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LIFE

The basic quality of existence, in the Bible predicated primarily of God and then of humans, animals, and plants.

The Hebrew and Greek terms generally translated “life” are several and varied. In the OT ḥayyîm, “life” (probably an abstract pl.), often connotes the span of human existence (Gen. 23:1); sometimes it is the circumstances of life (Job 10:1). Its cognate ḥayyâ means “living thing.” Other Hebrew terms include nepeš, “soul, life,” which makes a being alive. In the NT Gk. bíos refers to the natural order, and zōḗ to God’s life, and the salvation that entails eternal life. Gk. psychḗ, “soul, life,” roughly corresponds to Heb. nepeš. Throughout the Bible, life in its various senses is often contrasted to death.

In the OT all life comes from and is sustained by God, who exists at the beginning (Gen. 1:1) and lives forever. God is the only being who is truly alive, invoked by the common oath “as God lives.” God alone is “the living God” (Deut. 5:26; Jer. 10:10). While plants are indeed alive, and animals with their nepeš even more so, only humans have the life that comes from being made in God’s image. This brings a qualitative meaning to “life” from the beginning of the OT. Life is not bare existence, or even longevity, but health and well-being (Prov. 3:13-17; 14:30). Life has an essential moral dimension which entails keeping God’s commandments (Deut. 30:15-20). At the end of the OT period an eschatological meaning of life emerges, especially with the belief of resurrection to life (Dan. 12:2). This eschatological meaning is intensified in the intertestamentary Jewish literature (e.g., 2 Macc. 7:9; 1 En. 58:3).

The NT continues these OT meanings of life, but the emphasis shifts to eternal life. In the Synoptic Gospels almost all references to life are in the teachings of Jesus. Life (zōḗ) does not consist of possessions (Luke 12:15), and the psychḗ is more than food (v. 23). Life (zōḗ) comes from keeping God’s commandments (Matt. 19:17), and giving up one’s own life (psychḗ) to follow Jesus (Luke 14:26). The self-sacrificial aspect of true life is found in Jesus’ saying that he came “to give his life (psychḗ) as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). The Acts of the Apostles has much the same view of life, and adds the special point that Christianity could be known as “this Life” (Acts 5:20).

While the Synoptics stress the future eschatological nature of life, the Johannine writings see the fullness of eschatological life as a present reality. Jesus says that those who hear his word and believe in the One who sent him have (present tense) eternal life because Jesus has life in himself (John 5:24-26) and has come to bring life to the world (e.g., 1:4, “the light was the life of humans”). Jesus calls himself “the bread of life,” “the resurrection and the life,” and “the way, the truth, and the life” (6:48; 11:25; 14:6). Despite the “realized eschatology” of the Fourth Gospel, it retains a strong future eschatology and boldly couples the two: “All who see the Son and believe in him. . . have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (6:40).

Paul views life as coming through faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ. It cannot be found by keeping the commandments, which leads instead to God’s curse (Gal. 3:10-11) and death (Rom. 7:10). Jesus’ resurrectional life has already become the believer’s (Gal. 2:19-20). Baptism into Christ leads to living a new life in the present, which is grounded in the death of Jesus (Rom. 6:4). By the work of the Spirit, eternal life has moved into the present and will be fully realized in the Parousia with the resurrection of the body (Rom. 6:13; Gal. 5:25). Therefore, the believer lives between present down-payment and future fulfillment; Christ’s resurrection is the pledge of our resurrection to full life. In the present, living by and for Christ entails living for others responsibly in every kind of social circumstance, which Paul especially emphasized in 1 Corinthians. The letters of disputed Pauline authorship emphasize this present aspect of life even more strongly, insisting that the believer has already been raised with Christ (Col. 2:12; 3:1; Eph. 2:6).

In the book of Revelation, life (zōḗ) is always linked to another word, often symbolic: the tree of life, which the righteous eat (Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19); the crown of life, which they wear (2:10); the book of life, the roll in which their names are written (3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:27); the water of life, which they drink (21:6; 22:1, 17). As fits the apocalyptic style and theology of this writing, life is eschatological and future, but it is linked to the Living One who has defeated death and is alive forever (Rev. 1:8).

Bibliography. G. Bertram, R. Bultmann, and G. von Rad, “záō,” TDNT 2:832-75; L. Goppelt, Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1982), 2:98-106; D. Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings. SNTSMS 5 (Cambridge, 1967), 163-201; H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia, 1974).

Robert E. Van Voorst






Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)

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