He walked the earth more than two thousand years ago. We hear about His crucifixion and His teachings. Easter is about His resurrection. But that’s where some people balk. Does that mean Jesus is alive? How could a man who had been publicly executed rise from the dead? History provides irrefutable evidence that Jesus Christ of Nazareth lived, but is He still alive today? Christians worship, sing, and pray to Jesus as though He is alive. Are they wrong to do so? In what sense is Jesus “alive”?

As human beings confined to a material world, we often understand life to be directly linked to physicality—a person is alive if his or her body is alive. But life runs deeper than that. The spirit realm is as real as the physical realm. Philippians 2:5–11 explains that Christ was already alive, as one with God, before the earth was spoken into…