Perhaps you have wondered what kind of life God wants you to live. You may already know that the Bible is a wonderful book, but perhaps you do not know what it says about the kind of life a Christian ought to live. The following article, based on the Gospel of John, explains how you can live the life God desires you to live. It tells you who you are and what you can do to experience the divine things of God’s salvation. Please read it carefully and prayerfully.
The Gospel of John reveals that in Christ, the Word of God, is life (1:4); that He came that man may have life (10:10b); and that He Himself is life (11:25; 14:6). Furthermore, this Gospel shows us that Christ is the bread of life (6:35); that He has the water of life (4:14); that He gives life to man (5:21); and that He even lives in man as life (14:19).1
Man was made as a vessel to contain God as life. However, by creation he was merely an empty vessel; he did not have genuine life. The created life of man is not genuine; genuine life is the divine life, which is in Christ. The life we have before we receive Christ is, at best, a temporary life; it is not a permanent life, an everlasting life. Although it is an instant life, it is not a constant one. Before we receive Christ we are uncertain just how long our instant life will endure. Thus, in a sense, before we are saved we do not have life. The life in Christ is eternal, constant, and permanent. All men need such a life, the divine and uncreated life that is in Christ. This life is for man, and man is the receiver of this life.2
Chapter three through chapter eleven of the Gospel of John relate nine cases to expose the condition and need of man, and then they reveal how the Lord can deal with all the conditions and meet all the needs of man. Only God’s life can meet the need of man’s every case. We must realize that life here means the Lord Himself (1:4), the Word which was God (1:1) and which became flesh (1:14). Although the Lord might have dealt with thousands of human cases, the Gospel of John selected only nine of them to illustrate how the Lord as life could and still can meet the need of every human case.
Let us see, first of all, the condition of man in each case. The first case, in chapter three, is about a high-class, moral person who came to the Lord (3:1-13). He is a superior gentleman, highly cultured, very religious, God-seeking, and God-fearing. The second case, in chapter four, shows forth exactly the opposite condition (4:1-42). The first case is about a moral man; the second case is about an immoral woman. The former is about a mild, high-class person, while the latter is about a wild, low-class person. This wicked woman had had five husbands and was living with a sixth who was not her husband. The third case, also in chapter four, is about a young man who was sick and about to die (4:46-54). The fourth case, in chapter five, is about a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years (5:1-4). He was utterly weak and unable to move even one step. The fifth case, in chapter six, is about the hungry multitude who were seeking something to feed on (6:1-15). The sixth case, in chapter seven, is about the thirsty people whose thirst could not be quenched by the best religion or by anything of this life (7:37-39). The seventh case, in chapter eight, sets forth a sinful woman who committed a terrible sin and who was under the condemnation and bondage of her sin (8:2-11). The eighth case, in chapters nine and ten, concerns a blind man who was born blind (9:1-38). Finally, the ninth case, in chapter eleven, is about Lazarus, who died and was buried for four days (11:1-44).
The conditions of the people mentioned in these nine cases represent the conditions of all men. Some men are good like Nicodemus, while others are wicked like the Samaritan woman. Others, like the young man in Capernaum, are dying. Most are weak like the man who was sick for thirty-eight years. They desire to do good, but they do not have the strength to fulfill that desire. They know religion, but, because they are weak, they do not have the power to live out its standards or fulfill its regulations. Other people are hungry, craving for something to enjoy, while some are thirsting for something more than their human life can offer them. There are some people whose thirst is so great that nothing in this life can satisfy them. Some people continually commit sins and are under the condemnation and bondage of their sins. Some, like the blind man, are blind, not physically, but psychologically and spiritually. Finally, the last condition of all men is death, for they are in death and, at the same time, are on the road to death. They are dead already and yet they all will die later. All men are dead men who are going to die. Therefore, these nine cases portray the true conditions of all men. These conditions speak forth man’s need, which only the Lord as life can fully meet.
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