QoD. Serious question.
I am reading Revelation this morning as part of my schedule. I was reading Ch. 4 where John was “In the spirit”. His spirit that is. It’s the only way he could communicate with the spiritual world. Seems to me that when a person is ?born again/, he has a spiritual birth and receives a life that cannot die.
Jesus said, (Jn. 11:26) “He that lives and believes in me shall never die.”
As a believer, the Spirit indwells us. That enables us to be totally in the Spirit where all else falls away and we are at our core with God in Spirit. That core is eternal so that only the outer shell, the physical body does the physical death here on earth in our calendar timeframe. We are saved into eternal life through our faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, and by the covering of His cleansing blood that takes away the sins of the world. Does that make sense, Chas? It is my basic understanding.
Right on, Janice.]
It seems that Jesus meant, Jn. 11:26, that the person that indwells that body does not die, but is transformed (not really, but for discussion’s sake. e.e. the real me was created when I was “born again”. )
You think about this when you reach 90. And when you have a spouse who just sits from morning to night, not really being aware of what is happening. e.g. In my case, the “real” Elvera is constrained by the limits of mind and body which are no longer the essence of the person.
As for the body. Jesus said that at the resurrection, we will receive a new body that will reign with Jesus. Your dealings with that depends on your eschatology.
Janice, the understanding that the “real us” is our spirit and our body is a non-essential “shell” is gnosticism. In addition, the Holy Spirit and our spirit are not the same entity, not fused in some way.
Chas, death is separation, and Scripture distinguishes between spiritual death (eternal separation of the person from God) and physical death (division of the spirit/soul and body). The believer will die physically (except those on earth at the end), and in Paul’s mysterious wording will then for a time be “unclothed” (apart from a body but not “asleep”) for a time. We were created as soul and body and are incomplete with just one, and how it is possible to function with just one is unclear. The believer will never experience spiritual death (separation from God) because Christ experienced it for us on the cross.
Chas, there are so many facets that come to mind with this. Here are a few:
1. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in Spirit and in truth” (John 4). So it is necessary for us to be alive spiritually in order to know God. Adam and Eve, before the Fall, were alive spiritually, as they walked with God in the Garden. When they ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they became separated from God. They started to die physically, yes, but they immediately died spiritually. God mercifully preserved their ability to die physically by separating them from the Tree of Life, because it was by the physical death of his Son we would all be saved.
2. Death is separation from God. Eternal life, as Jesus said in his final prayer in John 17, is to know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. It is the Spirit that gives life through the work of Jesus Christ, as Paul wrote in Roman 8.
3. In the Resurrection, the physical and spiritual are reunited in a whole. Christ was the first fruits, and his ressurected body, although certainly tangible and able to be perceived physically, was also spiritual, as he was able to pass from the earth to the heavens. Paul writes of how our physical bodies will take on an eternal spiritual nature that they do not now possess in I Corinthians 15: “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” The Tree of Life, from which humanity was separated in Genesis, makes its reappearance in the final chapter of Revelation in the New Creation, and its fruit will be for those who are resurrected.
4. The context of Christ’s words to Martha in John 11 are important. Lazarus has just died. But when Jesus raises him to life, it is not to an eternally resurrected body. He is just going to heal Lazarus’ old body and restore life to it. It is a temporary raising and Lazarus will die again someday, as it is Christ, not Lazarus, who is the firstfruits of the Resurrection. But he tells Martha, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” He is clearly not talking only about natural life and death, but about spiritual life and death.
One final note, it is a cultural tendency of the Western mind to break things into parts in order to understand them (which has frequently led to misunderstandings with cultures that see things in interactive wholeness), so in speaking of the physical and spiritual separately, I am separating things for the purposes of explanation that really seem quite a bit more intertwined in Scripture. We are not going to be disembodied spirits in the Resurrection, even though we will have a spiritual body. Furthermore, those who are dead spiritually and will spend eternity in hell do also seem to have an eternal existence on both a physical and spiritual level, only it is one of unending torment. Clearly, there is more to all this than can be expressed by human language. Paul noted that the Incarnation, “God manifest in the flesh”, was a great mystery. We can only ever partially explain such realities. They are best perceived by the work of the Spirit (John 16, Romans 8).
The photo is in Rocky Mountain NP. The cow moose and her calf were right by the road when we were passing, then crossed the road behind us. I cropped the photo for better detail, as we were several dozen feet away when they crossed.
