God’s Image Study • God of the Living—Christ as Lord of the Dead and the Living
Our opening post placed two statements alongside one another: God is the God of the living, and Christ is Lord of both the dead and the living.
To examine that relationship, we must pay attention to how Scripture uses the words dead and living.
Can a person walk, speak, make decisions, and still be described as dead?
Dead, yet walking
Ephesians 2 begins:
“And you were dead in your transgressions and sins”
— Ephesians 2:1, LSB
The following verses describe how those people formerly walked and conducted themselves. They had desires and acted upon them. Their physical activity did not prevent Paul from describing their condition as death.
Verse 2 also identifies a spirit working in the sons of disobedience. This matters: spiritual influence and activity do not, by themselves, establish that someone has received life from God. We must examine the source and what it produces. Read Ephesians 2:1–3.
God makes alive
The passage then turns to God’s mercy and love. While they were dead in transgressions, God made them alive together with Christ.
Notice who acts. Those described as dead receive life through God’s action. Paul connects their salvation with grace and faith, excluding boasting, then describes them as God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Read Ephesians 2:4–10.
The change concerns both their relationship with God and the walk that follows.
The dead burying the dead
In Luke 9, Jesus calls a man to follow him. The man asks first to bury his father. Jesus responds:
“Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”
— Luke 9:60, LSB
Those performing the burial must be physically capable of doing so. Jesus’ statement therefore requires us to recognize that dead can describe more than the condition of a body awaiting burial.
Placed alongside Ephesians 2, this helps us understand why physical existence alone does not answer the question of whether someone has life from God. This connects with our God’s Image Study, where we examine the Last Adam and bearing the heavenly image. We cannot assume everyone already bears that image simply because they are physically alive; we must examine the life and transformation Scripture describes. Read 1 Corinthians 15:45–49.
Hearing and passing into life
John 5:24 brings hearing, belief, and life together. Jesus describes someone who hears his word and believes the One who sent him as having eternal life and having passed from death into life.
He then speaks of an hour coming and already present, when the dead hear the Son of God’s voice and those who hear live. Read John 5:24–25.
Preserve both roles: the Son speaks, and the hearer believes the One who sent him. Receiving the Son’s word directs attention to the Father.
This passage gives us a transition to examine: death is the condition from which someone passes; life is what that person receives.
Born of the Spirit
This connects with our Born Again Study.
Nicodemus approaches Jesus as a physically living man and a teacher of Israel. Yet Jesus explains the necessity of birth from above. He distinguishes birth of flesh from birth of Spirit and connects birth of water and Spirit with entering God’s kingdom. Read John 3:1–10.
Knowledge, position, and physical life do not replace the birth Jesus describes.
When we place these passages together, the question becomes personal: have I treated being alive in the flesh as though it were the same as receiving life from God? Have I mistaken religious activity or familiarity with Scripture for the change those Scriptures describe?
The distinction we carry forward
Scripture can describe physically active people as dead in sins. It also describes God making people alive with Christ, hearing the Son’s word and believing the Father, and being born of the Spirit.
Recognizing that use of death prepares us to examine each passage carefully. We still need to follow its context when determining which condition is being described.
Next, we will examine the Father drawing people to the Son, and how Jesus connects that coming with receiving life.
Threads to Follow
The Father draws: Examine John 6:44–45, including hearing and learning from the Father.
The Spirit gives life: Keep John 6:63 alongside the words Jesus speaks.
The Son reveals the Father: Bring Matthew 11:27 into the examination of coming to know God.
The books were opened…
🌿 By Maria Emilia
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