Praxis+Theodicy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 1:46 pm
Adam lived an abundant life. He had abundant and meaningful work to do, given purpose directly by God to care for the Earth. He lived in relationship with his Creator, God walked in the Garden. Adam's life fully grasped the purpose for which it was given: to live in submissive relationship to God the Father, partnering with God in the work of sustaining the beautiful creation.
Of course, Adam messed up this arrangement.
But Jesus came as the second Adam and lived that abundant life. He was constantly talking about how his will was in submission to the Father's will, how he was to go about his Father's work. What's more, Jesus wanted to share the abundance of the Father (think of the feeding of the 5k or 4k) and the abundance of a life that is in vocational submission to the Father's will. He instructed his disciples on the way to live out this vocation (think the Sermon on the Mount). He declared the truth that he was Lord, with all authority in heaven and earth, so that a life following and submitting to Him is indeed the life we were meant to have.
If true "life" is experienced by working in submissive partnership with God, like Adam did (for a time) and Jesus did (perfectly), then how can we have "more" life? Does "more" life mean "more years" of our life? No, it means packing the years you have to live with more "meaningful" activities. Activities that work to promote God's Kingdom. In this way you don't need "more years to live". You can live the same amount of time but still have "more" life. You can have "a lot" of life! You can have it "more abundantly!" You can even have "eternal" life!!! Think of that! Each decision you make to partner with God, to treat Jesus as Lord instead of sin and self, you are getting "more" out of this experience we call "life"!
Most translations don't use the phrase 'more' but rather say it in a way that doesn't imply a longer life but rather a quality of life. They will put it as just 'abundantly' or 'all it's fullness' as temporal1 gave examples.
The 'prosperity gospel', imo, has sadly regarded a life of abundance means a life of material wealth that a believer should experience and they refer to certain texts in the OT to support that view. They really have trouble though when it comes to the NT as there not only are warnings of what material wealth can do to us spiritually but the examples of the apostles and most believers does not indicate they had much material wealth.
This is not to say God may bless a believer with material wealth for His purposes. However, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil and not money itself. When these 'prosperity preachers' preach that 'you can't out give God' and mean that God will give you back a big material return on your givings, to me, it is a sad twist on what God given abundance means and how to get it. The abundant life living in the fruit of the Spirit has nothing to do with one's material state. What a messed up use of scripture that, to me, is an anti-Christ and the Gospel.
But that being said, perhaps a good way to judge whether or not we are living the abundant life is to consider the degree that the fruit of the Spirit is working in our lives. Areas like 'a
peace that passeth all understanding' and 'unspeakable
joy' and a Jesus kind of love even for our enemies, etc, etc. as we look closely into the fruit of the Spirit and think about how these are real in our lives.
Would love to read more thoughts on this.