To start a church? To improve humanity or give us a code of conduct? No, He came for one purpose: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).
The Greek word translated "life" in this verse is zoe, which means the God-kind of life.
The Bible says, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). And, "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).
This everlasting, eternal life Jesus came to give us is the nature of God. John 5:26 says, "As the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself."
In John 1:4 we get a hint of what this life will do for us: "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." Light stands for development. In other words, "In Him was life; and the life was the development of men." Or "In Him was zoe, and zoe was the development of men."
Receiving eternal life is the most miraculous incident in life. We call it the new birth. Some call it "getting religion," but that's not what it is.
It is God imparting His very nature, substance, and being to our human spirits. It is described by the Apostle Paul in Second Corinthians.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:17
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
This is the miraculous recreating of man: "Therefore if any man be in Christ." Paul is not talking about the body—the outward man—or the mind. He's talking about the spirit—the inward man—who is in Christ.
In the new birth, our spirits are born of God. It is the life and nature of God coming into your spirit that makes the inward man a new creature.
The body is not new. This new man—the hidden man of the heart—is to dominate the body. The body is not to dominate you.
Paul not only talks about doing something with the body, but in Romans 12:2 he talks about renewing the mind. He is writing to people who are born again and Spirit filled, yet they need to do something with their bodies and minds.
One of the greatest needs of church members is to have renewed minds. Your mind becomes renewed with the Word of God.
We know this then: Man is a spirit. We know he is in the same class with God, because God is a Spirit and man was made to fellowship with God. We have not majored on this fact as we ought. Therefore, we've never been able to walk in the light of eternal life as we ought.
Kenneth E. Hagin
(Editor's Note: This article was adapted from Zoe: The God-Kind of Life by Kenneth E. Hagin.)