In our previous post, we found that the Word of God is the means through which we find and enter the Sabbath rest promised to New Covenant believers. We now are presented something about the nature of the Word of God, here we find it is “living and active ” (NIV). “Living” here is the present active participle of zao, a verb basically meaning “to live”. A participle is by nature a verbal adjective, meaning it possesses characteristics of both a verb and an adjective. Participles modify the noun which is in the same case, which here is the nominative. The noun in the nominative is the Word of God, so this participle is telling us something about the Word of God. As an adjective it tells us something about what the Word of God is, and as a verb it tells us also what the Word of God does. So living is both what the Word of God is and what the Word of God does, but what is meant here by the Word of God being living? The term zoe refers to a “higher” form of life, a life whose only source is God, zoe is life given by God and is to be lived in union with Him. The Word of God is both that through which God animates this life in humanity and also through which He brings it to its culmination. It is only through the Word of God which the life of God is both discovered and developed in human beings. This is also essentially due to the fact that the Word of God is also “active”. The term active here is the nominative masculine singular adjective of energeia, from which is derived the English term “energy”. As an adjective in the nominative, this also tells us something about the nature of the Word of God, that it is “energized” by God and enabled by Him to work in His people to empower them to live the life He calls them to, life lived as God intends, united to Him. We may therefore see a basic “definition” of zoe, of eternal life: life lived as God intends it to be lived, fully united with Him, just as Jesus both was and lived. May we endeavor to deepen our ongoing engagement with the Word of God, that we may live more fully as He intends, fully united with Him, more like Jesus.