The Bible NETWork ~ Impacting the World for Christ one post at a time!

: )

Hey, cool...thanks for the education. Very interesting...the only odd thing i was thinking about it meaning "like Christ" is that we are called to be "like Christ" are we not? That would be the only thing where i could see this definition getting a little hairy. On the other hand, i also realize that in our sound-bite driven world, we all tend to want to have short soundbite answers to answer all of our questions. Often, a complete and true answer takes more than a soundbite to gain and share understanding...at least, that is what i keep finding. One of those things that sometimes we need to let "rot and ferment" in our head and heart as we grow and learn.

_________________
in Christ,

bp

Hi Xian, sorry I've taken so long to reply

Now before I answer, please be aware that it is so easy to come across as a know it all, as rude, as provoking etc on the internet. Please be assured that I have written this entire post with a lot of thought and prayer and in a spirit of absolute love. Trust it helps!

You'll never stop learning, lucky it's so fun!



There are only two uses of the word flesh in the NT that were derived from soma, and they are 1 Cor 8:13 and Rom 14:21 and both times it is used in the sense of butchered meat for food so I think it is safe to exclude soma from this discussion.

Sarx (flesh)is consistently used in the NT by Paul and other authors to indicate both our sinful nature and our literal body (ie Heb 12:9, Col 2:1-5, Eph 6:5, Eph 5:3 etc). John 1:14 is a really good example of it being used to indicate a physical body as it says "And the Word was made flesh (sarx) and dwelt among us". Romans 7:5 clearly indicates it can also be used about something other than the body, as it says "When we were in the flesh (sarx)" however Paul is writing this as he is "in the flesh (sarx)" meaning his literal body. Hope you understand my play on words there Hence, my understanding of 'flesh' is probably the same as yours. I think it is used in the bible to indicate our literal, physical bodies and also (largely in Romans) to indicate something of our sinful desires.

btw, I realise I am probably repeating back to you things you already understand, but I find if I write down my logical flow of thoughts it ensures we are on the same page.



Personally I haven't come to this conclusion. 1 John 2:16 may indicate the thought that sin can be tied to our bodies as it says "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh (sarx), and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life....." as does Rom 8:10 which states "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness". In fact I think the Romans verse offers very strong support of the view presented in my earlier post and also highlights the strong probability of a person being both dead and alive at the same time.



I think the claim can be made that after we are born again we still sin if we follow the logic stated in my above paragraph about Romans 8:10. This verse is clearly about a born again person as it states "if Christ be in you....". Yet this born again person has a body that is dead because of sin, so sin and the life of Christ are in the same vessel.

Romans 6:11-13 has the same thought "....reckon (the conclusion) ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefor reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead..." Here Paul is telling his audience (the Romans) that the conclusion they must reach is that they are dead to sin and alive unto God through Christ. Yet at the same time he is warning them not to let sin reign in their mortal (physical) body. This indicates the possibility of both spiritual life and sin existing in the one person.

Lastly, I think Romans 7:24-25 also indicates that sin is tied to our literal physical bodies as it states "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 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". You would agree with me that if Paul was writing spiritual advice to the Romans, he would be doing so because he had the answers. Yet he is stating that he himself serves the law of sin with his flesh but at the same time he is serving the law of God. This sounds like a juxtaposition but I think can be remedied if we see that we have a perfect Spirit born within us that is not affected by sin.

YES! The apple tree turns into a pear tree. That is what Romans 5 is about. The apple tree is our dead spirit given to us through Adam's line. The pear tree is the living spirit given to us through Christ's line. And the pear tree always produces pears. I haven't explored 'dying to yourself' as much as I want to yet, so please forgive me if I don't have well developed thoughts on these lines. My brief thought is that it fits in quite well with the 'new spirit' birth concept, as when taken together with Romans 6:13 (about yielding to sin or to God, quoted earlier in this post) dying to yourself is a process of learning to walk in the new spirit, and the more we learn to yield to God the more we die to ourselves. The key here is understanding what 'ourselves' is and I think that it is the lusts of the flesh that still exist in a born again person. Paul himself states in 1 Cor 15:31 "I die daily" so dying to yourself is clearly not a once of process that from that point on you are perfect. It is a daily occurance and should happen more and more as we continue on our Christian walk.



