Jesus defines God as ’ Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’ This concept must drive our thinking about God! In their collaborative book ‘God of the Living – A Biblical Theology’ (2011) Reinhard Feldmeier and Hermann Spiekermann trace this fundamental truth through both Testaments. Feldmeier is a New Testament scholar, Spiekermann an Old Testament scholar. In the book they engage in theological dialogue, delving into God’s multifaceted and complex character. Thus they avoid the way most of us think, a god of the ancients, and the God revealed through Jesus Christ; as if these are different beings.  The uniting theme of all the scriptures is that God is the God of the living. As Jesus reminds us, a truth observable to those with eyes to see and ears to hear, from Torah to his own time, and of course, beyond time.

   In a much easier to read volume ‘The God of Life’ (1991) Gustavo Gutierrez argues that as the God of the living, God necessarily is the origin and driving force of all life! Including of all that makes life worth living! He argues that anything which opposes life cannot be of God, and is in fact contrary to God’s will for us. All three authors deny that death was, is, part of God’s will for life.

  All three point to Jesus, who claimed ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6) a life described as ‘life abundantly’(10:10). Through his resurrection God alerts us to what God offers not only us, but the whole of creation, life!  Finally, if we cannot quite understand all that, don’t fret, the promise is that God understands, and to God we are alive! Here or elsewhere!