1 Timothy 6:12 (NKJV) 12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
Last time we looked at the way to defeat the real enemy in this war against disease in which we find ourselves engaged. Mankind has always had an enemy and Peter calls him the devil. James tells us that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. If we do not resist the devil, he will not flee. We resist the devil by faith. Faith is energized by hearing and doing the Word of God found in the Bible.
We looked at 5 scriptures that tell us what God says about disease. There are many more. In the verses we mentioned, we see that God’s attitude toward disease is that he can and will heal it. I believe healing is part of our covenant and therefore, he will heal it every time he comes into contact with it. Not only will he heal disease, but we can stand on promises like Psalm 91:5-7 that tell us he will keep us safe from it if we believe him. That is what the Bible says. To fight disease and resist the devil in all conflicts he brings, we must choose to actively believe what God says and resist what the voice of the world, the flesh or the devil proclaim no matter how loudly or forcefully they proclaim it.
As we looked at the above scripture last time, we focused on the idea of taking hold of what God says instead of what the enemy says. Today I want to spend a few moments on the next few phrases in this verse. Paul tells Timothy that what he should take hold of is eternal life. What is eternal life? How is this related to the spiritual side of the battle against disease? The answer is in the biblical definition of life.
When Paul tells Timothy to take hold of eternal life, he uses two Greek words. One is “aionios” which means eternal or everlasting. The second word is what gives this phrase its power. It is the word “zoe.” It is a simple little word, but it has a huge meaning. Vines Expository Dictionary defines it this way. “Zoe is used in the New Testament of life as a principle, life in the absolute sense, life as God has it, that which the Father has in Himself, and which He gave to the Incarnate Son to have in Himself, John 5:26, and which the Son manifested in the world, 1 John 1:2. From this life man has become alienated in consequence of the Fall, Eph. 4:18, and of this life men become partakers through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, John 3:15, who becomes its Author to all such as trust in Him.”
I understand that sentence is a mouthful but let me boil it down a little. Zoe means life that is not only everlasting but life that has no death in it at all. Absolute zero is a good example of this thought. Absolute zero occurs at a temperature of -480 degrees Fahrenheit. Where I live, we can get temperatures up to 20 or so degrees below zero that sometimes last for weeks. That is cold but absolute zero is 460 degrees colder than that. If you have experienced subzero temperatures, you know that there does not seem to be any heat in it at all. However there is heat at -20. Absolute zero is the complete absence of heat. Heat causes molecular motion. At -480, all molecular motion stops. This is so because there is no heat at all.
Zoe is life that has no death in it at all. Death in the Bible is not just the cessation of physical life. God told Adam that the day he ate the forbidden fruit in the garden, he would surely die. The Hebrew says it a little differently. It says that in dying, Adam would surely die. There are two deaths. Spiritual death came into creation the moment Adam disobeyed. Sin released death into Adam and the rest of creation. Spiritual death led to physical death some 900 years later. Spiritual death is the source of all things “deadly” to the earth and its inhabitants. All physical life dies. However, that was not God’s original plan. God gave man “absolute life” in the Garden of Eden. There was no death in the garden before sin. Man would not have died. There was no aging, no sickness and creation lived in harmony.
Vines continues to say that zoe is life as God has it. I find that statement more powerful than I can express in words! Life as God has it. Life that never ends. Life that swallows death. He says it is the life he gave to his son Jesus. I cannot even imagine Jesus fearing Coronavirus. He did not fear any sickness. He was full of God’s life. However, vines definition gets even better. It is that same life that Jesus imparts to all who believe on him.
Finally, vines definition points out that this is the life that man was alienated from in the fall. Whatever life man had in the Garden and was taken by sin is restored in Jesus. Once this age ends or we individually pass from it in physical death, there will be nothing left that came to us in the fall. There was no sorrow in the Garden of Eden and there will be none in heaven. There was no poverty nor strife in the Garden and there will be none in heaven. There was no sickness in the Garden and there will be none in heaven. That is wonderful but let me point to Jesus. There was no sickness in Jesus life and the Bible is clear that he healed it whenever he came into contact with it.
Paul tells Timothy to fight the good fight of faith by laying hold of eternal life. That does not mean a life that begins after physical death. It means life in the absolute sense. It means life as God has it. It means the life that Jesus bought and paid for with his death, burial and resurrection. Jesus lived in that life on planet earth. So can we.
When we die, zoe life becomes our natural state, not just in our spirit but in our new bodies. While we are in these bodies, we are still subject to the curse of the fall. This is so because we must preach the Gospel to those who have not yet received this life. However, we are not still separated from it. The new birth in Christ gives us back our connection to that life and we can control the effect of death while by accessing that life which came to us in salvation.
That is why Paul exhorts Timothy to fight the good fight of faith by laying hold of eternal life. When we choose to believe the Word of God over all else that is exactly what we are doing. Read those scriptures on what God says concerning disease again. They are the words of eternal life. One more thing Paul says is that this was what Timothy was called to walk in. It is his right and heritage. Not just after he leaves the cursed body, but now.
He gives us one more insight. He says that this calling was “confessed with a good confession before many witnesses.” One of the things that activates faith is our words. Romans 10:8-10 tells us that we believe unto righteousness, but that salvation is a result of our confession. It is our confession of Jesus as the Lord of our lives that releases the power of life in the form of salvation (2 Corinthians 5:17-21.) Is it such a stretch to believe that the life of healing is also released by “confessing a good confession?”
I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I confess him as the Lord of my life. When I did that for the first time, I became a new creature. Old things passed away and all things became new. They became new in my spirit. The life as God has it came into my heart. That life has the power to control the death in my body that I am required to continue in so that I may have contact with those who have not yet met him and therefore do not have access to that life. By faith I can release that life into this body so that I can maintain it until either Jesus comes to get me or I go to meet him.
Covid-19 is not greater than that life. As I fight the good fight of faith and lay hold of the life of God contained in the Word of God, I will either not get Covid-19 or I will be healed of it. That is my calling in Christ.
Leave a Reply