Colossians 2:11 does indicate that the 'flesh' is removed but it does not say here (nore in the preceding or following verses) that this is the point of maturity. I kindly suggest that this is an assumption you have made about this particular verse. In fact if you read through the rest of the book, in Col 3:3 & 5 Paul states "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God....Mortify (subdue, put to death) therefore your members (parts of the body) which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection....". Paul has just told people that they have been circumcised and have put off the body of the sins of the flesh and then he goes and tells them to subdue these awful sins! So clearly it is possible that a person who has put off the 'flesh' can still sin, and if so (since Christ is sinless) it cannot be a sin against Himself.



I have two thoughts about this, and please bear in mind this is a work in progress

Firstly, yes Jesus had a body and Jesus was sinless. However Jesus also battled temptation, and where does temptation come from if he was sinless? Could it come from his body? Hebrews says he has been tempted in all points just as we are, which makes Him a perfect High Priest, so in theory this would mean he has been tempted financially, sexually etc. This is a hard thought to get my head around but must be included as a possibility.

Secondly, I think your example of the temple as a dwelling place of God is correct, 1 Cor 16:9 tells us this. However, the temple was not a holy place because it was built out of 'holy rocks' or 'holy goat skins', it was a holy place because of what dwelt inside (God's spirit). You could build as many temples as you wanted, but none of them would be holy until filled with God's presence. Do you get what I'm trying to say? I'm not sure it's worded quite rightly. What I'm trying to say is that the physical, literal temple was not physically, literally holy. It's a possibility that the priest who died as a result of entering the tent with sin is a picture of our old man, our old spirit who must die before we can have Christ's spirit born in us? Rather than the temple itself being holy (I mean it's just a building right?) it's what's inside. And it's what is inside of us that sanctifies (makes holy) us, not the body being holy.



Well! You sure got my thoughts alright, I just realised I've just spent over two hours on this when I should be working! Oops, have to record that as downtime I've had to break it into two posts because I've doubled the allowable length

Hope what I've written stirs up some thoughts. I think that the issue we are circling about is one of the central issues to being a victorious or miserable Christian. Thanks heaps for your thoughts, they've stirred me up a lot and I think we can help each other a lot.

I'm in the same boat as you I think, inasmuch as I can see the importance of the topic but I'm just moving around trying to get the right grasp on it.

YIC
Sparky

What translation? I"m assuming NIV because we are talking sinful nature. I don't see that phrase elsewhere in other translations do I?

.

The underlined part throws me for a loop. Do you imply that Paul was removed from his literal body at some point? OH never mind, I had to read it slow.... I think the flesh is pretty clear when it refers to the body as opposed to sinful nature. But then I read what you said above and I wonder....
John doesn't use the word Sarx as Paul does.


ACK!@!!!!! How can you conclude that? For Christ to be IN YOU, the body had to die so the spirit could indwell. That is the 8:9 verse, if the Spirit is in you it controls you, because the flesh has been conquered and is no longer there. THAT is the conclusion that flows easiest, smoothest through Paul's comments. I think it's just HARD for people to accept because they don't trust God to conquer the sarx, in fact the church today says it's never conquered. I think that's travesty and heresy personally. But that's another tangent.


Doesn't it make much more logical and linguistic sense to assume the body that is dead is that SARX/sinful nature. That is consistent with the col 2:11 that says the sarx is removed. And that the Spirit is the life that replaces it? It requires much less lingual gymnastics and less mental mapping to read it that way. Surely you would agree with the ease of reading, even if not the conclusion.....? yes??

I find the Romans 6 to be setting the state from the concept of the young believer, romans 7 explaining what that battle is against, and 8 the solution. So when in Romans 6 Paul says "reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive to Christ, he's describing part of the process to becoming truly dead to sarx and having it circumcised. I see this process in vs 22 of Ro 6. We are freed from sin, then become obedient to God. Being obedient doesn't make us holy but a benefit of being obedient does make us holy or righteous, and that leads to eternal life. The obedience (slave to Him) teaches us something, during that teaching somewhere is where the sarx is circumcised seems to me to fit all of these concepts together rather tidy.



I do agree Paul would have the answers. ANd he shows the answer, thanks be to GOD he says.
I do not think he states he himself serves the law of sin with his flesh. But that is a tangent I'd rather do in email or PM and not take the side track here. And I agree that the remedy is the Spirit indwelling in us. We would disagree on when that occurs. But I think the answer to the whole dilemma is God who provides the Spirit through Jesus. If there is a solution, they por que? why do we still say it's still there? Paul says there is a solution and begins to describe it. ANd to me it seems all of theology tries to reword what he states rather plainly to make a reason that sin still exists. I'm not accusing you of this, just sharing my heart, not accusing, but exposing me.

