WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE LIFE?
This is one of the most basic questions that elementary school students deal with, yet for which there is no consensus. We are taught that anything that has cells and can self-sustain has life. Yet, after two years of world-wide turmoil caused by a pandemic brought on by a virus that is non cellular and cannot self-sustain throws that definition out of the door. We are taught that living beings have the ability to respond to stimuli and grow, yet we know that even rocks and the sea do that albeit at a much slower pace. Of course, when earthquakes and storms strike, it is anything but slow! The definition of life has to be more encompassing than what we have been told.
Such an eclectic definition of life is found in the Bible. John describes life as contained within and flowing out of Jesus, who is God in all fullness.
In the beginning was the Word (Jesus), and the Word (Jesus) was with God, and the Word (Jesus) was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. (John 1:1-4)
This creation is trapped in a time-space continuum and that begs the question as to what was in the beginning. This beginning could not have been a finite creator, but only one who is infinite, and that is God. John goes on to explicitly state that Jesus is God and it is God alone who overwhelms the beginning of time and space. Further, all of creation flows from Him, with no exceptions. And because that is true, it makes sense to state that life was contained within Him. For without God, we would not exist, neither would anything we see around us.
So, the Biblical definition of life is that which is contained within and flows out of God. God is life and there is no life without God. Two applications follow. First, everything we see around us has life, because it has been created by God. Man spends hours appreciating and awestruck by the so-called inanimate nature around him. If the rocks and the sky were lifeless, why do we feel drawn to it? True, these do not fit in to the category of life as defined by biology, but they do have life in the sense that they are created by God in whom all life resides. And just as a painter might choose to make a simple or a complex painting, in all of creation we see the handiwork of God and hence life- some simple and others complex, the most complex being man, in whom we see the very image of God.
The other application is both interesting and concerning. Man, the most complex creation of God, also has the ability for free will. He is free to choose and so dominant is free will in determining his destiny, that he can even choose to reject God who made him and from whom his very life flows. When man unfortunately chooses to reject God, he shuts himself off from the very source that gives him life. And so, man might be biologically alive, but in reality he is dead because he chose to reject God and hence the source of life. No other creation in this universe can do that. Not only does he then spend the rest of his life here on earth in the realm of death, he condemns himself for perpetual death because his decisions here on earth determine his eternal destiny.
Life begins when we recognize that being alive is a choice.
