What is Life?
I was watching on the science channel a program called, “Through the Wormhole”, hosted by Morgan Freeman and it was about how we humans came to be. The scientists approached life as the combination of certain elements, compounds and chemicals that under special conditions brought about life on Earth. Over the years, science has attempted to reproduce those conditions to see if life would develop but it never has. I realized that our modern science was looking for life in the wrong way and this because most of those involved in science would never consider the reality of what life is. Science looks to the material and ignores all else with the focus being on matter and energy as though these things could produce life. I rely on God for answers to the question of what life is, scripture reveals that human life, and all life is not in the body but in the spirit.
The Apostle James says that, “As the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is also dead.”
The book of Genesis says that all life forms including man are souls and that a soul is a living creature composed of two things, dust and spirit.
This writing will deal with the source of life and using scripture give answers. As James said the spirit is what gives life to the body for without the spirit the body is dead, has no life. Modern science is attempting to answer the question by looking only at the matter from which our body was formed. Our body is the dust of the ground just as Adams body was and when God first formed Adams body it had no life until God breathed into it the breath of life and then Adam became a living soul. The breath of life is our human spirit and is what makes us alive, the spirit is life. Science brings out the fact that our bodies are composed of elements, compounds and chemicals that make our flesh, hair, bones and blood and this agrees with scripture as our bodies were made from the dust of the ground. This is the one-track mind of science that cannot accept anything that involves the idea of a creator God. Science looks at the body as life not knowing that it is only an extension of life. Your body is animated by your spirit and without the spirit; this animation will slow down or decay and eventually be devoid of any sign of life. When the spirit departs the life force quickly fades and some functions fade faster than others, fingernails and hair may continue to grow after death but will eventually stop. The body and spirit were designed to work in concert to make the complete human being but if the union of these two are broken this is called death. In death, neither the body or the spirit will function and life completely ends, you cease to exist. As long as science refuses to acknowledge God and spirit, they will never understand what life is and even if they did, could never find out life’s secrets because this is far beyond the ability of all but God. In order to create life you would have to able to create spirit, matter of itself cannot have life. That spirit part of us is how Adam and all of us are made after Gods image and likeness. God is a spirit and man has a spirit but the spirit of man is far less than God so as to make man a shadow of his maker. The words in the Hebrew for Image and likeness indicate a shadow, a phantom or poor quality copy and this is what we are compared to God. The potential of man is to become “like” God and in His “image” in some way. This is not to say that we will become Gods because Isaiah 43:10 dispels that notion but we are to be made similar to God is some ways. Jesus was sent by God to us so that we could see God through Jesus. Jesus was the fulfillment of what God is doing with man and we follow the example of Jesus and have the same destiny as Jesus. God made us to exist as temporary mortal beings with a spirit that can only continue on forever if that spirit is in a body that can continue on forever. This type of body is given to us only if we obey the message of the gospel and desire this change for ourselves. We must come to know and understand Gods will for us and agree with it. God has the power to put our human spirit that departed the fleshly body at death into a spiritual body at the resurrection when Jesus returns to Earth but until that time, we remain dead with no life of any kind. This is the promise God gives to those who believe, everlasting life, a type of life that God and the angels have now. The human spirit was created by God so that without a body, it cannot function in any way and this is why we need a new spiritual body in order to live forever. This does not happen immediately after death but at the return of Jesus. This is why it is the spirit that is the part of us that gives life to our mortal bodies now as well as to the spirit bodies we will receive. Life is spirit and not matter or energy in some chemical compound and only God can create life. God is called in scripture, “The Father of Spirits”, and weather we are a flesh being or spirit being God will always remain our Father. The Apostle James says that, “As the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is also dead.”
The book of Genesis says that all life forms including man are souls and that a soul is a living creature composed of two things, dust and spirit.
