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From: "David Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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? jt: Yes I do but what do you mean by "swept clean"? Are
you speaking of the what Jesus said
about the house that the strongman had to
leave?
Judy wrote:
I see flesh as mankind or a unit - natural man ie the unit that Gary and JD talk about because they are for all intents and purposes deceived and
living a dead spiritual reality - Eph 2:3b
tells
us that before Christ ppl have the spirit of
the devil working in them and are by nature the children
of wrath; after we are born again we become a
partaker of the "divine
nature" (2 Peter 1:4).
So one nature or the other
is working in us and motivating us.
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.
jt: The way I understand it the law of sin has been in
the members of humanity
since the other kingdom entered the first Adam in the
garden when he caved
and handed over the dominion he had been given; we are
born into it and we
are trained in it. This world system is not God
honoring. But when we become
a partaker of the "divine nature" in Christ and learn
from Him; we are enabled
to override all of that old mess and live in Covenant
blessings.
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 telling - why wasn't the law of sin working in
his members? (Romans 7:22)
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. jt: I don't hold tenaciously to anything of theirs
David. I have to see what I believe
in God's Word for myself. I don't read or study
these men but I recognize some
error they are responsible for by comparing different
teachings with God's Word.
Do you believe that Jesus received the "divine nature"
that we partake of at or
following the resurrection because if he was exactly
the same as the first Adam
then he would have had the law of sin working in his
members also?
Are you familiar with Charles Finney? He was a Presbyterian like you,
but
not very keen on Calvinism. jt: I don't call myself Presbyterian, the reason we go
to this particular Church is
because there is more of the Word and more love there
than other places.
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. jt: I know who he is and am familiar with his ministry.
I have quite a few of his
books but don't read him. I know God honored his
ministry but don't want to go
from the frying pan into the fire ... I believe
both moral and physical darkness is
involved because the moral opens the door to the curse
which is physical
sickness, devastation, and eventually death.
Knowing God's Ways and being
willing to walk in them
is what opens the door to life and peace.
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. AMEN!
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. jt: I hear you David but why can't we - like Paul - use
great plainness of speech
He communicated spiritual truths using spiritual words
that were not complicated.
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. jt: We don't have to be in a hurry - any time you get
back to it is OK with me
and it gives me time to look into it more as
well.
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. jt: I've read a little about the difference between
them, how Plato was more
into the spiritual - ie music of the spheres and all
that. But to me this is just
as dangerous or maybe more so because it has
infiltrated the Church also
There is little to no spiritual discernment in what is
called Orthodoxy today.
Plato's statement that the spirit is pure is an
excellent example since the
adversary is also a spirit being.
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. He sounds like a good
evolutionist....
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. jt: I wasn't think of that, I was talking about the
work of Thomas Aquinas in
merging Aristotles teachings with the teachings of
scripture and he (Aquinas)
is another so called doctor of the RCC.
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. jt: I know Paul referred to some pagan poet to relate
to the ppl in Athens but I
have a hard time believing that he is using ancient
Greek thought to communicate
with the Church at Rome. My understanding is that the
scriptures are inspired by
the Holy Spirit so the words used would be from this
source and convey spiritual
truth according to 1 Cor 2:11,12 anyway. I never
understood what Gary was
talking about when he kept mentioning "dualism" and I
still don't believe that
scripture has anything to do with Greek philosophy or
philosophers. Nor do I
believe that God's Word is ever subject to the hearers.
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. jt: Could you be reading something into the text that
is not meant to be there?
(ie this dualistic concept) How is it that the
church came up with a Trinity to
explain the godhead but when scripture speaks of
mankind in three
dimensions it is explained away as Gk dualism?
judyt
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- [TruthTalk] Humanity of Jesus Judy Taylor
- [TruthTalk] Humanity of Jesus Judy Taylor
