Life-giver

“You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13)

God is a Life-giver. All life originates in Him, and all of life is kept alive by Him. God created us to be life-givers also.

Of course it is true God is also a God who kills. But all of His killing is just, and all of ours must be as well. God brought the sentence of death on man for his sin. But for all who will return to Him, the death sentence is removed and life given again through Christ. In the end God is a life-giver all over again.

There is “a time to kill.” Justice and defense both require this: God is just in sentencing us to death for our rebellion against Him, and He defends His own against their enemies. But in the end His justice and defense are for the sake of life as well. He protects against enemies to give life to the oppressed. He squashes rebellions that His kingdom might thrive.

But God’s mercy triumphs. God forgives those who turn from their rebellion; He lays down His own life that His enemies might be given life and become friends. The Christian life is an exercise in doing this very thing. Am I giving life to others by laying down my own life? Or am I distorting “justice” into vengeance, and “defense” into the murder of others for my own “self-preservation.” Is everything I do aimed at bringing life? Or are the words I am saying, the thoughts I am thinking, the emotions I am feeling, the action I am taking—are these things bringing destruction to others and ultimately to myself?

Sin, in whatever form, brings on death. Sin is a death sentence in and of itself: “the wages of sin is death.” When we work the work of sin, we can expect the pay-out to be in the currency of death. Like the body-bombs terrorists deploy in a crowded marketplace, our sin not only destroys us but obliterates life in the concentric circles around us, leaving wounds and scars and death in the wake.

God forgives our sins for the sake of Christ’s death that we might have life. But God forgives sin so that we might live lives of love for God and love for our neighbor, not the very death-producing lives of sin from which He saves us in the first place. God the Life-giver gives us life through Christ that we might be life-giving spirits ourselves.

When God gave life to Eve in the Garden, you will remember it was through Adam’s similitude of death in “deep sleep” and through his giving up part of himself—a rib—to form Eve. When Christ the Second Adam gives life to His Bride, it is through no similitude but the reality of death; it is not through giving up a rib but in giving Body and Blood entire. Even so, in our own marriages, with our children, in our relationships with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ—even with our enemies—we find life ourselves and give life to others when we follow Christ’s example and lay down our lives that others might live.

“Heavenly Father, we give thanks for our life through creation and through Christ our Creator. Thank You for including us in Him, for in Him and Him alone is life. We pray, dear God, You would breathe Your Holy Spirit in us, fill us with Him, that we might be life-giving spirits as well. Teach us to guard our thoughts, tongues, attitudes, and actions that they might always be useful for promoting life in us and others rather than destruction and death. Protect us from our enemies, O God, the last and greatest of which is Death itself, and grant us everlasting life through our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”