternity.
So, brothers and sisters, when our Lord Jesus died on the cross, His human life went into death as a substitute for our sins. But the divine life and human life were joined together as one in our Lord Jesus.
When the Lord went into death, that eternal life could never die. It went through death, overcoming death and coming out of death. In coming out, of course, it brought that human life into life too. That is victory.
This is the life that has been released and given to us. So, brothers and sisters, we do thank the Lord.
Our Lord Jesus came to give mankind, as it were, a second chance. That flaming sword that guarded the way to the tree of life actually smote our Lord Jesus, because there He was slain on our behalf.
The judgment and righteousness of God came upon Him in order that we may have life and have it more abundantly. This is the way that our Lord Jesus offered His life to us.
Now, how do we receive that life? Of course, if you read the Gospel according to John, you find that the way to receive life is to believe. “He that receiveth Him,” that is, believes on His name.
Whosoever believes shall not perish, but has everlasting life. If we hear His Word and believe Him that sent Him, then we pass out of judgment, out of death, into life. When we come to the Lord Jesus and receive Him, we have life.
So, to us today, it is the gift of God. Brothers and sisters, here you see the love of God in giving His only begotten Son to us, that we may again have life.
Now, the important thing is this: Do we know what this life is? What is the difference between this life and the life that we knew in the past? What is the difference between this spirit life and the soul life by which we lived in the past?
First of all, we say this life is eternal life. Now, what is eternal life? We often think of eternal life in terms of time. Sometimes we even think of eternal life as something in the future.
In other words, we say that when we believe in the Lord Jesus, we have eternal life; but eternal life is not for today. It is for the day that we die. Then we will go to heaven, and eternal life is a passport to heaven.
Often people think of eternal life as an insurance policy, a life insurance policy. You cannot use it today. You have it, but you do not use it today. It becomes effective when you die, and then you can use it to go to heaven. Many people think of eternal life that way.
But we know that it is not so, because life begins the moment you receive it. When we receive the Lord Jesus, we have this life in us. This is eternal life, and eternal life begins in you the moment you receive the Lord Jesus.
In other words, you can use that life; you can live by that life right away. You do not need to wait until you die to receive its benefit.
But is eternal life merely a matter of time? No. Suppose you lived to be a thousand years old, but you were always in ill health. Do you think it would be worth living a thousand years? If life is so long and yet of such low quality, it is not worth living.
So eternal life is not merely eternal in the sense of timelessness. It is timeless, because God is without time—eternal—but eternal life is also life of the highest quality.
It is undefiled, incorruptible, and unfading, as we find in 1 Peter 1:4. This soul life of ours is defiled, corrupted, and fading. But the life God has given to us, which we receive in Christ Jesus, is an undefiled life.
Look at our Lord Jesus while He was on earth. He lived upon a defiled earth. Everything around Him was defiled, corrupted, transient, and passing away. But when our Lord lived upon this earth, you find that He lived such a pure, undefiled life in an environment of defilement and corruption.
He was uncorrupted and incorruptible. Men tried to corrupt Him. Even His disciples tried to corrupt Him. His enemies, of course, tried to corrupt Him, to turn Him from the will of God and persuade Him to think of Himself and His own gain. But you find that He was not only uncorrupted; He was incorruptible.
His life on earth was unfading. Unfading is eternity lived out in time. Brothers and sisters, this life offered to us in Christ Jesus, this eternal life, is the life of the highest quality.
It is love without pretense, unfailing love. You know, sometimes we say we love, but that love is feigned; it is not true. But the love of that life is unfeigned.
It is hope without fear. It is faith without doubt. You find the fruit of the Spirit in that life: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. Everything is there.
You find that it is endurance without murmuring. It is strength in weakness and wisdom in adversity. Look at the life of our Lord. That is the life God meant for man, the life God offered to man, and that life is now in each one of us.
Is that not marvelous? Is that not wonderful? Sometimes we do not know what we have received. We do not know that God has offered us His own life, His uncreated life. We do not know how glorious that life is, or how powerful that life is.
It is the life that overcomes death, and death is the strongest power in the world. It is a life that is holy. And that is the life that is in you.
Now, do you know this life? We know a life by its nature. If you read 1 John, you find that John himself tells us that he wrote his Gospel in order that we may know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that, believing in Him, we may have eternal life. That is the purpose of the Gospel of John.
