The Breath of God

Then the Lord God fashioned the human, humus from the soil, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living creature. –Genesis 2:7 (John Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary)

The Breath of God, the Breath of Life. This is how we came to be, how life was imparted to us by our Creator—he gave us his own breath. This essential relationship between Creator and created, the gift of breath given and received, is repeated throughout the Scriptures:

The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. (Job 33:4 KJV)

O Lord, what a variety of things you have made!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures. …
When you give them your breath, life is created,
and you renew the face of the earth. (Psalm 104:24, 30 NLT)

When the tragic human story plunged all humanity into death, God had a plan for our re-creation. He showed his friend Ezekiel, prophet and mystic, a vision about the coming re-creation of humanity, the new life that God would impart to those who come to Christ, who are indeed born again.

The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’” (Ezekiel 37:1–6)

The breath of God creates us, and it re-creates us.

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