the Fourth Week after Easter
Click here to learn more!
Bible Dictionaries
Living (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or LIVING.—1. Βίος = ‘livelihood,’ ‘means of living.’ It is often used in this sense in class. Gr., e.g. τὸν βίον κτᾶσθαι, ποιεῖσθαι, etc.; Plato, Gorg. 486 D [Note: Deuteronomist.] , (men) οἷς ἔστι καὶ βίος καὶ δόξα καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ ἀγαθά; Phocylides, Frag. 10, ed. Bergk, δίζησθαι βιοτὴν, ἀρετὴν δ ̓ ὅταν ᾖ βίος ἤδη (like Hor. Ep. i. i. 53, ‘quaerenda pecunia primum est, virtus post nummos’). It is rendered ‘living’ in four passages in the Gospels. (1) Mark 12:44 (|| Luke 21:4) ἕβαλεν ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς, Vulgate totum victum suum = ‘all that she had to live upon until more should be earned’ (Swete). Jesus knew that this was the case, and that she might have retained one of the λεπτά when she cast in both (Nestle, Expos. Times, xiii. 562, who adds that 2 Corinthians 8:12 looks like the moral drawn from this passage; cf. Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar, 256). Compare the praise of the virtuous woman, Proverbs 31:14 (LXX Septuagint συνάγει δὲ αὔτη τὸν βίον). (2) Luke 8:43 ἰατροῖς προσαναλώσασα ὅλον τὸν βίον, Vulgate omnem substantiam suam: the πρός implying that besides what she had suffered, she had expended all her means of subsistence (cf. Plummer, 234; Holtzmann, 157; Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible iii. 322a). Song of Solomon 8:7 LXX Septuagint , ἐὰν δῷ ἀνὴρ πάντα τὸν βίον αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἐξουδενώσει ἐξουδενώσουσιν αὐτόν, forms a suggestive parallel. (3) Luke 15:12 διεῖλεν αὐτοῖς τὸν βίον, Vulgate divisit illis substantiam: ὁ βίος being equivalent to ἡ οὐσία (‘his estate’). Such a division of property in the father’s lifetime was perhaps not uncommon. What precise rights the father retained after the division is not clear. The words πάντα τὰ ἐμὰ σά ἐστιν (Luke 15:31) are not spoken in a legal sense, but are an expression of fatherly affection (cf. Plummer, 372; Simcox, Expositor, 1889, ii. 124, 127). τὸ ἐπιβάλλον μέρος was a technical formula, as appears from the papyri (Deissmann, Bible Studies, 230). The share of the younger son would be a third (Deuteronomy 21:17, cf. Jülicher, Gleichnisreden, 338). (4) Luke 15:30 ὁ καταφαγών σου τὸν βίον. Plummer thinks there may be bitterness in the σου, when αὐτοῦ might have been more fairly used. But the σου τὸν βίον may have been due to correct feeling; the elder son not regarding the share which he himself had received as being absolutely his own as long as his father lived (cf. Jülicher, Gleichnisreden, 337). Βίος is used in the same sense: 1 John 3:17 δς δ ̓ ἄν ἔχῃ τὸν βίον τοῦ κόσμου, where it is rendered ‘this world’s good’ (Authorized Version ), ‘goods’ (Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ), and includes ‘all the endowments which make up our earthly riches, wealth, station, intellect’ (Westcott, in loc.). For the distinction between ζωή and Βίος, in NT and in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (ζωή the principle of life, vita qua vivimus; Βίος the process, the circumstances, the accidents of life, in its social relations, vita quam vivimus; cf. Luke 8:14), see the valuable note of Lightfoot, Ignat. ad Rom. [Note: Roman.] vii. 3 (Apostolic Fathers, second part, ii. 1, 225–226); and cf. Haupt on 1 John 2:16, and Trench, Synon. xxvii.
2. Ζῶν.—(1) as applied to God: by St. Peter, Matthew 16:16 ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος; by the high priest, Matthew 26:63 ἐξορκίζω σε κατὰ τοῦ θ. τ. ζ.; by Christ Himself, John 6:57 ὁ ζῶν πατήρ.
