THE QUICKENING SPIRIT
There is no life without the Spirit of God, and His Spirit creates, animates, sustains, and restores all life.
Jesus the Nazarene declared that “the Spirit makes alive [‘quickens’]. The flesh profits nothing. The words which I have spoken to you are spirit, and they are life.” His words echo the scriptural principle that life and the “Spirit of God” are inextricably linked – His Spirit generates all life. The “flesh” is not inherently evil, but it has no life without the Spirit that God gives to it. And this principle has been established since the creation story was recorded in the Book of Genesis.
And in the New Testament, the gift of the Spirit is associated with the prophesied New Covenant and the dawning of the “last days,” the era of the Messiah, and the age of Fulfillment. The Spirit’s presence among God’s people characterizes it and provides the saints with a foretaste of the resurrection life to come when Jesus returns.
Thus, when the Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost, it was in fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy - “IN THE LAST DAYS, says the Lord, I will pour out my Spirit on your sons and daughters” - (Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17).
In John 6:63, the Greek word rendered “makes alive” or “quicken” is zôopoieô; literally, “to make alive” (Strong’s – #G2227), a combination of the noun zôon - a “living being” - and the verb poieô - “to make.” Thus, the sense is to “cause to live, to quicken, to vitalize.”
And the “words” spoken by Jesus are “spirit” because they originate from the “Father of spirits.” And above all, his words are the source of “everlasting life” – (John 12:49, Hebrews 12:9).
The Apostle Paul uses the same verb, zôopoieô, to make a similar point to the Corinthians, namely, that the “spirit makes alive” - for the letter kills, but the spirit QUICKENS.”
The “letter of the law” condemns mortal men to death for sin. And only the Spirit can impart life with or without the Mosaic law and write the law of God on the hearts of His children - (Jeremiah 31:31-34, 2 Corinthians 3:6).
COVENANT AND RESURRECTION
The Spirit of God is the vital element that establishes, characterizes, and sustains the “New Covenant.” Without it, there is no true life and no everlasting covenant, and God’s children will remain powerless to fulfill the “righteous requirements of the Law.” Paul makes a similar point in his epistle to the churches of Rome:
(Romans 8:10-11) – “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will quicken also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwells in you.”
By this, he means especially the gift of the Spirit received by every true believer. Just as God’s Spirit raised Jesus from the dead and gave him an immortal body, so the same Spirit will “quicken” our mortal bodies with everlasting life at the future resurrection.
And because bodily resurrection is an act of new creation - we will receive a new immortal body - the Spirit will be intimately involved in “quickening our mortal bodies” on that last day when Jesus appears in glory – (1 Corinthians 15:51-57).
The Spirit of God is His creative and life-sustaining power, and this idea is not unique to the New Testament. Paul is building on the firm foundation already laid in the Hebrew Bible. For example, the claim that God’s spoken word creates life, and the connection of His words to the Spirit, appear in the Psalms - “By the word of Yahweh, the heavens were made, and by the spirit of his mouth, all their host” - (Psalm 33:6).
The entire universe was created by His Spirit, and man is dependent on the Spirit for sustaining and renewing life.
CREATION
And the Psalmist expands on what was written centuries earlier in the first passages of Genesis when the Spirit of Yahweh created the Cosmos and all that followed - “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” And the presence of the Spirit at the creation indicates just how pivotal God’s Spirit is to the creation and continuance of life. - (Genesis 1:1-3).
“And Yahweh formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” – (Genesis 2:7).
In the preceding passage, “breathed” translates the Hebrew term naphach from a root verb with the sense “puff, to blow” (Strong’s - #H5301). And the term rendered as “living soul” represents the Hebrew noun nephesh from the same root, meaning a “BREATHING creature” (Strong’s - #H5315).
Thus, in the story of Adam’s creation, the STRESS IS ON BREATH, the act of breathing. As Job wrote, “the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life,” connecting the “Spirit of God” to His “breath of life” – (Job 33:4),
THE LAST ADAM
The same passage in Genesis is cited by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians when he explains the resurrection body:
(1 Corinthians 15:42-45) – “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul; the last Adam, a LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT.”
Paul contrasts the body of Adam, the “first man,” with the resurrection bodies of believers. The first man’s body was corruptible, weak, natural, and in the end, subject to death. In contrast, the resurrection body will not decay or die, it will be raised in power,” it will be a “spiritual body,” that is, an embodied existence dominated by the Spirit. And it will be immortal – deathless.
Jesus is the “last Adam,” the forerunner of all resurrected saints. But he differs from us in one respect. Because of his resurrection, he is also the “quickening spirit.” From now on, he alone has the authority to impart life through the Spirit of God. As Paul clarifies, the future resurrection of the righteous is based on his past resurrection.
It is the Spirit that regenerates the hearts of sinners and empowers them to conform to the image of God’s Son in the present age, and the same Spirit will impart immortality to the saints at the end of this age when Jesus “arrives” from heaven.
In the Bible, the Spirit of God is the source of all life, including the future immortal bodies of resurrected saints. And in Scripture, the “Spirit” speaks of God as the creative source of all things, especially of His power to create, sustain, renew, and, when necessary, restore life. Without His Spirit, there is no life, either now, “in these last days,” or in the coming “new heavens and new earth.”
[Published originally on the Quickening Spirit blog site at the link below]
https://www.quickening-spirit.org/2021/08/life-giving-spirit.html