Human Beings - Death-life To God-Life

2 Corinthians 1:9-10:
“But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead - who HAS DELIVERED us from so great a death - and DOES DELIVER - in whom we trust that He WILL YET DELIVER us.”
The Spring flowers will soon be in beautiful bloom in my yard. In order to bring some of this beauty into the house, I often cut some of the prettiest and place them in water vases. As I cut them, a thought always comes to me. We humans are all born in the same condition as this cut flower. The life is cut off but the blossom appears alive, but only for a time. The cut flower looks alive, it feels alive, it smells alive, but it has a DEATH-LIFE! It has been cut off from the source of true life and only has a temporary “water-life”. In about a week, or no matter how long the beauty lingers, we see death working in the flower.

Humans are born in a similar condition as the cut flowers. As humans age to their allotted “three score and ten”, we see death working in us physically. This sentence of death in our bodies is evident since nobody gets out of this world physically alive.

Even deeper, the death in man’s spirit and soul is evidenced by the fruit of the death-life in expressions of deceitfulness, grasping, selfishness, hate, and fightings. These are fruits and expression of a life and nature contrary to the genuine God-Life. Death has permeated man’s entire being: spirit, soul (mind/emotion/will), and body.

The above quoted scripture speaks of a sentence of death working in and upon the apostle Paul and his fellow believers by the situations and circumstances which they encountered.

The entire book of Second Corinthians stresses a description of the way of genuine life as coming out of death. The three deliverances or salvations described in 2 Corinthians 1:10 above is from death as being something of the past (already completed), present (being in process), and yet to be realized in the future. The true condition of all mankind before one’s rebirthing by the Spirit of Christ is that all are living a life of death. Jesus said, “Let the dead (in spirit) bury their dead (physically)” (Matt. 8:22). Ephesians 2:1-2 declares that all were dead in sins, walking (living and having life) according to the prince (Satan) of the power of the air that works “IN” the children of disobedience, but we who are reborn are now “made alive”.

Death came just as God had told Adam. The deceit of Satan persuaded Adam to sin in a search of knowledge. This fall made man apparently “god” of his own life but his life was incapable of living according to such knowledge. Actually, Adam had taken into himself the “death-life” which is the nature of the evil one himself by believing and trusting Satan’s word. Humans have life or death by what we believe and trust.

The separation and alienation from God, which came about by the fall of Adam and his birthing to independence, resulted in Adam and all his offspring living a death-life. He was cut off by his choice from the only true and capable life in the universe, God Himself. Adam and we, until our rebirth as His children having the divine nature of Christ, had only a pseudo life. Our natural life before conversion is a death-life, a counterfeit or shadow of the true spiritual Christ-life — GOD-LIFE.

But God’s overall purpose of grace is being achieved nonetheless. God has a remedy for man’s death-life: GOD-LIFE for the whole man!

God deals with each person having the death-life and, in whatever ways are best, shows them the futility of their so-called independence and draws them to Himself.

And the salvation of God-Life is for the whole man. We who have been reborn in spirit: (1) have already been made totally alive in our spirit by the eternal Christ-Life of God as our innermost Life and nature. We possess all of Him by His seed of Life in us (I Peter 1:23, Galatians 3:16).

Life is not given by measure, though the expression of that life may be yet immature as an acorn is an immature oak tree. That Christ seed in our spirit will grow ultimately to possess our entire being. (2) Our soul, which was formerly used to express the death-life of Satan, our old father (John 8:44, Eph. 2:2), still bears the scars or imprint of that old crucified nature in its thinking, feeling and willing memory cells. The soul is the organ of expression and is being renewed and delivered daily from the remnant garbage of the death-life by the indwelling Life of Christ - one with our reborn spirit. (3) Our bodies, with the sentence of death yet in them, are yet to be delivered. In the twinkling of an eye, one day, these mortal bodies will be glorified and put on immortality (I Corinthians 15:53-54).

As reborn Christians, we are forever children in God’s Family. The seed of the eternal God-Life which began in our spirit is SPREADING OUT IN OUR WHOLE BEING. God is seeing to it, in ways that we cannot know, that His God-Life does spread and grow into function in our soul and body as it IS functioning totally in our spirit.

“What is mortal [death-life] may be swallowed up by life [God-Life]” II Corinthians 5:4 NIV)

The whole being of Christ, now dwelling in our reborn spirit as our genuine Life, is being worked outward from that core of our being to the renewing of our soul and ultimate redemption of our bodies. By faith and trust, we now have the wisdom of Christ revealed in us knowing that: (1) our spirit has already been justified and made righteous by the Righteous One who gave us His righteous God-Life, (2) our soul is being sanctified by the outworking of His Life from our spirit, and (3) our body will soon be glorified as an incorruptible spirit body. Spirit, soul and body: justified, sanctified and glorified.

“When the perishable [the death-life] has been clothed with the imperishable [the God-Life], “and the mortal [the death-life] with immortality [the God-Life], then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
But cutting them off,
Death begins to ensue.

Flowers are given to us by God for their beauty. Whenever we view cut flowers, may this cause a remembrance of the death-life we had, and of the God-Life which has been given to us freely, unmerited, only by faith in the unconditional LOVE OF GOD.

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