The title ‘the living God’ occurs in OT in the following passages:הַוִים אֱלהִים Deuteronomy 5:23 (Deuteronomy 5:26), 1 Samuel 17:26-36, Jeremiah 10:10; Jeremiah 23:36; חַי אֱלהִים 2 Kings 19:4; 2 Kings 19:16 (|| Isaiah 37:4; Isaiah 37:17); אֵל חַי Joshua 3:10, Hosea 2:1 (Hosea 1:10), Psalms 42:3 (2) Psalms 84:3 (2); אֱלָהָא חַיָא Daniel 6:21 (20) Daniel 6:27 (26). It is found besides (in LXX Septuagint ) Deuteronomy 4:33, Tobit 13:1, Esther 6:13, Daniel 4:19; Daniel 5:23; Daniel 12:7, Bel 5, 3 Maccabees 6:28. A study of the OT passages shows that God is called ‘the living God,’ not only as contrasted with the dead idols of the heathen, but also as the God of active Providence, as Israel’s Protector and Helper, as He who is Life, and the never-failing Source of spiritual life to men. It is perhaps the title of God that comes nearest in significance to Jahweh, and it seems to have been used at times of great emotion as a substitute for it, particularly when the name Jahweh had disappeared from popular use (cf. Dalman, Words of Jesus, 195). Sanday (BL [Note: L Bampton Lecture.] , 1893, p. 153, cf. 124) justly calls attention to the richness and depth of this prophetic title as compared with modern terminology: ‘the Absolute, the Infinite, the Unconditioned, the First Cause, the Moral Governor,’ and so on (cf. Flint, Sermons and Addresses, 170).* [Note: ‘O Thou Infinite, Amen,’ was the form of prayer Tennyson used in times of trouble and sorrow (Memoir by his Son, i. 324). The language of the founder of the Gifford Lectureship may also be recalled.]
‘The living God’ occurs often in NT, and the writer of Hebrews uses it with special force and emphasis (see A. B. Davidson, note on Hebrews 3:12). On the lips of St. Peter (Matthew 16:16) it amounts to a confession that the living God is now revealed in Christ, who thus becomes the Source of eternal life to His followers (John 6:68; cf. Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible iv. 574b). The high priest’s use of the title adds a certain dignity to his adjuration; and Jesus answered on being thus solemnly appealed to. ‘The living Father’ (John 6:57) is a remarkable expression, combining as it does all that was signified by ‘the living God’ in the OT with Christ’s revelation of God as the Father who sent His Son (or, of God as the Source of life on the side of love). The meaning of this verse may be briefly stated as follows: our Lord’s words, ‘I live by (διά, Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘because of’) the Father’ are to be referred to the personal life of human weakness and suffering now in progress. In living this life Jesus is dependent upon the support and sustenance which He is receiving at every moment from the Father who sent Him. A like dependence exists in our case upon Jesus Himself. Being Himself strengthened, He becomes the source of strength to us. It is the very fact of His coming and living this life of human weakness and suffering on earth that puts it within our power to take Him for our spiritual support and sustenance. When we take home the truth of His self-humbling love for our sake, and assimilate it to ourselves as the bread we eat, we receive into our souls the true life that cannot die (cf. Beyschlag, NT Theol. i. 272; and for a similar profound saying as to the relation between the Father and the Son and believers, see John 10:14-15).
(2) As applied to the Risen Lord: Luke 24:5 τί ζητεῖτε τὸν ζῶντα μετὰ τῶν νεκρῶν; the angels’ question conveyed a reproof to the women who were come to the place where the dead was laid, bringing the spices which they had prepared: it was like asking them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They had heard the announcement Christ made to the circle of His followers before leaving Galilee, that He would rise again the third day (Luke 24:6-7). At the same time, the question was spoken sympathetically, and conveyed to them the first intimation of the astonishing truth, οὐκ ἔστιν ὦδε, ἀλλὰ ἠγέρθη. Here ὁ ζῶν simply implies that Jesus lives, and is not now to be sought in the place where the dead are, i.e. continues no longer under the power of death (cf. Luke 24:23 ἀγγέλων … οἳ λέγουσιν αὐτὸν ζῇν). But as spoken at the empty sepulchre, it undoubtedly has something of the exaltation of meaning with which it was afterwards used by our Lord in His glorified state (Revelation 1:18 ἐγώ εἰμι … ὁ ζῶν ‘the Living one,’ Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ). There is comprehended in it the completeness of that triumph over death which was afterwards so richly unfolded to the mind of the Church by the Holy Spirit, as, for example, when St. Paul used the exultant language of Romans 6:9-10, or spoke of Christ as a πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν (1 Corinthians 15:45).
