Spiritual Life

Lazarus had been dead for four days when Jesus came to the tomb. When Jesus asked them to move the stone that covered the tomb, Martha said, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”

Then He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!”

To me this is a wonderful illustration of the power of God in regeneration. The Bible teaches us that in our natural state we are dead in trespasses and sins. (Eph 2:1) “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.” (Romans 3:10, 11) God had told Adam that in the day he ate of the forbidden tree he would die. As a result “just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12)

How is one raised from the dead? Other than Christ who could raise himself from the dead, can anything dead give life to itself? It’s certainly not possible with physical life, how can it be any different with spiritual life?

How was Lazarus able to obey the command of Christ to come out of the tomb? Could he as a dead man have laid there and said, “No, I think I’ll just stay dead, thanks.” He perhaps could have decided to stay in the tomb, but he could not have decided to stay dead. The voice of God awoke him. So too the voice of God through the preaching of the gospel brings life to the spiritually dead.

Ephesians 2:4, 5 says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” I Peter 1:23 says, “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”

Using a different metaphor in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul explains how the gospel is hid because the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of God should shine unto them. How is that blindness overcome? If as he writes elsewhere the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God because they are foolishness to him, how is that natural state of blindness and death overcome? The answer in 2 Corinthians 4:6 is this: “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

In other words it takes the regenerating, life-giving, light-giving power of the Word of God to bring life to us. Everything else in the Christian life flows from this. All of those things that give evidence that life is present come from that life. Faith, hope, love, joy, etc. all flow from life miraculously granted to us by the Word of God.