THE BREATH OF LIFE, Part I
ANIMATION
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. – Genesis 2:7
What is life? Biologists answer this questions via a list of common characteristics: Living things are made up of units called cells / Living things reproduce / Living things are based on a universal genetic code / Living things grow and develop / Living things obtain and use materials and energy / Living things respond to their environment / Living things maintain a stable internal environment / Taken as a group, living things change over time (list courtesy of Biology by Miller and Levine: Prentice-Hall, 2002).
Life is truly remarkable. Just the machinery alone—the chemistry, the organization of systems, the myriad of structures and their functions—that alone should make one marvel. And yet beyond this, we should also consider the animation of organisms, and nonmaterial aspects such as consciousness and volition.
The animation of living things—the life in life—is a profound gift. Consider this: Naturalistic scientists go to great lengths just to explain how the proteins and DNA instructions necessary for the first living thing could have formed spontaneously. And they furthermore lack a convincing explanation for how these, if fortuitously appearing, could then assemble to make that first organism. Yet if all that could come together fortuitously in the design of a living organism, would it come to life? Consider this: a recently deceased creature (for the sake of argument, suppose a dog that perished by suffocation) has, at that moment, all the intricate physical organization for life. Think of it like the bodies in Ezekiel’s vision: “Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them…So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army” (37:8,10). So try to jump-start the canine, wake it up, resuscitate it; it just doesn’t work. Why not? Because it is no longer animated. Evidently, a nonmaterial attribute of that dog has departed. Just ask the sad owner, who speaks the truth when she says that Rover is “gone.”
The nonmaterial is imparted in varying degrees to various kinds of life. Some initiate no movement, yet interact energetically with their environment, producing food from light and maintaining their own internal environment. Others acquire nourishment from outside sources, with varying methods of locomotion. Still others interact communally, communicating and responding accordingly. Adding to this, others may even show emotion and self-awareness. And furthermore, humans reflect and find meaning, create works of art, pursue unique accomplishments, and actively foster individuality.
These various states of animation are elucidated in a variety of biblical labels for “life.” Biblically, for example, vegetation is never regarded as “living,” despite showing the eight biological characteristics above. So in the following, I would like to walk through some significant “life” vocabulary in Scripture, and spend a bit more time on the words that can make strong devotional application for us.
First, we look at the word translated as “being” in Genesis 2:7 above. The Hebrew word is nephesh, used 753 times in the Old Testament and usually translated “soul” in the NKJV and KJV. It is frequently used of non-human life, and thus in this sense we cannot say that only humans have “souls.” A nephesh is a unique living individual, created on Day 5 or Day 6 of Creation, and any individual offspring thereof. There are nephesh kinds in water, sky, and land, and humans are nephesh creatures of our own kind. The New Testament parallel to nephesh is the Greek psuche (“psoo-kay”). These general but important nouns have their adjectival counterparts: chay (“kha-ee”) in Hebrew is usually “living,” and the Greek word for “living” is the more familiar bios. Of importance here is that the “soul” in typical biblical use is not exclusively the nonmaterial self, distinct from the physical body. The soul, rather, is the whole of the individual. For example, we might rightly say “she is a kind soul,” (not “she has a kind soul”) referring not only to the personality, but the person. So it is not that we have souls, it is that we are souls, as are all living creatures.
Another important pair of biblical “life” words is the Hebrew word ruwach (“roo-ach”) and Greek word pneuma (“pnoo-ma”), usually translated “spirit”, but also “wind” or “breath.” This is not so much a type of soul, or component of a person,as it is the animation of that soul, both in creating and sustaining it. Psalm 104:28-30 illustrates this:
…What You give them they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good. You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath [ruwach], they die and return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit [ruwach], they are created; And You renew the face of the earth.
The animation that brings life is also what sustains it, and for many creatures this is “spirit.” Once again, we cannot say that “spirit” is unique to human life in this sense. Now, we know today that spirit or “wind” or “breat
h” is life-giving because it contains many little particles, known as oxygen molecules (O2). Virtually all kinds of creatures need this in some form. Some must acquire it passively (such as earthworms or some amphibians), others through the movement of water over gills (such as other amphibians, fish, and crustaceans), others through small structures known as trachea (such as insects and spiders), and still others, such as birds, reptiles, and “mammals” use larger chambers known as lungs. It is not clear exactly what degree of “breath” constitutes the minimum for ruwach life, yet Genesis 7:14-15 indicates that all manner of land and sky creatures were brought onto Noah’s ark, and that these all had the “breath [ruwach] of life.” So it is more inclusive than many commentators seem to indicate. (For one reason, they may not realize that the word often translated as “bird” [owph] in this passage is also used of insects in other Old Testament passages.)
