What doesquickenmean in the Bible?

chayah. This term is used in the O.T. with the force of 'to revive, or give new life' in a moral sense: hence we read "quicken me again." In Ps. 119 the psalmist asked nine times to be quickened — according to God's word, or His righteousness, or His judgements, etc. See also Ps. 71:20; Ps. 80:18; Ps. 143:11. In the N.T. the word is ζωοποιέω, and is invariably employed in the sense of making alive those who are in the state, or under the power of death. It is therefore sometimes used as the equivalent of resurrection, but the word is never applied to the wicked dead. It is God's work: the term is employed in connection with the Father (John 5:21), with the Son (John 5:21), and with the Spirit. John 6:63. It is characteristic of the last Adam that He is a quickening Spirit. 1 Cor. 15:45. In Christ all will be quickened. Evidently the principle of divine sovereignty is involved in the term. God makes alive according to His will. The believer is said to have been quickened together (συζωοποιέω) with Christ, and is thus brought spiritually into association with Christ.

God then must act. But how must He act? Will reformation, education or instruction meet our case? By no means: there can be nothing until He quickens, for quickening simply means the giving of life. The very word translated "quicken" in the New Testament is one compounded of the noun "life," and the verb "to make" — to make to live.

Quickening means nothing short of the impartation of divine life to the soul.

We believe that we have to do so. The Psalmist says that God's Word has quickened him in verse 50, yet again and again he desires to be quickened. The word is evidently used more in the sense of being revived, of being restored to more vigorous life. In Old Testament times man was still under probation. The law had been given to test him, and life on earth was still proposed as the result of perfect obedience to the law. Only when we come to the New Testament is the probation period over, and man formally pronounced to be dead in trespasses and sins. Hence only in the New Testament does the full truth of quickening appear.

Some have thought that quickening is very advanced truth; that, for instance, a man may be born again and yet quickening lie ahead as something to be reached much later, as a kind of climax to God's work in him. Does Scripture indicate this?

John 5:21-23. The Lord proceeds to shew that the greater works are the work of resurrection, the work of quickening, and the work of judgment. These greater works will affect all men, believers and unbelievers. Believers will be raised and quickened: unbelievers and opposers, like the Jews to whom the Lord was speaking, will come under His strange work of judgment.

Quickening is giving life — a life that lives to God. In a spiritual sense the believer is quickened now; he is made consciously alive to God out of a state in which he was spiritually dead to God (Colossians 2:13). Moreover, quickening not only refers to the soul of the believer but also to the mortal body, which at the coming of Christ will be entirely delivered from death, to put on immortality (Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 15:53). Unbelievers will be raised from the dead; they are not said to be quickened.

Verse 25 describes most graphically the condition of one reduced to a state of utter helplessness, — "My soul clings to the dust." In such a state there is nothing that one may do for himself, so that rather he can only depend on the Lord to revive him according to God's Word. Thank God that one Resource remains when all else fails! For revival we may surely have confidence in the God of resurrection and in the truth of His Word.

John 5:21: "For as the Father raises up the dead, and quickens (them); even so the Son quickens whom he will." This word presents to us the truth of Divine sovereignty in the Sonship glory of the Lord Jesus. As Son, though found in Manhood in this scene, He retains His sovereign rights over men. The Father quickens; so also the Son. This is essentially a Divine character of activity. It is peculiar to God; and its manifestation in the work of the Son is glorified by its sovereign character. He exercises His own Divine claim upon the creature; He quickens whom He will. Neither does the Scripture say here that He receives this from the Father, as in verse 26. His Sonship greatness, in its display in this world, manifested alike His Divine Nature and His perfect Humanity. He does not abandon His sovereign rights as God by becoming flesh. He does not cease to be the Source of life, even though He shall say that the Father has given to the Son to have life in Himself. Both are true; for "In Him was life." And on account of this supreme glory of His eternal Divine Nature He quickens whom He will. He does the Father's will, yet exercises His own, because He is the Son. Here, then, is shown forth the Sonship of Jesus as that in which lies the right and power in quickening of Divine Sovereignty.

The next point opened up is, that the Son Himself now imparts it. In the midst of a hostile crowd in Jerusalem the Lord revealed this: "As the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them; even so the Son quickens whom He will" (v. 21). The Jews had just sought to kill Him, because He made Himself equal with God. He let them know, that life, spiritual life, they could only receive from Him, and as He should be willing to impart it. He quickens whom He will. Men, then, are absolutely at His mercy for the receiving of life. He quickens. Those on whom He thus works cannot have had spiritual life previously. They were dead; and, as creatures who had failed in their responsibility, they were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1, 5). He quickens!

Next He turns to the more general state of things. "Verily, verily, I say to you, An hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that have heard shall live" (verse 25). It is indeed the sad truth: men in all the activities of the world are here "the dead." Nor is it a question of a stricter morality or of a holier religion. Either one or other or both they may acquire, and yet want life. Dogma cannot give it any more than practice. It flows from the Son of God, Who quickens whom He will; yet is it by faith, and so through the word which the Spirit applies livingly.

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.