“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life….” (Genesis 2:7).
The Greek word translated as “breath” is pneuma; it is the same word that is translated “spirit” in other passages; the Holy Spirit is the hagios pneuma in Greek.
The Holy Spirit is the breath of life for us; without the Spirit we have no life; without the Spirit, man is dead; biologically existing but not having life, for life is a quality that only comes from God, the source of all life and, as far as man is concerned, does not exist outside Christ Jesus.
“In Him was life” the word tells us and in this scripture, “was” is an imperfect verb; that is, it is incomplete and continuing. So life was in Him, is in Him and will be in Him; or, to put it another way in plainer language, life is only in Him and cannot be found anywhere else.
Jesus promised; “If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). How do the Father and the Son make their abode in man? Through the Spirit. It is the Spirit that brings eternal life to us, that intimate knowledge of, and relationship with, the Father and the Son.
“In him was life; and the life was the light of mankind” (John 1:4).
Life is the light of mankind yet how many do not see it? The light is there whether we see it or not, but to see the light we need sight, otherwise, despite the existence of light, we are in darkness and, as Jesus said, if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
The blind man may have light without sight; the sighted man may have no light. It takes a work of the Holy Spirit to enable us to see the light; the written word may bring light but without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit it cannot enable sight. It is the light, enabled by sight, that brings truth; while there can be no salvation apart from truth, there can be, and often is, truth without salvation.
The best example of this conundrum is that of the Pharisees; for three years they stared straight at the Light of the World, but yet they did not see Him! They had the light, but no sight.
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