Now this is where the material/nonmaterial overlap becomes interesting, because while the “spirit” is also “wind,” and the breath of life is very much about oxygen, a material substance, we realize that oxygen alone does not animate. CPR may “revive” a dying person, but it does nothing for the dead person. And when we read of “spirit” in biblical context we see that it also concerns the nonmaterial, and even demonic animation (see Luke 4:33, 8:29, and 9:42). We read that “God is spirit [pneuma]” (John 4:24), and yet this does not indicate some pantheistic notion that God is restricted to the movement of air. Even in the Creation account’s prelude “the Spirit [ruwach] of God was hovering over the face of the waters”—we encounter God’s creative power in a sort of fluttering wind even before the existence of light or atmosphere. Indeed, the adjectival counterpart to pneuma in the New Testament is pneumatikos, or “spiritual,” and yet not all living, breathing persons are regarded as such.
So how is this reconciled? I suggest that we regard spirituality not as exceptional, or exclusively nonmaterial, but rather as God’s desired norm for ruwach-animated souls. We should not force unspiritual/spiritual into the material/nonmaterial dichotomy. God originally created everything good, and all that which is animated by spirit is to be, by extension, spiritual. When Paul quoted the words of a contemporary poet to the Athenians, “In Him we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 17:28), he was not speaking to believers. In a broken creation, however, life is animated deficiently and thus“unspiritual” in a sense, or not really living. Thus when we receive God’s Spirit, we do not so much get something, but we get back something we were supposed to have all along—abundant life. God has a particular New Testament label for this type of life, typically reserved for those who are in the Spirit of God: It is the Greek word zoe (“dzo-ay”). “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life [zoe], and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). This word is used 133 times in the New Testament, and we might miss its impact because it is simply translated “life” along with numerous other words of lesser or more general meaning. So in a very literal sense, the obedient disciple of Christ is animated beyond that of the unbeliever, or even beyond the carnal (sarkikos, or “fleshly”) believer. How? Just by living and breathing! For the disciple, every breath is spiritual, both in material and nonmaterial ways. For nonhuman creatures, on the other hand, full “spirituality” is yet deferred: “For the earnest expectation of the creation [ktisis, literally “creature”] eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God…because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:19, 21).
Of course, the reason that human spirituality is so central in the discussion of life is because human life is unique. Granted, all creatures are living souls (nephesh, psuche), and many are animated by spirit (ruwach, pneuma), yet humans, created separately and lastly after the land animals on Day 6, are made in the “image of God,” a life attribute shared by no other kind, even the angels. The impartation of our first breath in Adam is detailed in Genesis 2:7, a vivid picture not given for other creatures. Furthermore, although ruwach and pneuma are used of our animation elsewhere in the Bible, in the Genesis account the word neshamah is uniquely used. In its 17 uses in the Old Testament, it is a more forceful and specified word than ruwach, translated “breath” or “blast.” So we must not see our animation simply as existence, but rather as inspiration, and though some mode of “spirituality” applies to all ruwach-animated life, it is human spirituality that is, most literally, at the crux.
In breaking down the varying modes of “life” in Scripture, we should see how precious are all living things as possessors of God’s great animating presence, both in their very existence and in their sustenance. Yet all the more we should desire to be spiritual, to thus be animated in the fullness of the life we breathe as humans, as believers, and as Spirit-led ones. Our Creator in our lives is, quite literally, a breath of fresh air.
© 2009 Chard Berndt.
All Scriptures NKJV unless indicated otherwise.
November essay is first in two installments
Readers,
I’ve explored a bit previously about the Holy Spirit as the “water of life” (July’s essay) and got to thinking that the images of water, wind, and fire are all strong in the Bible regarding the Holy Spirit. So I thought about making that a three-essay collection on the Holy Spirit using these three illustrations. Yet when I studied the nature of “life” in the Bible years ago while writing Biblical Classification of Life, I encountered the importance of “spirit” and “wind” not only in the sense of the Holy Spirit, but in the animation of life itself. So, I decided that it was time for a bit of an overview on the topic of spirit in general. This month’s essay will explore the concept of animation–”the life in life”–and next month I will delve a bit deeper into how it is that we breathe, both physiologically and spiritually.
Be patient with some of the biblical vocabulary in this essay. Terms like “soul” and “spirit” are thrown around a lot, and often have common understandings in the church that are not biblically accurate. I don’t know how well I’ve drawn out the meanings and their applications, but I know that when I did my first major studies on this topic years ago, it really helped me to move away from a secular/sacred dichotomy, and begin to see my whole life as Christ’s, and be less compartmentalized in my walk of faith. So I hope that maybe you’ll get something of that out of this.