Further thoughts on what has been written since I started my post – only Chas’ question was there then.
Janice, there has to be a physical restoration as well as a spiritual one. Paul speaks about the necessity for our bodies to be resurrected at length in I Corinthians 15. He notes that our trials as Christians in this earthly life would be utterly meaningless if we did not have the hope of a bodily resurrection.
Chas, further to my comments s to Janice, we have to be careful about talking about our ‘real’ selves that we do not slip into a kind mystical way of thinking that we have no real existence outside of God. God created us to be distinct beings from him. He intends us to have personalities, ideas, and an existence of our own. He just wants us to have that existence in harmony with him, instead of in opposition to him. In the Resurrection, we will still be working and creating as we do now, but without the all permeating stench of sin that our works have now – it says of the New Jerusalem that the works of the nation’s will be brought into her gates. We will still be craftsmen, musicians, artists, etc. Sometimes, things are best explained in the negative. Hindus believe in a progressive series of reincarnations that culminate in the individual being absorbed in the ultimate deity of Brahma. God is not like that. Yes, in him we live and move and have our being, but he delights in us as individuals, and gives us life individually. He does not ultimately absorb us, but rather makes us to be what he always intended us to be, rather than the broken shadows we are now.
Elvera, and others like her, are not unreal, rather, their physical being is breaking down to the point their inner self can no longer properly communicate with the world around them. In those with dementia, it is the brain itself which has broken down most, but aging ultimately limits every human from properly interacting with the world around them in some way. With some, they can no longer create the things they would like to create, because their hands are so worn down, or go the places they would like because their legs are so worn out. With others, they can no longer see or hear clearly enough to interact fully. Some people, mercifully rare, lose all their senses, and become locked in an ivory box where they can no longer receive input from hearing, touch, or sight (Dr. Paul Brand wrote of a couple of such leprosy cases that became that way). Others can hear, see, and perceive, but have lost all motor function to respond, called often ‘locked in’ syndrome, resulting from strokes, brain injuries, and degenerative diseases such as ALS. The hope of the Resurrection promises restoration to all those shattered bodies, so that all of those malfunctions neuron and worn joints and dulled senses will be permanently and eternally healed and restored.
From my scheduled daily Bible reading in 1 Corinthians 15:42-46
“So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.” That is what I believe. Is that gnosticism? Maybe I did not make my statement clearly before according to Cheryl’s understanding. Please help me understand my being judged as having gnostic beliefs. I am saddened and embarrassed to be called out like this. But I will not lose my joy in the Lord over it.
Back to my Thanksgiving dressing. We enjoyed it immensely. It made the house smell like Thanksgiving. I put enough broth in it so it was soft for Art’s needs. He had a second helping. Since cornbread dressing has always been my very favorite dish of the day, it was all that we needed. And I have leftovers!
Happy Black Friday. I wonder if there are many in-person shoppers out today? It’s a good day to go grocery shopping (we single-households figure these things out through the years), not many people will be needing to stock up on food after yesterday. I may hit Sprouts for a couple quick things, but in the meantime I also put in a larger order for pickup tomorrow at Ralphs.
It was a strange Thanksgiving. The LA Times had a photo of a family who hauled table and chairs out onto a deserted local beach at sunset, which was pretty creative.
Janice: pride, guilt, deflecting attention off their behavior, attitude of thinking themselves better than others, similar shame issues trying to dump elsewhere, vindictiveness, but often, fear.
Another friend posted a Thanksgiving photo of “the family pod” in 2020, the pared down version with 5 people rather than what (I assume) is usually many more around the table.
What Janice said at 7:39 with the addition that our physical bodies will be made new for clarity.
Other questions this brings to mind:
When we are born, are we born with a dead spirit?
Or born with a live spirit that dies upon our first sin or is Adam and Eve’s sin the clincher?
Or do children have living spirits until the mysterious age of accountability?
When God makes us alive in Him, is that when we become spiritual bodies, as mentioned in 1 Cor 15: 44?
When people are suffering in all eternity, is it without a spirit as their spirit is dead?
Ask a question in the Bible and there will be more!
Mumsee, we are all in Adam unless we are born again in Christ; we are “born” in sin, conceived in sin. Again, “death” means separation, not absence. A person who is spiritually dead still has a spirit, but it is a spirit that is separated from God.