Then he wrote the first epistle of John. In 1 John 5, he tells us that he wrote this epistle so that we who believe in the Lord Jesus may know that we have life. In other words, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, we have eternal life, but we may not know it.
So John wrote again and said, in effect, “I write you another letter so that you who believe in the Lord Jesus may know that you have life.” Now, how do you know that you have life? You know it by its very nature.
Briefly, you find that 1 John tells us that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
And the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
In other words, life is known by its light. After you believe in the Lord Jesus, you find that there is a light shining from within you upon your path.
Often we wonder, “Now that I believe in the Lord Jesus, how do I know what is the will of God? How do I know what will please God?” Thank God, everyone who is born of God has an inward conviction: “Now I am a child of God, and I should live to please God.” It is natural in us.
But how are we going to please God? How do we know that this is what God loves and that this is what God does not like? How can I live a life pleasing to God?
Thank God, as you believe in the Lord Jesus, that life begins to work in you. The life within you sheds light upon your path. When you are going to do certain things, the light comes on like a red light and says, “Stop.”
When you are going to say things you used to say—perhaps you love to criticize people, or you love to say dirty words—after you believe in the Lord Jesus, you do not need to go to a school to reform your language. When you begin to speak dirty words, the red light comes on: “No.”
Brothers and sisters, do you know that life is operating in you? It is operating all the time. But unfortunately, we neglect that light. Instead of watching that light, we go around trying to find light from outside, and that is where we get into trouble.
We know life by the light within us. It is the light of life. Then we will not walk in darkness.
We know life by righteousness. God is righteous, and he that practices righteousness is of God. He that does not practice righteousness is not of God.
Brothers and sisters, after we believe in the Lord Jesus, how do we know that this is right and that is wrong? Many things we thought were right, after we believe in the Lord Jesus, we discover are wrong. Many things we thought were wrong, after we believe in the Lord Jesus, we find are right.
How do you know? God is righteous. When you are doing something that is not right, your conscience begins to put a brake on it: “Stop.” Or, if you are doing something pleasing to God, there is peace and life within you.
God wants us to live a righteous life, a life that is right before God, a life that gives God His right.
Then, of course, God is love. His love within you will tell you what life is. If we hate our brother, we are in darkness. If we do not love the brother whom we see, how can we love God Whom we do not see?
There you find that life within us begins to work in us. We know life by the operation of its nature.
But what is life? You know, life is more than attributes. Life is a person.
In other words, the life that you receive not only has all kinds of qualities and attributes—love, righteousness, light, and so forth—but you find that the life you receive is a person.
Attributes are impersonal, as it were, but a person has personality. So you find in 1 John:
He that hath the Son hath the life;
He that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.
In other words, the eternal life that God has given to us is not something given apart from His Son. It is true that eternal life comes by His Son, but eternal life is not something apart from His Son.
When you believe in the Lord Jesus, you believe in a personality, a living Person. What you receive is a personality, a living Person.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ is your life. So, brothers and sisters, let us remember this: when we believe in the Lord Jesus, it is not simply that we take from God an eternal life as if we could live by that eternal life apart from God Himself.
We cannot say, “Now I have eternal life; now I can love, now I can be righteous, now I can live in the light—but apart from God.” Never. Why? Because the life you receive is nothing but the Son Himself.
It is Christ Who is your life, and He lives in you and me. There is a personality there. You know, the life in you has a personality.
How we need to lay hold on eternal life. The apostle Paul, in his exhortation to Timothy, says:
Lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called,
And didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses.
Brothers and sisters, we are called to eternal life. If eternal life were impersonal, how could you be called to eternal life? You are called to eternal life because eternal life is Christ. You are called to Him.
You are to confess the good confession among many witnesses. Brothers and sisters, we are here to confess our Lord Jesus. We are not merely here to tell people that there is a better life they can have.
We are here to testify that there is a Person Whom they can receive, and He will live in them and through them. Now, this is our confession.
So finally, God has put before us this issue of life. I believe, brothers and sisters, that we have already chosen. But often we do not really know what we have received from God.
Because we are ignorant, we do not enter into the fullness of the good of that eternal life of Christ. So may the Lord continue to guide and lead us, that we may have life and have it more abundantly.
Dear heavenly Father, we do thank Thee for Thy goodness to us, that even before the foundation of the world, Thou hast willed to give Thy own life to us. Lord, we do pray that we may know Thy life, appreciate Thy life, and enter into the fullness of that life. It is all for Thy glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.