Life From Non-Life

Last night, while sitting in the hospital, waiting for the birth of my friend's child, I got thinking. This, of course, is a dangerous proposition.

But no matter how you cut it, the birth of a child is an amazing thing. I won't go so far as to say that childbirth is a miracle; it's a normal thing that happens all the time. Conception, on the other hand, is a miracle: life from that which is (basically) non-life.

I realize the oversimplification, but I hope you're following what I'm saying. Some cells coming together doesn't seem like enough to bring about a human life. But by God's design, it does.

I mean, it really doesn't make any sense. We are dying creatures. Not just us, but every living thing. From trees to whales, all the way to the smallest bacteria, we all have a time limit.

Yet, life from non-life.

I don't know how consciousness comes into play. Whether it's built into the inner workings of it all or at the conception of every human life, God sparks life into that little person. But it is, in fact, a little person.

The bottom line is that, apart from the hand of God, there is no life. He upholds all things, and He is the source of life.

Even more, the Bible speaks clearly that while we are alive, we are also dead. That is, we're dead in our natural state outside of Christ.

Paul says that he and the believers at Ephesus were formerly dead in their sins and trespasses (Ephesians 2:1).

And dead things can't produce life. Just as I would argue there must be some spark of life at conception, so, too, the dead sinner needs God to bring them life.

In the third chapter of John, Jesus said that we must be born again.

Like our first birth, the second birth is something miraculous. I would argue it's even more miraculous.

But God can do the miraculous.

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