Christ was born of a virgin because apparently in some mysterious way God chose to have sin pass through the father. That’s just one of many reasons the RC view of the sinlessness of Mary makes no sense. The whole reason for the virgin conception was to avoid the Adamic nature. If Mary could have been conceived in the normal way, but sinless, then Christ could have been too, and the virgin birth was unnecessary. And any of the rest of us could have avoided sin, too, if Mary could have. It’s contrary to Scripture’s thinking on several levels. (And Mary herself refers to “God my Saviour” in the Magnificat.)
Oh, maybe that was the difficulty, I did not mention the resurrected body which I fully believe in. I talk to my friend Karen about that because her body is so full of suffering. I know in the new heaven and earth that we will enjoy our perfect physical bodies without pain and suffering. Jesus will be the light, and not us. That is just one way of realizing we are not totally fused, but Jesus desires for us to be as one abiding in Him and Him in us. It is so easy for people to make assumptions as to what one means when a person does not expound on the complete subject. God resurrects from the dead. Yes! All the glory to Him for His ability to do that which is miraculous. If we were only spiritual beings in heaven then we would have no need of the place Jesus has prepared for us. But the thing I do not understand yet is that the dead body is awaiting that resurrection for this period of time. So isn’t the soul in heaven with Jesus at the point of death while we wait for the dead to rise first when God says the time is right?
Remember, one absolute essential belief to the Christian faith is that Jesus had a physical body. John states that those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh have the spirit of Anti-Christ. The physical form in which we exist is an essential part of our being. Jesus went to great pains to demonstrate his resurrected body existed on the physical plane, eating food and allowing himself to be repeatedly touched to demonstrate the physical reality of the Resurrection. The tomb was empty because Jesus’s physical remains were resurrected. This body of mine, that is scarred and maimed by its time in a sin-aick world, will be the body I am resurrected with, only all the imperfections will be perfected. It is as much me as my inner self is.
Morning! We awakened to a couple inches of fresh snow! I hear it was an icy mess for shoppers trying to get to their sales…but once they made it to town it was totally dry. Thankfully I am one to never shop on the Friday after. But I will try to venture into town to support Small Business Saturday tomorrow…they are feeling the effects of the recent edict from the people who know better than we in our great state 🤦♀️
That is a beautiful photo you captured Peter.
And this was a scripture I had read this morning. Psalm 103:13-14
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust…..
One of the great passages on the hope of the Resurrection:
“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” (Job 19:25-26)
Questions of what comes after death are not clearly answered now. Like the old testament Saints who believed God would save them, but did not know how, not even clearly understanding the prophecies they uttered, so it is with us. We know God has given us eternal life and will resurrect our bodies, but we do not how, even with the inspired prophecies we possess. Some questions have no clear answer right now.
True, Roscuro. But as in the section you cited in Job, and David mentioned it after the death of his baby, we will see Him while in our bodies. But questions are good as they get us into the Word and discussion. None of us will have all the answers. I doubt we will have full and absolute knowledge even then. But we will have all eternity to work on it and the greatest of Teachers and minds that can grasp without holding onto our stubborn ideas.
I believe it pleases God to see us doing that as long as it is in unity and not disunity. Using us to prune and sharpen. And many of these conversations get put into place here with my husband and children, hopefully helping them to get a better grasp of the value of knowing Him.
Janice, you referred to the soul as the “core” and the body as just a “shell.” That was the wording I was referring to. And I wasn’t trying to say you were a gnostic, just cautioning you that that wording is the way gnostics word it, so be careful. Saying that the body is unimportant and only the soul matters lessens the value of the body in a way orthodox Christianity doesn’t do.
We’re all at risk of picking up thinking that we’d disagree with if we had time to think about it, or that we’d disagree with if someone pointed out what those we’re reading or listening to are actually saying.
Gently pointing out an error is not meant to be mean. As the body of Christ we are supposed to help one another take every thought captive to Christ. I hope that others would be willing to do it for me when I need it, and that I’d be able to see it as an act of love and service when they do.
Premature rant. I finally got the prescription that the surgeon’s office was supposed to mail to me. It is for a medication that is currently in short supply, so it was written in such a way to allow for smaller, more frequent doses that would be more likely to be available. But every doctor prescribing this must have done the same thing, because, now the smaller more frequent doses are in short supply, while the larger, less frequent dose is available. I know the surgeon wanted the larger, less frequent dose ideally, but she did not write the prescription to include that option. Without the doctor ordering it, the pharmacists cannot fill it. So, this could be a long search.
