WHAT IS LIFE?

As the world approaches what many people consider the end times written about in the Bible many are also reminded of a certain passage in the New Testament: Mat 24:38 “For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day in which Noah entered into the ark,” Mat 24:39 “And they did not know that judgment was coming until the flood came and took all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

What characterized the time of Noah was a universal inability of that generation to perceive the signs and condition of their existence to the extent that the whole population upon the face of the earth became extinct from the universal flood, and no one other than Noah and his family remained with conscious existence on earth. Not one of those who perished had life, nor will they ever again. Noah, and perhaps his family, was accounted by God in His mercy and foreordaining as worthy of receiving life at a future time. At the time he passed away, Noah did not have life; he had conscious existence.

Seeing that this is how God characterizes the present evil age, it is crucial for anyone to have a proper understanding of what life is in view of God’s coming judgment.

So if we return to the time recorded in the Bible as the restoration of the earth as a suitable environment for God to carry out His plan and gain His goal, we see that many kinds of beings were created at that time which were said to have certain types of existence, or living, which living does not attain to “Life”.

It is good to remember that prior to the restoration recorded in Genesis Chapters 1-2, the Bible records a time prior to the time recorded in Chapter 1 verse 2 mentioned as “In the beginning” in verse 1, when God created the heavens and the earth. Other passages in the Bible refer to created beings in various ways, which existed prior to the time of Chapter 1 verse 2 where it is seen that the whole earth had been covered with water and had existed as covered with water for some time, perhaps quite a long time, but now was being restored such that there now was appearing dry land. The Bible allows that there even was a time prior to the universally flooded condition in Gen.1:1 such that creatures like the Dinosaurs existed, as well as beings which eventually came to be demons, as well as the panoply of angelic beings. The rebellion of the Covering Cherub, or Lucifer, etc. was what caused the earth to be completely flooded, and that is the condition we meet in Genesis 1:2.

So there is a hope filled new beginning in which the prior condition of the earth, characterized as waste and empty, is being restored according to the original purpose of god that there might be Life. To be continued…