Anchor My Faith

Title: In Him was Life (John 1:4)

John identified Jesus as the Word who existed in the beginning with God and who himself was God who created everything that was created. As the Son of God, he took his place among men through a virgin birth. He was fully God and fully human. John now identifies the source of life to be in him: “⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4 ESV). God, as an intelligent being, designed the universe and Jesus spoke it into existence and as the source of life, he infused that life into his creation in its various forms. As part of that creation, he created mankind in the image of God.

According to Genesis, Adam and Eve were placed in a lush garden with all their needs met, where they had fellowship with God. They were created with the ability to make choices, but what kind of choice would they make if asked to obey God? To find out, God placed the tree of good and evil in the garden and told them to not eat its fruit because if they did they would die. The story is well known that they disobeyed God and ate the fruit they immediately died spiritually and would eventually die physically. God’s plan to create mankind in his image for the purpose of having eternal fellowship with them received a death blow, because without spiritual life they are eternally separated from God and from this point on all human offspring would be born spiritually dead, separated from God.

Spiritual death brought darkness into the soul of mankind, but John stated that the life that Jesus has can provide light for mankind. Is it possible for one who is born spiritually dead to again receive spiritual life from Jesus and live forever in the light that that life provides? Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:25 ESV). To escape judgment for our sin we must come to Jesus and receive as a gift this spiritual life that only he has to give. Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11 – 12 ESV).

Adam and Eve were created with the ability to make a choice and they chose to disobey God and as a result the human race became spiritually dead and lives in spiritual darkness. All humans that are born physically are given another opportunity to make a choice.

Through Jesus, God made provision for us to surrender our lives to him in belief and receive the gift of spiritual life, which brings us into eternal fellowship with God.

Prayer

Father, how thankful we are that you didn’t leave us dead in our sin without any hope. Thank you that Jesus was willing to die in our place for our sin and provide us with the opportunity to receive the life he has to give. What an adventure it will be to study the life of Jesus, as told by four gospel writers, and learn about what Jesus said and did and how that affects how we live.