C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity describes the difference between bios and zoe, the two Greek words used in the New Testament for “life”:
“The Biological sort which comes to us through Nature, and which (like everything else in Nature) is always tending to rundown and decay so that it can only be kept up by incessant subsidies from Nature in the form of air, water, food, etc., is Bios.”
Bios life is a gift of God’s common grace and the locus of our common humanity. God’s ultimate goal for his human creatures, however, is the deeper blessing of zoe, which Lewis describes this way:
“The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe, is Zoe.
Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.
And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”
Can the Statue Come to Life?
Many of us trust that we can somehow pull ourselves up by our bios bootstraps—in short, we can focus our natural talents on becoming more refined, more cultivated, more righteous in our dealings with one another. Every philosophy, every social or political movement, every religion shares this motivation. Whether around prehistoric campfires or in modern dorm rooms or legislative chambers, humans have yearned for and pursued this “rumor” of a deeper quality of life beyond natural life.
As Lewis imagines, no matter how sincere or well-motivated, bios life cannot change its nature: self-focused, bios must consume to stay alive whereas zoe is other-focused and gives itself away. Zoe is not bios to the nth degree—thus, bios can never turn itself into zoe. The stone statue cannot become a living, breathing person.
If the statue cannot make itself alive, the statue needs outside help.
In a famous use of zoe, Jesus proclaimed, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). The Message modern paraphrase captures the “rumor” that is circulating: zoe offers more than bios can even imagine!
“I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”
We come to discover zoe through Jesus. Lewis shifts the image from a statue to a fountain:
“If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.
They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry.
Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?”
Lewis’ notion of zoe spurting up like a fountain at the center of reality has a rich biblical history. Fountains figure prominently in the Old Testament:
“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” Psalm 36:9
“The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death.” Proverbs 14:27
In the gospel of John, Jesus adds his unique image of “living water”:
Jesus answered her [the Samaritan woman]: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” John 4:10
Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:38
A.W. Tozer combines these two ideas describing modern people in his classic The Pursuit of God: “They are thirsty for God, and they will not be satisfied until they have drunk deep at the fountain of living water.”
Come to the Fountain of Life
As I ponder this “great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality,” a sense of peace envelopes me. My bios striving ceases. I do not need to “make” anything happen, just let the source of zoe wash over me. This is grace.
I recognize that I have, even as a Christian, a subliminal assumption that joy, power, peace, and eternal life is a reward for believing the right things or living in the right way. The give and take consumption life of bios, where nothing is free or easy, is difficult to shake loose.
On a hot day, we took our two-year-old granddaughter to a kids’ fountain along a busy street; water sporadically erupted through nozzles in different locations over a ten square yard area. Like playing whack a mole, she and other kids ran around the fountain trying to jump in the water wherever it appeared before it died away, only to pop up somewhere else.
After watching her fail to get wet, I joined her on the pavement yelling “over here” whenever I saw the water bubbling up. She would turn and trot over on her little legs. By the time she arrived, the fountain had usually faded and was already spurting up somewhere else.
Too often, the Christian pursuit of zoe can feel like this: we know the fountain exists and try to heed directions as we chase the bubbling water, but, like whack-a-mole, often arrive too late.
For some Christians, doctrines becomes their map: “I know the sequence of how the water flows,” they tell us; “follow me and I’ll lead you to where it will spurt up next.” Others direct us to the elusive fountains through devotional practices, worship styles or causes to pursue. And, out beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy, there are no lack of leaders who claim the power to turn the water off and on themselves, requiring our obedience to their own persons or agendas.
When Nicodemus asked how to be “born again” and gain the new life Jesus had been describing, Jesus replies, “As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. Then whoever puts his trust in Him will have life that lasts forever” (John 3:14-15).
Often we hear the translation “anyone who believes,” but trust is far closer to the original meaning. Simple trust.
Dale Bruner in The Gospel of John: A Commentary, expands on the trust that opens the door to deep, lasting, eternal life:
“The simple truster “has now” and not only in the future, this deep, lasting Life as a personal privilege, given as pure gift…No merit, deserving, struggling , steps, conditions, techniques, disciplines, or inward or outward “doings” (“works”); no emptyings or yieldings; no adverbs of “utterly, totally, completely, truly” are placed on our back. May this simple gospel never be made more complex.”
While on a teaching mission in Zambia, I had the opportunity to visit Victoria Falls. Nothing prepared me for the majesty of these falls, described as the greatest curtain of falling water on our planet and one of the seven wonders of the world. In the local language, the falls are called “the smoke that thunders.” The Zambezi river cascading over the edge of the more than mile wide falls shoots spray hundreds of feet in the air that can be seen from miles away.
Hiking along the clifftop directly opposite the top of the thundering falls, I could see nothing through the impenetrable curtain of spray rising up from the deep gorge that separated me from the falls. Friends warned me not to bother wearing protective raingear, as the intense spray penetrated to every square inch of my body. I reveled in the power and beauty. Even as the spray soaked me to the skin, I caught occasional glimpses of its thunderous source.
As a Christian, I too often bring bios-based assumptions to the new zoe life. I assume something beyond simple trust is being asked of me.
My mind cannot conceive God’s thundering grace, so immense and free, a “great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality,” that sprinkles me even when I am still far away and drenches me the closer I come to it.
Question: What has been your experience? Please share it in a comment.
It is so refreshing to be reminded that we do not have to try – we just need to let the Spirit wash over us!
Another beautifully and powerfully presented message of truth. Thank you.