Quickening

Quickening is divine enlivening — Yahweh's act of making the dead alive, both in the breath that animates dust and in the new life given to those dead in sin. The pattern runs from creation, through Israel's prayers for revival, into the Son's claim to share the Father's life-giving prerogative, and on into the Spirit's work of regenerating those buried in trespasses. Throughout, the same hand that brings down to Sheol brings up again.

Yahweh as the Giver of Life

The act begins at creation. Yahweh "formed the man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul" (Gen 2:7). Job names the same gift sustaining him: "For my life is yet whole in me, And the breath of God is in my nostrils" (Job 27:3). Creation itself is held in being by the same outgoing Spirit — "You send forth your Spirit, they are created; And you renew the face of the ground" (Ps 104:30). And the prerogative is comprehensive: "Yahweh kills, and makes alive: He brings down to Sheol, and brings up" (1 Sam 2:6).

That breath, however, is borrowed. Isaiah warns the people to "Cease yourselves from man, whose breath is in his nostrils" (Isa 2:22), and Daniel charges Belshazzar with failing to glorify "the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways" (Dan 5:23). The vision in the valley of dry bones names the act directly: "Look, I will cause breath to enter into you⁺, and you⁺ will live" (Ezek 37:5).

The doxological summary in the Pastorals gathers this up: God is the one "who gives life to all things" (1 Tim 6:13), and Paul calls him "God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were" (Rom 4:17).

Quicken Us Again

Where Yahweh is named as life-giver, his people pray for that same act on themselves. The Psalmist appeals out of distress: "You, who have shown us many and intense troubles, Will quicken us again, And will bring us up again from the depths of the earth" (Ps 71:20). And again, in the corporate plea of Asaph, "So we will not go back from you: Quicken us, and we will call on your name" (Ps 80:18). The remembrance in Sirach echoes the same thing as a deed of Yahweh through his prophet: "Who raised up a corpse from death, And from Sheol by the favor of Yahweh" (Sir 48:5); and even from the grave Elisha's bones retain the life-giving touch — "Nothing was too wonderful for him, And from his grave his flesh prophesied" (Sir 48:13).

Dead in Sin

Before quickening can be received, a deeper death must be named. The condition is not merely mortality but a present deadness inside the living: "But she who gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives" (1 Tim 5:6); the church at Sardis hears, "you have a name that you live, and you are dead" (Rev 3:1); and Proverbs warns that "[The] man who wanders out of the way of understanding Will rest in the assembly of the spirits of the dead" (Prov 21:16). Paul names this state as the universal condition Christ addresses: "one died for all, therefore all died" (2 Cor 5:14).

The Pauline summons follows directly: "And you⁺ [he made alive], when you⁺ were dead through your⁺ trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1). Elsewhere the same act is repeated: "And you⁺, being dead in your⁺ trespasses and the uncircumcision of your⁺ flesh, you⁺, he made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses" (Col 2:13). The corollary call rouses the still-sleeping: "Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Eph 5:14). The father's welcome over the returning prodigal speaks the same language: "this your brother was dead, and is alive [again]; and [was] lost, and is found" (Luke 15:32). And the Son makes the condition stark: "Except you⁺ eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you⁺ don't have life in yourselves" (John 6:53).

The Son Gives Life to Whom He Will

The Son is named sharer of the Father's prerogative. "For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he will" (John 5:21). The hearer crosses the boundary at the moment of belief: "He who hears my speech, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life" (John 5:24). Paul's resurrection chapter names Christ in the same office: "The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam [became] a life-giving spirit" (1 Cor 15:45). The risen Christ confirms the title himself: "and the Living one; and I became dead, and look, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Rev 1:18).

It Is the Spirit That Gives Life

The same act is ascribed to the Spirit. "It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I have spoken to you⁺ are spirit, and are life" (John 6:63). Paul places the new-covenant ministry on the same footing: "for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life" (2 Cor 3:6). And the Spirit is the agent through whom the Father's resurrection power reaches mortal bodies: "if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you⁺, he who raised up Christ from the dead will give life also to your⁺ mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you⁺" (Rom 8:11). Peter applies the same language to Christ himself — "being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit" (1 Pet 3:18) — and to the gospel's reach: "to this end was the good news preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit" (1 Pet 4:6).

Born Anew

Quickening is also told as new birth. "Except one be born anew, he can't see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3); the children of God are those "who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). James names the agent of that birth: "Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures" (Jas 1:18). Peter doubles the language: "[God] who according to his great mercy begot us again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, / having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and stays" (1 Pet 1:3, 23). Titus joins washing and renewing: God "saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5). John's first letter draws the consequence: those begotten of God do righteousness (1 John 2:29), love (1 John 4:7), believe that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 5:1), and "can't sin, because [they are] begotten of God" (1 John 3:9).

The promise stands behind all of these: "A new heart also I will give you⁺, and a new spirit I will put inside you⁺; and I will take away the stony heart out of your⁺ flesh, and I will give you⁺ a heart of flesh" (Ezek 36:26). The word and the Spirit together form the new life — believers are "a letter of Christ, served by us, not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables [that are] hearts of flesh" (2 Cor 3:3). The result is comprehensive: "if any man is in Christ, [he is] a new creation: the old things are passed away; look, they have become new" (2 Cor 5:17).

Putting Off the Old

The new life entails the laying down of the old. "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be done away, it no longer to serve sin" (Rom 6:6); the believer is to "put away, as concerning your⁺ former manner of life, the old man, that waxes corrupt after the desires of deceit" (Eph 4:22), having "put off the old man with his activities" (Col 3:9). Peter names the practical content: "the time past may suffice to have worked the desire of the Gentiles" (1 Pet 4:3), with cleansing from "old sins" remembered as the basis of the new walk (2 Pet 1:9).

Life Out of Death

The whole umbrella crystallizes in the gospel pattern that life issues from death. "Except a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it stays alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). "Whoever would save his soul will lose it; but whoever will lose his soul for my sake, the same will save it" (Luke 9:24). Baptism rehearses it bodily: "We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4). The seed sown for resurrection follows the same rule: "that which you yourself sow is not quickened except it dies" (1 Cor 15:36). Paul lives it: "it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20); "to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil 1:21); "we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you⁺" (2 Cor 4:11-12). The hidden present and the manifest future stand together: "you⁺ died, and your⁺ life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ will be manifested, [who is] your⁺ life, then you⁺ will also be manifested with him in glory" (Col 3:3-4).

The pattern is even applied to Christ's own community in Diognetus: "they are put to death, and made alive" (Gr 5:12). And the present aliveness, given freely, becomes the rule of life: "reckon⁺ also yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom 6:11); "if Christ is in you⁺, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness" (Rom 8:10); "he died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again" (2 Cor 5:15). Old Testament hearing makes the same offer available now: "Incline your⁺ ear, and come to me; [accept my Speech,] hear, and your⁺ soul will live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you⁺, even the sure mercies of David" (Isa 55:3); and Moses' summary stands: "man does not live by bread only, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh does man live" (Deut 8:3). The communal token of the quickened life is brotherly love: "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers" (1 John 3:14).