What is vivification?

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.

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 13 reminds us of our sad previous condition, dead in sins with no spark of life toward God, and in "the uncircumcision of your flesh." that is, in the state of unjudged corruption. A person in such a condition is totally unfit for God. Out of such a state God has "quickened" or "made alive" together with Christ every believer. This is the divine, immediate impartation of eternal life, and reminds us of the words of the Lord Jesus, "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live" (Jhn.5:25). This quickening is connected with the full forgiveness of all trespasses (v.13). Therefore, the work done in us and the work done for us go hand in hand.

As we commence verse 13 we pass from that which has been accomplished in Christ to something accomplished in us. As to our spiritual state we were dead; dead in our sins — what we had done; dead in the uncircumcision of our flesh — what we were. But now quickened — made to live — together with Christ; our new life being of the same order as His.

Quickening is also the first beginning of that work of grace, for until that takes place the soul is in moral death. Still, these terms do not both convey the same thought to the mind, for one is a man’s birth, and with that we cannot connect any previous history. But with regard to quickening, it is a dead man who is said to be quickened; that is to say, a new life has been communicated to him. And yet life is connected with new birth, for we are born again by the living Word of God. This settles the question that Scripture does connect life with new birth. But “quickened together with Christ” (Col. 2:13) is only predicated of a person who has received the Holy Spirit. It is consequent on His “having forgiven you all trespasses.” It is the same life surely, but now in the energy of the Spirit of God, for in no other way than by the gift of the Spirit could we be said to be in living association with Christ. He “lives by the power of God” (2 Cor. 13:4); He was quickened by the Spirit (1 Peter 3:18); and by the Spirit gave commandments to His disciples after His resurrection (Acts 1:2). Therefore, in order to be said to be quickened with Him, the life we have must be looked at as in the energy of the Spirit.

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.

Hence we have necessarily first brought before us the condition of those in whom the power is put forth, what they were when it began to work in them. Accordingly it is only in chapter 2 that we begin to have any development of the actual condition of those with whom God is so nearly linked. Chapter 1 is mainly occupied with what God had in His mind, and what He will yet accomplish. Now we have the question raised and answered, Who are these people, and what was their state when God could so deal with them? And it is most marvellous, that, when we come to hear His word, there is in no other epistle any portion that gives us so deep, searching, humiliating a picture of the desperate, degraded state in which those were whom God destined to be joint-heirs with Christ. The laying bare moral corruptions we have in Romans, fully proving what man is if he take the ground of anything within him. Whether the favoured Jew under the law, or the Gentile with his conscience, all is thoroughly discussed there, and every pretension of man is ground to powder. But in Ephesians the proof of guilt is needless. Man is viewed as so completely dead, that it is but the removal of the cloth from off the corpse. Therefore the apostle says, "You has he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." It is not simply, How is a sinner to be forgiven, justified? but "You has he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." The words "has he quickened" are inserted, it is true, in italics, but it is the evident and necessary sense; without it, to an English reader, the sentence would be embarrassed. It is not till verses 4, 5 that we have the completion of the thought. It is plain that the quickening affects those that are called — "you," as well as those designated "us." I shall hope to show the meaning of the distinction presently, but I only refer to it now in order to guard against the notion, that there is no sufficient reason for inserting in English the expression, "You has he quickened;" whereas it is implied in the language that the Holy Ghost used, or at least in the sense.

Man as he was, Jew or Gentile, and wrath, naturally went together, even as there is a natural link between good and righteousness. Now God, though in judgment taking cognisance of all that is contrary to His will and glory, in His own nature is above all that. To those who are worthy of wrath He can be rich in mercy, for He is so in Himself. The apostle therefore presents Him here as acting according to His own nature towards the objects of His grace. We were dead, says the apostle — dead in our trespasses and sins. God comes, in His love, to deliver us by His power — "God, who is rich in mercy, according to his great love wherewith he loved us." There was no good working in us: we were dead in our trespasses and sins. The movement came from Him, praised be His name! He has quickened us; not only that He has quickened us together with Christ. He had not said in a direct way, that Christ had been quickened, although it may be said, where the power of the Spirit in Himself is spoken of. He was however raised from the dead; and, when we are in question, we are told that all the energy by which He came forth from death is employed also for our quickening; and not only that; even in being quickened we are associated with Him. He comes forth from death — we come forth with Him. God has imparted this life to us. It is His pure grace, and a grace that has saved us, that found us dead in sins, and brought us out of death even as Christ came out of it, and by the same power, and brought us out with Him by the power of life in resurrection — with Christ, to set us in the light and in the favour of God, as a new creation, even as Christ Himself is there. Jews and Gentiles are found together in the same new position in Christ. Resurrection has put an end to all those distinctions; they have no place in a risen Christ. God has quickened the one and the other with Christ.

But all this, of course, flows not only from the fact of a new relationship, but there is a "new man." The nature we had, as children of Adam, was proved to be utterly bad, and nothing would do but the entire setting of it aside, and a new "creation." In this Epistle men are seen as "dead in sins;" not alive in sins, as in Romans. And Christ goes down to the lower parts of the earth, putting away our sins on His way there, namely, on the Cross. So that before He lies there, our sins have all been atoned for; and then God comes in, and raises up Christ, and us with Him, our sins being all left behind. It is not simply that we are quickened, but we are quickened "together with Christ." (Eph. 2:5.) When it is simply quickening, as in John 5, Christ is the Quickener; but in Ephesians, Christ is seen in death, where He had in grace put Himself for us. We were there through sin and disobedience. He came there in grace and obedience. And now, as quickened together with Him, we are, so to speak, raised by God out of His grave, and taken up into the heavenly places in Him. It is a new creation, the sins of the "old man" being all put away and gone. In Colossians we get the same thought: "Quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." (Col. 2:13.) It is a new creation, and the trespasses all forgiven.