Lots of good discussion.
I started this at 7:11 by quoting John 11:28. “He that l lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Having reached my 90th, and considering Elvera’s condition, I have pondered this.
It seems to me that when a person is born again, he does, indeed, have a new life that cannot die. I’m not dogmatic on this, but I have come to believe that when a person dies, he/she will leave this body and go to be with the Father.
At the time appointed, we will receive new bodies. This will be when Jesus returns to Earth again. I haven’t located it, but I believe the Bible says we will be with him when he returns.
Lots of theories about this which I will not, at this time, discuss.
We have enough already.
Thanks for your input.
Chas, I will reiterate what I said a couple of weeks ago about grandson. I believe God meets Elvera where she is in her mind and body. Her spirit is alive in Him. Even though we may not see a connection with any form of thinking we recognize, I believe God is speaking to her through this and through your actions of love. By serving her, you are serving Him exactly as He wants.
All great discussions to which I have nothing to add.
I think something is bad wrong with me. Last year I paid Nephew to decorate for Christmas. Yesterday when Third Son was here I got him to help me get the Christmas decorations down. While I was showing property Mr. P brought some of the boxes in. When I got home I put one of the trees up in the stand then I wandered around trying to figure out what to do next. I put out three nativity sets (small ones) My arms itch and Mr P wasn’t able to get the lights on the tree so I sent a text to Nephew and asked if he needed money. He said yes so I will wait until Sunday afternoon and let him do most of it.
This really isn’t like me.
Kim, I used lot of twigs/sticks from our property in glass bottles/jars with the little fairy lights on them this year. I asked husband what he thought the theme for 2020 Christmas was ( I usually change up the theme). He had no clue. I joked that it was “Dead Christmas 2020”. It’s not really, it’s quite pretty actually.
Mumsee, when you say we are born with a dead spirit, I think of it not as a dead spirit for it would have had to be alive for it to have died. I guess I think of it more like we are made in the image of God which includes having within a space for the Spirit to dwell. It is like being a lantern with a wick that has not been lit. We have been created ready to receive the Spirit but not everyone does receive.
Janice
Janice, I was going with the definition of death as being separation. I like your picture though as dead men walking is so over done. And that lines up with the verse on becoming spiritual bodies.
Mumsee, all human beings, believers or otherwise, have material and immaterial being, or what we call body and soul or spirit. Unbelievers think, they feel, they make choices. But we are born at enmity with God–spiritually dead. We do not seek God, and unless He “quickens us,” we will remain spiritually dead.
By the way, there has been some spiritual discussion in times past (I rarely remember names) as to whether Jesus had a true human spirit or whether He had a human body energized by the Holy Spirit, and the orthodox consensus was that if He had not had a human spirit/soul, He would not have been fully human, and He was. So He had full humanity, including a human spirit, but He was also fully God. We can’t comprehend it and it’s hard even to try. At any rate, our spirit is distinct from the Holy Spirit, who indwells us but remains separate from us. It might be helpful to remember that Old Testament saints were made alive spiritually, but not indwelt by the Holy Spirit; the two processes are not interchangeable.
We all have a spirit of our own (see I Corinthians 2:11), only it is separated from God due to sin. The Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, gives life to our spirit:
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Roman 8:16)
“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”(I Corinthians 2:11)
We are not empty vessels waiting to be filled. We have a spirit of our own, and physical death happens when are body and spirit are separated (James 2:26). Our spirit exists eternally, only our faith in Christ or a lack of it will determine whether it exists in eternal torment (I Peter 3:19) or eternal fellowship with God. The angels, who exist eternally both fallen and the unfallen are spirits (Hebrews 1:7); but unlike the angels, we also possess a body. That body is what makes us both mortal (see Genesis 3:22) and also gives us a hope the angels do not have. We all rebelled, but were all given a way back through Jesus Christ, who took on our physical nature and, being made “in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4).
Okay, so I am seeing Janice’s lantern with the wick is the separated spirit. When the Spirit of God comes and lights us up, that is when we enter eternal life. Remember those pics that went around of the cell lighting up when the sperm entered and life began? And not lighting up in others? Rather like that. Interesting. All the stuff was there, just waiting for the Spark to ignite.
