What's this? The possibility of a real, honest-to-goodness conversation?
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: July 20, 2005 18:32
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Re:John 16:13,14
Bill, I haven't been able to keep up with the posts today. I've read
enough
ahead to see that some are not hearing you. I just wanted to let you know
that I very much appreciate what you have written. It seems to me that
there always has been something amiss with the common perspective about
spiritual death. You are addressing this and helping me think through it.
When I get a chance, I would like to dialogue with you. Right now, I have
other matters calling for my attention. Please be patient until I can get
back to this.
Peace be with you.
David Miller.
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Taylor
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 10:15 AM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Re:John 16:13,14
I know I'm not up on your doctrinal issues, Bill, so please tell me why
you
seem to reject the idea of someone being spiritually dead prior to being
born again of the Spirit. I'd appreciate it. izzy
There are numerous reasons why I reject this doctrine, Izzy, the foremost
of
which is because I believe it is impossible for Jesus to have been
"spiritually dead" at any point in his lifetime.
Paul tells us that Jesus came in the "likeness of sinful flesh" and that
it
was in his flesh that he destroyed sin. I believe that it is absolutely
essential that Christ had to assume sinful flesh in order to save us in
our
sinful flesh. If he did not have the same flesh as we, then he did not
defeat sin in our flesh -- it's as simple as that. Hence we are still in
our
sin and he did nothing to restore or revive us in his resurrection. Stated
another way, if he was born with flesh other than our kind, which is
"sinful," then he may have avoided sin in his kind of flesh, but he left
us
in the sin of ours; hence he is not our Savior.
According to the classic doctrine of spiritual death, "sinful flesh" is
"spiritually dead" (read David's very helpful posting of Augustine on
this).
The term "sinful flesh" is thus itself a metaphor for the entire person
living in a fallen state and a sin nature. And since this nature is
spiritually dead, it has no ability or desire to seek God. It must be
"quickened" before it can be restored and become "spiritually alive." The
common belief is that we are made spiritually alive at the point that we
are
"born again." This is not a problem for a strict "Calvinist" because he
believes that God determines who will be born again and, based upon that
decree, reaches down, so to speak, and quickens those whom he wills to
save,
thus restoring them to spiritual life. But if one does not hold to this
view, it presents a real problem: How can one who is dead make a free-will
determination to believe and hence be born again so as to be made alive?
Cadavers can not make choices, let alone act upon them. Hence those who
are
not strict Calvinists must equivocate at this point and treat the "spirit"
aspect of personhood as if it were not so dead as to not be able to
respond
to God's call -- which is really to say that it is not dead at all,
perhaps
really sick: but not "spiritually" dead. Here the desire is to hold onto
the
classic language but not so tightly as to be true to or consistent with
its
ramifications. I say just drop the language; it holds no authority over
us,
since it is non-biblical terminology.
Now let's look again at Jesus. If Jesus was born with our sinful flesh, as
the Scriptures attest, and if sinful flesh is spiritually dead, then he
too
had to have been spiritually dead in his sinful flesh, just as we are in
our
sinful flesh. Why? because he came in the likeness of our flesh. And so
the
obvious question is this: At what point did he become spiritually alive --
was it when he was circumcised? or as a boy at his bar mitzvah? was it at
his baptism? his resurrection? when was it? Did he too have to be "born
again" in order to become spiritually alive? When was his "spirit"
revived?
I believe that Jesus was always spiritually alive and that from his
earliest
childhood, he was in intimate communion with his Father. He was acutely
attuned to his spiritual dimension and allowed that aspect of his
personhood
to direct the other aspects. Hence he walked in faithfulness to his Father
with every step, even "beating his way forward with blows," as Luke states
it. In other words, there was not a time when he was not alive and living
out his right relationship with his Father in absolute obedience. Yet if
spiritual death is a requisite of personhood in sinful flesh, then this
cannot be true; for either Christ had to have been "quickened" or born
again
in order to accomplish the things he did in his flesh, or he did not come
to
us as we are -- in the likeness of sinful flesh; hence he could not have
saved us in our sinful state.
Bill
----------
"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may
know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6)
http://www.InnGlory.org
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"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you
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