There’s Life, and Then There’s Life

Jesus had a lot to say about life. He went everywhere inviting people to have life, to enjoy life, and to begin living what he called an eternal life. Certainly, the people he addressed thought they had life; they walked and talked and ate. But, many of those who heard him certainly did not have whatever it was he was encouraging them to receive. He clearly distinguished those who had his kind of life, and those who did not.Perhaps it would be helpful to understand that in the language of the New Testament, two distinct words are used by Jesus that are usually translated as “life” in our English Bibles. One word is “psuche;” the other is “zoe.” By reading these Greek words in place of our English “life” in a verse like John 12:25, for example, we can better understand what Jesus was teaching:

He that loveth his psuche shall lose it; and he that hateth his psuche in this world shall keep it unto zoe eternal.

Whatever these words mean, Jesus was clearly distinguishing the psuche that his hearers had and the zoe that is eternal. And he was apparently encouraging his hearers to hate, or not to love, the temporary psuche so that they could enjoy the eternal zoe.

This teaching of Jesus becomes even clearer when we understand the meaning of these words. Psuche, according to Thayer’s Greek Dictionary, means “the vital force which animates the body and shows itself in breathing;” in other words, the physical or biological life of the body. Zoe, again using Thayer’s, refers to “life real and genuine…” Jesus is saying something like, “Those who focus on this physical life will lose that life; while those who refuse to focus on this physical life will experience a life now that is eternal.” Or, as Peterson writes in The Message:

…anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.

Jesus is talking about two distinct kinds of life, one that is transient and all about what can be physically enjoyed in this life only, contrasted with a life that transcends the merely physical and is lived even now in the reality of higher purposes and eternal values.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus invites men and women to come to him, that they might enjoy “zoe,” or the eternal kind of life. For example:

Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. John 5:40

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. John 17:3

So, the question today is, am I living a routine, temporary and earthly centered kind of life–which certainly will not last; or am I living the eternal kind of life that Jesus invites me to experience? A life about something bigger and better than me; a life that is possible only through relationship with him and the Father?

The One who said, “I am the … Life (zoe), invites us to live his kind of life.