Life is...

What is life?

What is the meaning of life?

When you say, "X and Y just happened in our lives", what do you mean by your life?

Are you alive?  When you say you are alive, does that mean anything different from a tree or a frog that are "alive?" 

Jesus made two statements that should cause us to reflect on how we use and think about "life." 

"I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father but by me."  John 14:6 NIV

What does He mean that He is "the life?"  Does it strike you as strange that he would say the he, a particular person, is life?

Then again he said:   "Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"  John 11:25-26 NIV

In the John 11:25 passage, Jesus is correcting Martha who just said that she knew her brother would rise again at the resurrection.  Seems like pretty good theology, but not when said to the one who is resurrection, and who is life, and he just said her brother would rise.  She didn't get it.  Resurrection is not a thing far off that mechanistically will happen to people.  Resurrection is JESUS personally calling us to be with him.  This is what he is saying to Martha.  "Martha, him coming back is not about some time in the future, it is about me.  I will raise him because I am the resurrection, and I am life.  He's dead now because I chose that, and he will live now because I will also choose that."  Look what Jesus had said in verses  14 and 15: "So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."   Jesus was GLAD he was not there to rescue Lazarus.  Huh?  Because believing in Jesus is more important to Him than prolonging our existence, He was glad Lazarus died; He brought that to pass.  He is Lord of all, life and death.  And if letting Lazarus die would help these disciples, Mary and Martha, and the others, to believe, then even death served a good purpose for Jesus. 

Look at the following passage in this light and see if this all makes sense.  This is from 1st Timothy:
"The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives." 1Timothy 5:5-6
 
The idea in this "living for pleasure" is stated in the NASB as: "But she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives."  The other place this verb, spatalao, is used is in James 5:5: "You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter."  The idea is living luxuriously or voluptuously.  Basically, it seems it is finding meaning and purpose, or life, in pleasure, luxury, etc.  So the person is dead.  Because they are not finding life in God, in Jesus. 
 
How we think about this idea of life is very important.  When Jesus says life, He means Himself.  Our existence is NOT our life.  In one sense we can use the word that way, as the scripture does a bit, but not much.  For instance, Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. (Jesus is life).  The life I live in the body (my existence) I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me (he is my life)."  Galatians 2:20

So sometimes when we say "our lives" we mean our existence, our breathing and heart pumping, but maybe not always.  Maybe sometimes we are saying something more, and for those of us who trust Jesus, we need to rethink this and come to grips with how He views this.
 
So even the idea of eternal life needs to be understood in this light: "Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."  John 17:3. 
 
So life, eternal life, it is all about knowing Jesus. 
 
Heaven is not a philosophical good; it is being with Jesus and He defines what good is, good does not define him.  He is life, and in Him we find life.  He is not the way to something else we call good or heaven, He is the way to His Father, and to Himself.  "For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him."  1 Thessalonians 5:9-10  See, he didn't die for us so we could go to some impersonal heaven, he died for us so we can be with him.


So test yourself in this:  When you think about having a better "life", what comes to your mind? 
More parties on the weekend?  More football?  Better food?  A bigger television?  Retirement so you can stop working hard and relax?  A new hairdo?    When we think in these ways how are we really different from the widow who "gives herself to wanton pleasure?" 


Certainly a better existence is an okay thing, but we can have a terrible existence, and still find meaning and purpose and true life in Jesus.  People who are tortured for their faith know this deep inside.  Richard Wurmbrand lived many years in torture and prison in Romania, and he said he forgot the Bible.  But he came to know the truth in it by experience.  He met God in a very profound way even though his existence was the stuff of nightmares.  And likewise people who have a very extravagant existence can also feel their "life" is meaningless and empty.  The book of Ecclesiastes teaches us this very clearly.  Solomon had everything but saw that it was empty.  When people feel this emptiness they are feeling the truth; and the answer is finding the person of Jesus.


The only place life is is in Jesus. 

For those of you who want to hear more on this topic, I encourage you to listen to John Piper talk about this in two sermons on John 11: 1-16 (link to John Piper on John 11:1-16,) and John 11:17-44 (link to John Piper on John 11:17-44).