But, that brings me back to the gal 2:20 verse, if the Body/SARX is dead and the sinful nature/Sarx circumcised by Christ, and the Spirit then becomes in control rom 8:20 then what you have is HE lives in you, and a part of YOU has died and been removed. So if HE lives in you, I still don't see how we can sin. It would be Him sinning against Himself. (goes to the corner to beat h ead on the wall!)

If the apple tree is dead and gone, you never see apples again. It's not alive to interfere with the pear tree. There is no fruit from it. TO put this to the sarx mind and the spiritually led mind, the sarx mind is dead, and the spiritually led mind is in charge going forward. So there is no sarx fruit because there is no sarx to bear fruit. There is only Spiritual fruit... I don't see a way to say the apple tree is dead and gone but the pear tree still has some apples show up. And that is the position I think the church as a whole takes on this topic.


I would agree with that. And I'd give gal 5:16 as the fruit of walking in the spirit.


See the following verse.. Col 2:11 In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature,[fn1] not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ,(NIV)
Something isn't NEW if it's still 50% old. It's different but not new.To be born again is a new life. The born again, insinuates that the life we live, changes absolutely. It's not be morphed to heaven, but born again. The imagry depicts such an absolute cut off of the old self, I have a really really really tough ttime accepting the old and new together as one concept of the sarx self and spirit self cohabitating the same body. AND I find that extremely inconsistent with scripture, yet infinitely more comfy to the palette.


TO avoid posting 85 verses from Paul, I'll merely comment that dying daily is absolutely part of the process of becoming finally dead and reborn. <<< is how I see the conclusion of all of Paul's comments on this topic. And in this verse, his dying daily, is not a reference to sanctification as much as a testement of his efforts at witnessing to the audience. It's a show of his devition to his cause,more than it is to sanctification.


Agreed the maturity part is my read on it. HOwever if that flesh is removed, that sinful nature everyone claims is always going to be there in this body and keep them sinning, seems to be an argument with no legs. If the Sarx is removed and the Spirit is the life that replaces it, then....... how again do we sin?
The maturity part is all on me, I think it's the only logical conclusion that its a state NOT of my maturing, but of God maturing me. (If I were one of those folx).

???? why do you assume that Paul is addressing the same people in that verse? If he wrote to a church he has many different levels of believers he's to address. I'm betting if we do a separate thread on col 2-3 we'll see a shift in focus and direction from one condition to another among the readers...
Col 3:9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
Col 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. (NIV)
The context for your verses is when WE are taking off the old self. That is consistent with Romans 6:22 where WE are obedient, that WE part is a step to the process where there is a benefit that HE issues that leads to holiness and that to eternal life.

The col 2 verse is HIM removing. I'd argue it is describing different events. ONE is a mindset the other is the absolute that occured by Him.
In ch 1 He said... Col 1:22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation–
Col 1:23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.(NIV)
And I think if you read it as you are reconciled, IF you continue in your faith, the argument that he coaches them on how to continue in chapter three after showing them the results of continuing in chapter 2. Paul talks in "circles" in many books where he shows the prize first, then the steps to get there, and then repeats it again from a slightly different angle... For me this makes good sense. I don't think that argument holds by itself though. However, it fits BETTER in context than reading it the other way does. And I'm using local context, (the book/chapter) and corporate context (whole of Paul's writings)as well as other author context, john, james, etc... I can understand folks disagreeing but not those that say I"m dealing with one or two verses out of context.

So In short, I'd see col 1:22 verse saying that the goal is reconciliation but they must continue in their faith to get there. Col 2:11 verse saying that ultimately the result is a circumcision of the sarx, and in col 3 saying that to get there you must continue to remove the sinful parts of the body/sin issues, etc...
Compare with Romans 6:22 there is Freedom, then obedience, and then the benefit that leads to the ....

Vs 1:22 is the freedom, vs 3:5-6 is the obedience, and 2:11 is the result of the benefit of the obedience.
It seems a fairly consistent message, and using that outline most all of the verses I've heard here fall into line.


We are side by side here, I concur.


Well, yeah, but the old spirit is dead. It's done. How can it come back and cause sin? I think you describe exactly what my question is.

Well I've been on it for 9 years. and had fifty thousand tangential studies as a result of it. I've learned a lot trying to prove an old friend wrong on something he said once about freedom.
If you ask, and seek I am thinking the Spirit is your teacher, certainly not me. therefore I feel safe asking publicly.