(3) As applied to Water and Bread in the Fourth Gospel: John 4:10-11 ὕδωρ ζῶν; John 7:38 ποταμοὶ ὕδατος ζῶντος; John 6:51 ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος ὁ ζῶν.—a. John 4:10-11. ‘Living water’ is spring water, as contrasted with that collected in a well or cistern. It is the מַיִם חַוִּים of the OT (Genesis 26:19 [see Driver’s note], Leviticus 14:5-6; Leviticus 14:50-52, Song of Solomon 4:15, Jeremiah 2:13; Jeremiah 17:13, Zechariah 14:8 : also LXX Septuagint Genesis 21:19, Numbers 5:17). The woman of Samaria was familiar with the expression, and her question was quite natural and appropriate, ‘Art thou greater than our father Jacob?’ ‘Here is an ordinary man offering to supply better water, spring water, in the place where the patriarch Jacob had been obliged to content himself with building a cistern and drinking cistern water’ (Wendt, St. John’s Gospel, 124). The water in Jacob’s Well (wh. see) is believed to be due to ‘percolation and rainfall’ (cf. Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible ii. 536, Encyc. Bibl. iv. 4829, Smith’s DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] 2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] ii. 1503). Jeremiah 2:13 especially illustrates the difference between the spring or fountain, gushing forth with its unstinted and unfailing supply, ‘overflowing, ever-flowing,’ and the cistern, so liable to be destroyed by cracking (Land and Book, 287), which at the best cannot afford a refreshing draught like that of the bubbling spring, and which cannot permanently retain the water collected in it. Christ does not call Himself ‘the Living water,’ as He calls Himself ‘the Living bread.’ What He means by ‘the living water’ is the word of salvation which He preaches (cf. John 4:41-42). This word, He says (John 4:14), enters into the inner personal life, and becomes there a gushing spring, a perennial fountain (πηγὴ ὕδατος), ‘springing up into eternal life,’ i.e. persisting to flow upwards till we reach our end of full communion with God. C. Wesley’s ‘Spring Thou up within my heart, Rise to all eternity,’ is quite in harmony with Israel’s water-drawing song, in which the spring is addressed as a living being (Numbers 21:17, cf. Encyc. Bibl. i. 515, iv. 4778).
b. John 7:38.—‘Pouring out water before the Lord’ was a primitive ritual practice, of which the origin is uncertain. It was ‘in all probability a survival from a time when water (in the desert) was considered an article of value’ (Kantzsch in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible , Ext. Vol. 620a). It is mentioned as a prayer-offering, 1 Samuel 7:6; as a thank-offering, 2 Samuel 23:16. There are no traces of it beyond the time of David (a reference to it in 1 Kings 18:33 is not probable); but the practice of pouring out water as a drink-offering continued to be observed, or was revived, in connexion with the Feast of Tabernacles. Every morning during the seven days of the feast water was drawn from the spring of Siloam in a golden pitcher, and was poured into a basin at the top of the altar (Encyc. Bibl. iv. 4213). The libation of water was probably a prayer-offering for abundant rain for the new seed-time (ib. iv. 4880, cf. iii. 3354). Rain was an emblem of Messianic blessings (2 Samuel 23:4, Psalms 72:6, cf. Hosea 6:3); and we may well believe that the symbolical act of pouring out water gave occasion to our Lord’s looking forward to the abundant showers with which He was soon to water the earth.—Further, this joyous festival brought to our Lord’s mind the Rock at Horeb (Exodus 17:6, Numbers 20:11, cf. 1 Corinthians 10:4), and perhaps more especially those OT sayings in which it had been predicted that living water should flow out from Jerusalem, or from the House of the Lord (Ezekiel 47:1; Ezekiel 47:12, Zechariah 14:8, Joel 3:18, cf. Psalms 87:7). What was the precise connecting link of thought between these predictions and the phrase ἐκ τῆς κοιλίας αὐτοῦ, it is difficult to say. But may it not be the case that, in our Lord’s view, what had been spoken concerning Jerusalem and the Temple was now to be applied to the inner personal life of the believer, enriched by the entrance of His word, and renewed by His Holy Spirit? This sanctified personal life was what now answered to the sanctuary from which it had been foretold that living waters should flow out. Our Lord’s application of the term κοιλία to it was in keeping with the use of בָּמָן in certain passages of the OT, where it denotes the whole of man’s emotional nature and sympathetic affections (Proverbs 20:27; Proverbs 20:30, Habakkuk 3:16, cf. Sirach 19:12; Sirach 51:21; cf. also the expression ‘his bowels yearned,’ Genesis 43:30, 1 Kings 3:26). The words καθὼς εἶπεν ἡ γραφή, κ.τ.