Genesis 2:7
The Genesis account of the creation of man ought to give us more than a hint about what is needed to sustain human life. And knowing about the many parallels between physical life and spiritual life given in scripture, we can also learn from this about what is needed to sustain life for the soul.
The Lord God is at work making Adam out of the dust. So it’s easy to see that God is the Creator and the One orchestrating the entire affair. But this isn’t our main point. Picture the body of the man being formed in the hands of God. Every component is carefully considered, designed, created and put into place. Finally, the body is complete, but there’s still no life. Just an unanimated body. This is our point. It isn’t until God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” that man became a living soul. The breath of life came from God which means it came from outside of the man.
This theme is carried out in the functioning of our bodies to this day. Our bodies do not have life within themselves. To have life, our bodies must have things which are external to our bodies. We need to breathe oxygen from the air. We need food and water from the surrounding environment. When we do not have a regular intake of these things, our bodies falter and die. We die.
The same holds true for the soul, our spiritual selves. Since each one has sinned, we are already dead (Ephesians 2:5). “The soul who sins will die” (Ezekiel 18:4). To have life (meaning “eternal life” since the soul is in view), we need something outside of ourselves to give us that life. Eternal life is not within ourselves.
Enter the grace of God through Jesus Christ to give us life. Through His conquering sin in the flesh, His death for our sins and His resurrection from the dead we can now have eternal life. Buried with Him in baptism, our sins are washed away, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit of life. It is now Christ who dwells in us. He is our life! (Galatians 2:20) Praise God for the life of Christ!!