BT: Perhaps you misunderstood my
request, Judy. The challenge to you was to provide for me
explicit language; that is, show me in Scripture
where the text uses the language of "spiritual death" or "spiritually
dead" or "died spiritually," something like that, that
could substantiate your claim. I am familiar with the Text. I
don't think it's there.
jt: It's there Bill - 1
Tim 5:6 teaches that "she who lives in pleasure and self gratification -
giving herself up to luxury and self indulgence - is dead even while she
still lives" In Luke 15:24 the father says of his prodigal son "this
my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!" We
know the son did not die physically but he was living in sin out in the
pigpen with the pigs. Are these examples explicit enough? Then
there is the Church at Sardis in Rev 3:1 to whom Jesus says "I know your
record and what you are doing; you are supposed to be alive but (in
reality) you are dead" (AMP)
BT: Here's what I think about Genesis
and the promise that on the day they eat of it they shall surely die.
There was death that day. There was also the introduction of the Gospel.
Instead of pulling his life-support from Adam and Woman God sacrificed a
substitute. He covered them in the fatty portions of a lamb, the Lamb
slain from the beginning. In doing this, he sealed on that day
the vicarious death of his Son, in their place and on their behalf.
And so, as you see, one
does not need to interpose a foreign concept into the text to make it make
sense.
jt: Yes Bill
there was a sacrifice. God killed an animal in Genesis 3:21 so that
A&E could cover their nakedness but it was not the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. Not yet.
Yours is an a priori,
Judy. You have heard this language so many times, for so long, that
it is now a given in your reading of Scripture. You
supply it, in other words, but the words themselves are not their. It is
something you bring with you to your reading of the text, just as you did
when you wrote "let the (spiritually) dead bury their
own dead."
jt: If, as you
claim Bill, my understanding is wrong and these words are not there
- then what is your explanation for this verse. Do you actually
believe that physically dead people can bury other physically dead
people? If so how?
The challenge is still open. . .
jt: I've met the
challenge more than once Bill but I don't expect you to accept my
explanation because your all encompassing incarnational doctrine hath
blinded your eyes.
Judy wrote: I've never
ever read Augustine, Greek or any other philosophy, or religious
Manichaeism Bill, neither do I approve of any type of Calvinism.
Neither did you need to to have your
thinking influenced by these guys. All you needed to do was breath. The
rest is supplied by people around you, when you go to church, for
example, or when you went to school, or when you turn on your radio or
television, or fire up your computer. Lance shared a really neat quote
about how the philosophies of the mountain top flow down the streams to
water the plants in the valley. We get theology and philosophy whether we
seek it out or not. In many ways people are more susceptible and
vulnerable to bad thinking when they eschew these things than they would
be if they were to educate themselves to their subtleties. Maybe Lance
could post this parable again to refresh your
memory.
jt: If what you claim
above is so Bill/Lance - then the devil is much more powerful than the
Holy Spirit who Jesus said would lead us into all Truth and the spirit of
error or lawlessness is greater than God and his
righteousness.
jt: I see the
juxtaposition between darkness and light, life and death, good and evil
all through scripture
Ah yes, and so do
I.
jt: and I have no idea
what you are speaking of when you refer to "holistic personhood" -
could you explain further please?
I am talking about the thought that a
person could be physically alive but spiritually dead. The Hebrew mind did
not have the Greek idea that body and soul or spirit could be separated,
parts being alive while others are dead. The Hebrew view of
personhood is that humans are non-reducible wholes. There is no dualism
there.
jt: I don't know about
Hebrew minds or Greek minds Bill but I do know that the mind of Christ
sees man as a triune being made up of spirit, soul, and
body.
Judy wrote: How do you
read Matt 8:21 and Luke 9:59,60?
I thought I had already answered
that. This is a metaphor: "Let the dead bury their own dead," but
you "follow me." Everything that people do that is given priority over
following Jesus is as it were dead works.
jt: But Jesus refers to
the person as dead, not his works. In Luke
9:60 AMP it reads "Allow the dead to bury their own dead" and Matt 8:22
says "Follow Me, and leave the dead (in sin) to
bury their own dead. And after He got into the boat, His disciples
followed Him. This does not appear to refer to dead works nor does it
appear to be a 'metaphor' so far as I can see.
When we think we have something
really important to do that is more important than what Jesus is
commanding us to do, our acts are futile. Metaphorically speaking, they
are as dead as the dead person awaiting burial. Again I ask you, why not
let this first reference to "dead" be a metaphor for the futility of human
activities when those activities are given status of priority over
following Jesus?
jt: Anything given
status of priority over following Jesus is an idol but that is another
subject entirely.
Grace and
Peace,
Judy
