Zoe (Spiritual Life)
Zoe (
Zwh) is one of several
Greek language words translated as "
life", which in context of the
Christian Bible means "
Spiritual Life" â€" the kind of life that is in
God Himself.
In contrast with the other Greek word for life
"bios", which means "biological life", or the kind of physical life inherent in living things such as plants and animals,
zoe means "spiritual life", or something beyond the mere biological functions of living creatures
[Lewis, C. S., ''Mere Christianity. New York : Macmillan Pub. Co., [1984], c1952. (ISBN 0020868308)]The Greek language had several words which we translate into English as "life." These different words helped them to clarify the capacity of life-function at the differing levels. The Greek translation of the
Old Testament, the
Septuagint (LXX), uses the Greek word
zoe as the word for "life" in the
Book of Genesis along with a derivative of the same word to explain that man "became spiritually alive in his behavioral life-function of the soul."(Genesis 2:7)
In the
New Testament, however, it is used to refer to the spiritual life that is in
Jesus Christ, as in these examples from the
Gospel of John:
* "In Him was life (
zoe), and the life (
zoe) was the light of men." (John 1:4)
* "I am the way, the truth and the life (
zoe)," Jesus said (
John 14:6).
* "I came that you might have life (
zoe), and have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)
* "These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life (
zoe) in His name." (John 20:31)
* "He who has the Son has the life (
zoe); he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life (
zoe)." (I John 5:12)
Here are some excerpts from the book,
Mere Christianity by
C.S. Lewis discussing this meaning meaning of
zoe:
* "The Biological sort which comes to us through Nature, and which (like everything else in Nature) is always tending to run down and decay so that it can only be kept up by incessant subsidies from Nature in the form of air, water, food, etc., is Bios. The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe, is Zoe. Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man." (pp. 139-140)
* "The man is being caught up into the higher kind of life - what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself." (p.143)
* "We are not begotten by God, we are only made by Him: in our natural state we are not sons of God, only (so to speak) statues. We have not got Zoe or spiritual life: only Bios or biological life which is presently going to run down and die. Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God." (p.153)
*
Spiritual Life
