[TruthTalk] Spiritual Death

[Judy Taylor]

Good Morning Izzy :)   I've been watching your interaction here with interest along with the hope that you will suceed in communicationg where I have failed but so far it does not look good.   bt writes: You'd better check your records, Izzy. This whole thing started when I pointed out that Judy too had been treating a "doctrine of man" as authoritative, namely, Augustine's doctrine of spiritual death.   jt:  Can you help me Izzy - How does one deal with being called a hypocrite and a liar on this public list continuously by a professing believer who is just plain wrong? If I have said this once, I must have said it at least 10 times. I have never ever read Augustine and nothing I believe is a doctrine from him.  I study the scriptures and my belief concerning spiritual death is from my own personal study.  After I experienced the New Birth in my own life I already understood experientially what before and after were like because I began to understand spiritual truth and in my own personal study I saw the death God warned Adam about in Genesis 2:17 where God told Adam that IN THE DAY he ate of a certain fruit HE WOULD SURELY DIE as spiritual death.    bt: I had been accused of "touting" Barth and Torrance, and I was simply pointing out that it was not just the "libs" who treat others authoritatively.   jt: This is not an accusation; Bill's doctrine has no clear scriptural foundation and he does quote these theologians.   bt: In point of fact, I have never had a problem with using appropriately indicative language to speak about biblical concepts, even when that language is "non-biblical." Neither have I denied the influence of others in my spiritual development. In that same post I also wrote, "I have been very candid throughout about both my appreciation of Torrance and the influence he has had upon the formation of my beliefs -- which is indeed quite significant."   jt: Not only is his language "non-biblical" - his concepts are as well.  The Bible is basically a spiritual book since God is a Spirit and the Bible is His revelation of Himself to humanity.  His servant Paul explicitly used the word I am accused of using constantly. He said "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.  But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one." (1 Corinthians 2:12-15)   bt: The reason that this thread took off like it did was because Judy took offence that I had attributed her doctrine to Augustine, claiming instead that he was not the one who came up with "spiritual death"; that it "is right there in Genesis." Well, it is not right there in Genesis. It is not anywhere.   jt: Here he goes again. Calling me a liar and a hypocrite which is offensive - it would be to him if the shoe were on the other foot. Not only that he is wrong.  Spiritual life and spiritual death are all over the Bible and if he is blind to this then he is a natural man.   bt: On every ocassion it is an interpretation, just as when I read the same Scripture pertaining to language of death and interpret it in a different way. So you can keep on pointing out my use of non-biblical termonology if you like, but it won't make much of a splash on my end of the pool, 'cause I'm not the hypocrite on this one.   jt: Let's see what the Bible says about interpretation.  "For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?  Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.  Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God...."  Hence we do not "interpret" nor superimpose other concepts willy nilly - We receive understanding by way of the Spirit.   Yes Bill you are the hypocrite on this one and you need to repent.     judyt   There are two C's in the christian life Either I am changing daily to be more like Christ Or I am being chastised by Him