What does it mean to be spiritually alive?

Contrast to death is the lowest and shallowest possible "idea" of life eternal. If we simply and truly believed Christ to be our life, could we fail to apprehend that this eternal life is our newly but truly given spiritual being, capable of communion even now with the Father and with the Son Whom He sent? Why this incessant and fruitless beating about the bush, ending in absolute denial of its present possession, the very thing on which the Lord most sedulously insists?

If we speak of life as connected with this lower creation, we deal with something which defies our analysis and definitions, yet obviously the word on our lips has more senses than one. We contemplate, for instance, not only the vital spark in man or beast but also the conditions needed for that spark to exist. There is no fish life without water; no human life without air. Even so there is no spiritual and eternal life without the knowledge of God; and no knowledge of God without the revelation which reaches us in the word of the Sent One and the faith which receives it. Because of this, we believe, Jesus spoke not only of the believer having eternal life but of his passing out of that spiritual death which is marked by utter ignorance of God into the realm of life which is filled with the light of the knowledge of the Father. No wonder He laid such emphasis on this wonderful statement.

The presence of life is determined by its action. An absolutely impassive life is unthinkable. This is true of physical life which invariably exhibits itself in motion; where there is none, death is assumed. And so, by analogy, it is spiritually; without motion Godward, there is spiritual death. But if a person possesses eternal life, he has passed "from death unto life." Such a person has the consciousness of God as Father, of the Son as Saviour and Lord. He has esteem, regard and reverence, as well as adoration and worship, for the Father and the Son.

Men are in death until reached by God and by the voice of the Son. His voice is not, at this time, uttered to touch bodies but souls. Quickening out of death means a new order of life for men, in which sinning and doing our own will are hated, and doing God's will is loved. It is not a life merely to live continuously on earth, but of knowing God in Christ, so that here, in the midst of evil, we may live unto Him by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

“They which live”; that is, live by the life that is in Him, who died for them and rose again. The fountain of life is in Himself. He is the life of all who live according to God. He is the true God and eternal life (John 5:20). To live in the Adam life is to live to sin and to self, which is all moral death. To live in the life of Christ is to live in righteousness and love. And either in the one or in the other life all men live. Those who live in the life of flesh live to themselves, not to God. Those who live in Christ live to God, not to themselves. The former are dead while they live.

The last clause, as was noticed, is the link of transition from righteousness to love. Men set these two things in opposition one to another: but they are perfectly united in Christ, the perfection of both righteousness and love. Hence it is thoroughly applicable to the Christian, since Christ is the life of the Christian. We really and truly receive by faith that life which was in the Lord Himself; not the life of Adam that all men have, but a new life possessed by none of us until we believed in the Lord Jesus. Being life, it is not capable of any outward mark of a sensible nature; still less is there a visible presentation of itself to us, though we know where it exists by its operations and effects. If this be so with the natural life, how much less could it be expected of the supernatural or spiritual life? We ought not to ask for it, and thereby show that we do not know what life is; yet however difficult it may be to define life, everybody knows that, when life departs, death sets in. There may be the working of death before we depart, and there is, since sin came into the world. There is mortality, but death is when mortality has come to its issue. Everyone can tell as the general rule when a man, or any other animal, is dead. We know exceptions occur now and then: there are exceptions to every rule probably, and there are difficulties as to all truths. But there is no difficulty about God's word to make any real hindrance to spiritual intelligence. Doubtless an insuperable difficulty exists for those who have no knowledge of God; but this knowledge is communicated by the faith of Christ. "This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou didst send."

The life which we have of and from Christ is a life of union with Him. "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." Faith is the mean or instrument whereby these things are wrought, because it is by the word He begets us; but there is a life: "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," as much and as truly as "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." And to assert that Christ by the Spirit dwells really in no man, is quite as great an error as to assert that He dwells in every man and the word of truth refutes both. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"; and "if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness." To see how the word of God teaches us in this, that we are born, quickened of God by the Spirit, is recognized by all, we may say, who hold the truth: but I fear confusedly by some, being looked at as a mere operation on the understanding and will, and not the communication of divine life, born really of God. As we have seen, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, the seed of the divine life which thereon abideth in the soul. While this is of the operation of the Holy Ghost and is of God, it is not the Holy Ghost nor God, as needs scarcely be said. It enjoys, apprehends, is cognizant of, has a taste for, divine things, as being of God; but it knows and has the revelation of these things only by a superior power, which guides into truth, shews things to come, and takes of the things of Christ and shews them to us. Besides this there is a partaking of the Holy Ghost.

We have to do with reality. Christianity has its realisation in us in a conformity of nature to God, with which God cannot dispense, and without which we cannot enjoy or be in communion with Him. He Himself gives it. How indeed can we be born of God, unless God acts to communicate life to us? We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. But it is the Spirit who is its source and its strength. If any one has not the Spirit of Christ, if the energy of this spiritual life which was manifested in Him, which is by the power of the Spirit, is not in us, we are not of Him, we have no part in Christ, for it is thus that one participates in Him. But if Christ is in us, the energy of this spiritual life is in Him who is our life, and the body is reckoned dead; for if it have a will as being alive, it is nothing but sin. The Spirit is life, the Spirit by whom Christ actively lived; Christ in Spirit in us is life — the source of thought, action, judgment, everything that constitutes the man, speaking morally, in order that there may be righteousness; for that is the only practical righteousness possible, the flesh cannot produce any. We live only as having Christ as our life; for righteousness is in Him, and in Him only, before God. Elsewhere there is nothing but sin. Therefore to live is Christ. There is no other life; everything else is death.

Nothing of sight or sense can contribute one single particle of strength to the new man. Spiritual life draws not its support from the exterior world; it has to do with God. Faith is the unseen and divinely given power in the believer which lifts him out of himself and up to God. Faith detaches him from earthly things and influences, and, by faith, his ways and his thoughts obtain a heavenly character. It is not that he becomes peculiar and un-natural; far less that he elevates himself upon spiritual stilts; but his thoughts, words, and acts are colored by the presence of Christ, who dwells in his heart by faith.

Birth is the beginning of man's earthly life — looking upon the impartation and birth as parts of one whole. A child begins, for us, to live when he is born, he receives life at his birth. So, following the analogy, at new birth the man receives life — spiritual life; he begins to live to God, and is now His child.

Connecting this with the verse just quoted, and remembering that faith is an integral element in new birth, we have the simple and self-evident fact that new birth is the impartation of spiritual life, of divine, eternal life, to the soul. I need not add that eternal life does not mean merely immortal existence. Life, in John, is not mere existence. All men are immortal by their very constitution. To say that a man is dead in sins does not mean that he has ceased to exist — far from it — but that he has no relationship with God.