λ., are thus a terse and eloquent paraphrase of the scope of the passages above referred to. It need hardly be said that the clause καθὼς εἷπεν ἡ γραφή cannot possibly be connected with the preceding ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμέ (‘there are not different ways of believing,’ Principal Campbell, The Four Gospels, in loc.). This saying of our Lord supplements and extends that of John 4:14. The word of salvation which becomes a gushing spring when received into the inner personal life of the believer, and rises up there unto eternal life, Jesus now announces, is to become a rushing stream, and is to flow out from the believer in rivers of blessing to others (ποταμοὺς ἐκάλεσεν, οὐχ ἕνα ποταμὸν, ἀλλὰ ἀφάτους, Chrys. in loc.). The limitations to its diffusion that at present exist will be removed when Christ shall have entered into His glory. His sending His Holy Spirit upon the company of believers will enable them to proclaim His word with full power, and will make their holy lives a means of spiritual replenishment to all mankind. The saying was fulfilled after Pentecost, when ‘rivers of living water’ flowed out from the Lord’s witnesses ‘unto the uttermost part of the earth,’ ‘beginning at Jerusalem’* [Note: The Patristic expositors applied the saying mainly to the effusion of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit (Hare, Mission of the Comforter, Note H, where a passage is quoted from a sermon preached by Luther in 1531, in which he states the right sense with his usual vigour).] (cf. Dykes, Expositor, 1890 (i.) p. 127 ff.). When the water from Siloam was brought to the Temple, priests and people sang the words, ‘Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation’ (Isaiah 12:3). But in the verses following (Isaiah 12:4-6), it was implied that the water so drawn was not to be Israel’s exclusive possession, but that the salvation which it symbolized was to be communicated to other nations (Isaiah 12:5 ‘let this be known in all the earth,’ Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ). With the leading thought of John 7:38 may be compared what St. Paul says about Christians first receiving and then giving forth ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:6).
c. John 6:51.—Two things—the manna and the bread of the miracle which He had just wrought—were present to our Lord’s mind when He preached at Capernaum, and also to the minds of His hearers. They had said, after His feeding the five thousand, ‘This is of a truth the Prophet that cometh into the world’ (John 6:14). But the earthly and material good which they expected to follow not being immediately forthcoming, and the first favourable impression produced by the miracle having worn off, they began to criticise and find fault. ‘After all, His multiplying the loaves is not anything so very wonderful. Can He “rain down manna upon us to eat, and give us of the corn of heaven” (Psalms 78:24), that we may see and believe Him (John 6:30)? The manna,’ said they, ‘supplied the wants of all the hosts of Israel for forty years, but He has furnished us with no more than one meal.’ This led Jesus to set forth the difference between the manna and ‘the true bread from heaven’ (John 6:32). Inasmuch as the manna was sent down from above, and was continually renewed, it was a type of the true bread. But that bread it was not, being simply a provision which was made for a special purpose, and which lasted only until that purpose had been fulfilled (cf. Joshua 5:12); nor had their fathers’ having eaten it eventually delivered them from the power of death (John 6:49). Jesus also showed that His hearers had failed to perceive the true purpose of the miracle He had wrought. The bread of the miracle was intended for ‘a sign’ (John 6:26), which they had not had faith to discern (John 6:36), that He could supply them with the true bread of the soul. Inasmuch as the multiplying of the loaves was due to His love, and involved the repeated action of that love in the gift of a satisfying meal to each of them severally (cf. Swete, St. Mark, 127b), it was ‘a sign’ that should have led them to believe that He could give them the true bread. But they had sought Him at Capernaum, not hungering for this bread, but hankering after more earthly good, like that which they had already received. Accordingly, Jesus spoke of the bread of the miracle as ‘the meat which perisheth,’ and contrasted it with ‘the meat which endureth unto eternal life’ (John 6:27). These distinctions of the bread of the miracle as well as the manna from the true bread of the soul are important and vital, and they assist us to lay hold of our Lord’s meaning when He said, ‘I am the living bread.’ This expression has no parallel in the OT, but it is in close affinity with the ‘living water’ in ch. 4. As ‘living water’ is water that never ceases to gush forth, so ‘living bread’ is bread that Jesus never ceases to multiply for the supply of our spiritual wants,—bread, therefore, by which our spiritual sustenance is perpetually renewed (cf. Dods, Expositor’s Bible, in loc.). It is bread in ever-multiplying, unmeasured store, that can never be exhausted by the famishing. As Jesus speaks of ‘giving’ this bread (John 6:27), it must mean, in the first instance, the same thing as the better water which He also spoke of ‘giving,’ namely, His word. This view is in agreement with the teaching of John 6:63; John 6:68, and is also supported by our Lord’s use of Deuteronomy 8:3 (Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4). But He not only speaks of ‘giving’ bread, He also says, ‘I am the living bread.’ The key to His meaning is found in the Prologue. Jesus not only utters the word of God, but is ‘from eternity the very Word of God, by which God manifests Himself. He is not one who leads to the way, but Himself the Way; not one who preaches truth, but Himself the Truth’ (John 1:1; John 14:6; Hibbert Journal, Oct. 1905, p. 6). So here Jesus not only gives the bread, but is Himself ‘the living bread,’—‘the actual source of nutrition.’ He ‘speaks of Himself not as resembling, but as being the veritable vine, the veritable bread, the veritable light of the world; implying that He is the absolute truth of all these things; the supreme reality which they partially manifest in their several spheres’ (Illingworth, Divine Immanence2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , 135, cf. 137). Jesus adds, ‘which came down from heaven.’ As in the physical realm, so, too, in the spiritual, the food that sustains us comes down from heaven, and to procure it is beyond the reach of our own powers (Isaiah 55:10-11). As the heaven-given bread which feeds our bodies ultimately assumes the humble form of the baked loaf, which, inasmuch as it nourishes life, retains the life of the living wheat, and can impart it, so Jesus, in order to feed our souls, must humble Himself and ‘be found in fashion as a man,’ be born, and that in a low condition (v. 42), undergo the miseries of this life, and at the end of His earthly course even ‘give his flesh for the life of the world.’ The power of this truth of His self-humbling love for our sake enters into our inner personal life, and we are enabled to assimilate it to ourselves as the food we eat, by means of His word. His word is the ‘bread which strengtheneth man’s heart’ (Psalms 104:15), because it is the embodiment of Him who, having humbled Himself to death, now for ever lives. Through it the repeated action of His love still ministers the gift to each hungering soul. The Bread of heaven, in heaven itself, will be the word which Jesus speaks to His people.—It is the same truth respecting Christ as our Living Food and Strength that is ‘represented, sealed, and applied’ to us in the Lord’s Supper.
(4) As applied to the Patriarchs: Mark 12:27 (|| Matthew 22:32, Luke 20:38) οὐκ ἔστιν θεὸς νεκρῶν, ἀλλὰ ζώντων.—In expounding this cardinal saying, we have first to inquire what doctrine our Lord is here vindicating. Religious minds among the Jews had already arrived at the clearly defined hope of a future life (Driver, Sermons on OT, 92), which life they conceived of as comprehending ‘the deliverance of an existent personality from Sheol, and its re-endowment with life in all its powers and activities’ (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible iv. 232a). Sadduceeism, which represented the old Jewish standpoint, rejected these doctrines. The Sadducees were hostile to our Lord’s whole teaching respecting ‘the kingdom of God,’ which carried the consummation of the Kingdom into a future life, and accordingly implied that there would be a resurrection of the dead. It was with reference to the resurrection that they chose their line of attack on His teaching. In His discussion with them, it was our Lord’s object not only to maintain that there is a life after death, but also to reveal what deliverance from death really implied. Had He made use of Exodus 3 simply to prove the continued existence of men after death, He would not have met the objections of His opponents. It was their attack on the resurrection that He successfully repelled (cf. Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i. 222). The Sadducees, although not actually rejecting the other books of the OT, considered them as being very inferior in value to the five books of Moses (cf. Encyc. Bibl. iv. 4240). It was from the latter, accordingly, that they drew their objection to the resurrection. Founding on the law of the Levirate marriage (see Levirate Law), they thought to put our Lord in an embarrassing position by propounding the case of seven brethren, who, after having married the same wife in succession, had all died childless, and then asking, ‘In the resurrection, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of the seven?’ The story of Glaphyra (Josephus Ant. xvii. xiii. 4; cf. Addison, Spectator, No. 110) was probably much canvassed about that time (Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar, 245); and in it the marriage-relation was conceived of as still standing in the world beyond death. Our Lord took the opportunity afforded Him by the disputation which had arisen to set free the doctrine of the resurrection from such grossly materialistic notions as these, and to show that the resurrection life is not a continuation of the present life of the body, or of human relations as they now exist (John 6:25). As to the main point at issue, He met the Sadducees on their own ground. He directed their attention to a passage which they had overlooked in one of their revered books, and prefacing the quotation with the words, ‘As touching the dead that they rise,’—thus showing that it was the resurrection He was vindicating,—He asked them, ‘Have you considered the bearing of this passage upon the doctrine in question?’ As to our Lord’s use of this passage of the OT, all that need be said here is that the revelation given to Moses at Horeb, and made by him the ground of his appeal to the Hebrew tribes,—the revelation, namely, of Jahweh as the God of their fathers,—lies at the very root of Israel’s religion (cf. W. R. Smith, Proph.1 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] 32, OTJC [Note: TJC The Old Test, in the Jewish Church] 2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] 303; Kautzsch in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible , Ext. Vol. 624, 625a). Our Lord’s argument, based on the passage quoted, may be stated as follows:—The words of Exodus 3:6; Exodus 3:13; Exodus 3:15-16 spoke of the relation of the patriarchs to God as a still existing relation, and set forth a fellowship with God in which they, being dead, yet lived. But their fellowship with God contained in itself the promise and the pledge of a more complete life and more perfect fellowship which should hereafter be granted them by God. It followed, by an inner principle of necessity, from their being united to Him who is ‘the God of the living,’ that He would not leave any part of their being for ever under the destructive power of death, but would in the end awaken them to a heavenly life with Himself (Wendt, l.c. i. 223; cf. Bengel, note on Matthew 22:32; Salmond, Chr. Doctr. of Immortality3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , 366; Swete, St. Mark, 266). Or, to state the argument in a more compact form:—God is Life. The patriarchs are in God, therefore they partake of life. But life cannot die, therefore they must continue living for ever. But a purely incorporeal existence does not give the full conception of life in man’s case. Each patriarch is soul plus body. Therefore the body, as well as the soul, is secured in an everlasting life. Compare the remarkable treatise on the Resurrection by the apologist Athenagoras (c. [Note: circa, about.] a.d. 177), especially chs. 14–17 (Donaldson, A Critical History of Chr. Lit. and Doctr. iii. 116, 136 ff.). The ground of the resurrection-hope which our Lord found in this passage was beyond question contained in it, seeing that He found it there and set it forth. He could see all that God meant when He called Himself ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He could discern the full witness borne by this title to the certainty of the hope which He defended. ‘He who spoke in the OT was God, and from the first that which He spoke about was the consummation which filled His thought’ (A. B. Davidson, Expositor, 1900 (i.), 15; cf. OT Prophecy, 14). Further, in the Resurrection of Christ Himself we have the conclusive proof that communion with God involves the restitution of the whole of our personal being. What the proper view of the resurrection body is we find later on from St. Paul, whose doctrine of a σῶμα πνευματικόν as contrasted with a σῶμα ψυχικόν (1 Corinthians 15:44), and of a σῶμα τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ as contrasted with a σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως ἡμῶν (Philippians 3:21), was no doubt evolved from our Lord’s saying.
(5) As applied to the manner or course of life: Luke 15:13 ζῶν ἀσώτως, ‘with riotous living’ (cf. Josephus Ant. xii. iv. 8, ἀσώτως ζῇν). Contrast ‘holy living.’ From this phrase is derived the title ὁ ἄσωτος υἱός, filius prodigus, by which this parable is generally known (Trench, Par.8 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] 393; Jülicher, Gleichnisr. 337, 341).* [Note: (de Pœnitentia, Hom. i. 4) calls the younger son ὁ ἄσωτος, but the sermon εἰς τοῦ ἄσωτον νἱόν referred to by Jülicher is omitted as spurious, ed. Montfauçon (Paris, 1839).] See also art. Life.
Literature.—In addition to the reff. in this art., see Dale, The Living Christ and the Four Gospels; Forsyth, The Holy Father and the Living Christ; van Dyke, The Reality of Religion, p. 121; Liddon, Passiontide Sermons, p. 244.
James Donald.
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Living (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/l/living-2.html. 1906-1918.
