We have seen the tree of life, the water of life, the breath of life, the seed of life, and the Spirit of life. In this chapter we come to life itself. Nothing is as hard to define as life.
We should remember that Genesis 1 and 2 are a record of life. There are four categories of life in Genesis 1 and 2: the vegetable life, the animal life, the human life, and the divine life. The vegetable life, the animal life, and the human life are lives created by God. Only the divine life is uncreated and eternal. It is the life from eternity unto eternity. With all the other categories of lives there is a beginning and ending because they are created lives, but only one category of life, one unique life, the divine life of God, is eternal and uncreated with no beginning or ending.
In Genesis 1 and 2 all the lower lives are for the higher lives. The plant life is for the animal life, the animal life is for the human life, and the human life is for the divine life. Only the human life is qualified to be for the divine life. Why is only the human life qualified to contain the divine life? The best illustration of this marvelous divine reality is that of a glove and a hand. A person’s hand cannot fit in a handkerchief because it does not have the image or form of the hand. Because a glove is in the image, the likeness, and the form of a hand, it is able to contain the hand. A glove is made in the form of a hand for the purpose of containing the hand. The human life was created according to the likeness of the divine life so that God could dispense Himself as the divine life into the human life. Only the human life is qualified to contain the divine life because the human life is in the likeness of the divine life. God created us in His likeness because His purpose was that we would contain Him. To fulfill this purpose, God created us with a human spirit. Our human spirit is the organ for us to receive God and contain God. Thus, the human spirit is the means and the organ to fulfill God’s divine purpose.
The vegetable life, the animal life, and the human life are not the real life. They are shadows, figures, or pictures of the real life, the divine life. They show forth different aspects of the unique life, the divine life. The beauty of certain flowers points to the beauty of the divine life. The divine life is actually more beautiful than anything that can be seen in the plant life. The many fruit trees which bear many types of fruit are a shadow showing us how fruitful the divine life is. The forest, which is full of trees, is a picture of the abundance of the divine life. Furthermore, the human life has the likeness of the divine life. Man’s wisdom in scientific endeavors is a picture of the wisdom of the divine life. All the positive attributes, features, and aspects of the vegetable life, animal life, and human life are shadows or pictures of the divine life. According to the divine concept, if we do not have the divine life, we do not have life. The human life that we possess is not the real life but is only a figure, a shadow, of life. We need to have the life that is really life (1 Tim. 6:19). This is why 1 John 5:12 tells us that if we have the Son, we have life, and if we do not have the Son, we do not have life.
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