Judy wrote: > ... I agree and this is why all three areas must be > cleansed of filthiness, sanctification extends to > the soul and spirit as well as the physical body.
But the point is that the spirit and soul can be swept clean, but the physical body must be reckoned dead and is not swept clean until the resurrection. Do you see this? Judy wrote: > I see flesh as mankind as a unit or natural man. > The unit that Gary and JD talk about. Well, then, we need to get on the same track with our words. This is not how I see the word flesh. I have an understanding that comes from the following passage: Romans 7:22-25 (22) For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: (23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (24) O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (25) I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. Here he contrasts flesh with the inward man and with the mind. He calls it "the body of this death." I think he means the physical body, which is what the word flesh means. It seems to me that you need to adjust your perspective of flesh to be more from a Biblical perspective, but you will have to advise me on the feasibility of doing that. Judy wrote: > The reason I don't believe Jesus to be exactly the > same as us goes back to the garden. It is my belief > that when Adam chose to eat from the other tree > (and these trees represent two kinds of wisdom) that > another kingdom entered him bringing forth a different > kind of fruit. I believe all sin to be rooted in fear. > Fear that our needs will not be taken care of; control > and all sorts of other phobias are rooted in fear; mankind > as a whole is full of fear and it was envy rooted > in fear that crucified Jesus. However, I see none of this > residing in Him and at the end of his ministry right before > he was arrested he said "the prince of this world cometh > and hath nothing in me" which is amazing since he has all > kinds of strongholds in the rest of us. I see salvation > as a walk of grace with progressive deliverance even though > at the beginning we can say it is so by faith. Well, now we are back to Calvinism and the RCC and Augustine traditional viewpoint of original sin. For someone who criticizes all of these often, you sure do hold tenaciously to their view of the Adamic fall. Are you familiar with Charles Finney? He was a Presbyterian like you, but not very keen on Calvinism. In his day, Calvinism had very much darkened much of Christianity, and his theology helped cure much that went wrong. He teaches a distinction between moral depravity and physical depravity. My system of understanding differs quite a bit from Finney, but perhaps some of his lectures on moral depravity and physical depravity might help you in regards to your Calvinistic bent on this subject. If are familiar with him, let me know, if not, consider looking up his material on the Internet. I'm sure much of it is published there because he has no copyright issues having lived some time ago. Judy wrote: > As to Jesus experiencing temptation and every human affliction > so that he understands our infirmities - I understand this as a > combination of his physical human limitations along with the > experience of the cross where the curse for every sin imaginable > rested upon him alone for a period of time or until "It was finished!" > Does this make any sense to you? I would be interested in your > thoughts. Yes, this makes fine sense and I see it the same way. I probably put a little more emphasis on his living and resisting temptation before the cross than you do, but ultimately the biggest test of his life came at the cross when he actually became sin, experienced death, and when death and sin thought it had won, he vanquished it forever. Hallelujah. Judy wrote: > ... when you say flesh I think of mankind or the whole man > with a darkened spirit, a soul trained in unrighteousness and > ungodliness, and a body wearing the curse of ungodly choices > which is the condition of everyone outside of Christ and some > who are in Him but have not yet learned how to walk and > overcome by faith. Well, I certainly don't see Jesus that way, so our biggest obstacle here is that flesh means something different to you than it does to me. Without grasping the dualism of Romans 7, I'm not sure we can communicate on this well. Right now I feel the way I have felt teaching pre-med students at the university biological concepts with words for which they had limited understanding. Perhaps I need to do a word study on the word "flesh" and determine whether there are grounds for me dropping my more narrow definition of the term. Problem is, I don't have a lot of time this week. Judy wrote: > ... shows what a strong hold the adversary had on Plato > - pure spirit indeed while he was busy using him to disciple > Aristotle and deceive. Then the RCC/Augustine embraced > Aristotle and the adversary had the ear of the reigning professing > church. Well, it is a bit more complicated than this. Perhaps you do not realize that Plato and Aristotle took very different paths in their philosophy. The philosophy of Plato actually helped the Greek world accept Christianity. His concept concerning forms made the concept of the Old Testament being a shadow of the New Covenant very understandable by the Greek world. Aristotle, on the other hand, is more the father of science. He rejected Plato's concept of forms, in effect, denying the spirit world. Plato believed the soul to be immortal but Aristotle did not. Plato's philosophy projected more of a concept in a single God (even though he lived in a polytheistic society), a spiritual world where there was absolute perfection with the material world imperfectly reflecting that spiritual world. Aristotle, on the other hand, embraced the material world as all there is and capitalized on a changing world that was progressing to something better, which has much fed the theory of evolution. So while Plato's philosophy shaped much of Christianity early on, Aristotle did not impact it much until a thousand years later when the scientific revolution got under way. Then, Aristotle was not just impacting Christianity, but other disciplines leading to a sharp split between science and the church. Judy wrote: > ... more than a millenium later Aristotle was perceived > among common folk as a "magus" or a cross between > a sage and a magician. I'd say he was rooted in the > wrong tree and that to try to understand scripture in > the light of anything he wrote pointless. Aristotle was Plato's pupil, but you seem to be assuming that he was a faithful student. He was not. I never mentioned Aristotle. It was Plato and his philosophy which shaped the thinking of the Greek world so that what Paul was writing in Romans 7 was to a world who perceived a dualism between the spirit world and the material world. Paul was speaking to this idea of the mind apprehending God (something that Plato taught, using the exact same Greek word "nous") versus the flesh (the physical body) in which there was something not willing to submit to what the mind comprehended. The pagan Greeks could readily accept what Paul was explaining here because they had already accepted so many of these principles from Plato. In our generation, we have fallen more under the concepts of Aristotle, so the contrasting idea of spirit serving God versus physical body serving sin is not something so readily grasped. Remember that Aristotle had rejected the dualism that Plato and Paul's audience had accepted. So our modern, materialistic Aristolean society hinders our embrace of the Greek dualism that Paul taught in Romans 7. So I agree with you that Aristotle was the wrong tree, but that does not really counter my point about Plato and the Greek dualism that existed in the culture of Paul's audience in Romans 7. Judy wrote: > I wouldn't trust Plato/Aristotle or the Gk language > to define truth for me. It is much safter to allow scripture > to interpret scripture. which is what Luther who had also > been trained in all those disciplines learned late in life. I don't look to any of these guys as authority, certainly not Plato or Aristotle or the Greek language. However, when I understand the philosophy which permeated the culture and I compare that with Paul's words, I can see better what he is attempting to communicate with them. Once I do that, I realize the language that Paul uses is most appropriate and better than what I might use in my more Aristolean / scientific culture. Peace be with you. David Miller. ---------- "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 If you do not want to receive posts from this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and you will be unsubscribed. If you have a friend who wants to join, tell him to send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and he will be subscribed.