Cheryl, Pastor A preached at length about the work of the Holy Spirit. He carefully went through all Christ’s words on the topic to show that Christ did his works by the power of the Holy Spirit – demonstrating it was possible to be a human and walk in the Spirit of God – and also chowing that Christ was fully human with body and spirit and yet fully God. If Jesus did not have a human spirit, he would just have been an empty physical shell animated by a non-human spirit, and he could not have died for us. Furthermore, if that had been the case (which it was not) instead of being the second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, he would have been the Third Person of the Trinity. Actually, the view of him being an empty physical shell filled with a spiritual eminance from God was one of the versions of the Gnostic heresies of the early Church. The reason John is so vehement that God the Son came in the flesh is that the heresy that he wasn’t actually in the flesh was already being circulated.
~ Los Angeles County will ban most public and private gatherings next week as part of a stricter stay-at-home order, health officials announced Friday, Nov. 27, as the coronavirus case rate continued to climb.
The new order will go into effect Monday, Nov. 30.
Officials reported 24 more coronavirus-related deaths and 4,544 new cases in Los Angeles County on Friday. The five-day average of new cases is now 4,751.
The new health order will ban all public and private gatherings except for protests and religious services, and shut down playgrounds and card rooms. It will also limit occupancy at various businesses, including capping essential retail at 35% capacity. The new order was triggered because the county’s case rate topped 4,500. ~
As for the physical body, I feel mine tonight. I spent the day dealing with leaves. Lots of leaves. 4 pickup loads worth. And there are still a lot more.
Wandering Views 
First again?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Um, what do I say? Good morning? But it is nearly bedtime. Okay. Good morning!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Cool shot, Peter.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I have a saddle
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good night. I am still so full, but I took three walks and did five miles.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Good early morning from the east where the sun will rise again even though it is Black Friday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good morning! The moose! The moose!
LikeLiked by 1 person
And I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.
Everything is the same around here.
That is good. What I don’t want is events.
LikeLiked by 2 people
QoD. Serious question.
I am reading Revelation this morning as part of my schedule. I was reading Ch. 4 where John was “In the spirit”. His spirit that is. It’s the only way he could communicate with the spiritual world. Seems to me that when a person is ?born again/, he has a spiritual birth and receives a life that cannot die.
Jesus said, (Jn. 11:26) “He that lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Q. What, in your opinion, does that mean?
LikeLike
That is me.
Chas
LikeLike
As a believer, the Spirit indwells us. That enables us to be totally in the Spirit where all else falls away and we are at our core with God in Spirit. That core is eternal so that only the outer shell, the physical body does the physical death here on earth in our calendar timeframe. We are saved into eternal life through our faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, and by the covering of His cleansing blood that takes away the sins of the world. Does that make sense, Chas? It is my basic understanding.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Right on, Janice.]
It seems that Jesus meant, Jn. 11:26, that the person that indwells that body does not die, but is transformed (not really, but for discussion’s sake. e.e. the real me was created when I was “born again”. )
You think about this when you reach 90. And when you have a spouse who just sits from morning to night, not really being aware of what is happening. e.g. In my case, the “real” Elvera is constrained by the limits of mind and body which are no longer the essence of the person.
As for the body. Jesus said that at the resurrection, we will receive a new body that will reign with Jesus. Your dealings with that depends on your eschatology.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Janice, the understanding that the “real us” is our spirit and our body is a non-essential “shell” is gnosticism. In addition, the Holy Spirit and our spirit are not the same entity, not fused in some way.
Chas, death is separation, and Scripture distinguishes between spiritual death (eternal separation of the person from God) and physical death (division of the spirit/soul and body). The believer will die physically (except those on earth at the end), and in Paul’s mysterious wording will then for a time be “unclothed” (apart from a body but not “asleep”) for a time. We were created as soul and body and are incomplete with just one, and how it is possible to function with just one is unclear. The believer will never experience spiritual death (separation from God) because Christ experienced it for us on the cross.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chas, there are so many facets that come to mind with this. Here are a few:
1. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in Spirit and in truth” (John 4). So it is necessary for us to be alive spiritually in order to know God. Adam and Eve, before the Fall, were alive spiritually, as they walked with God in the Garden. When they ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they became separated from God. They started to die physically, yes, but they immediately died spiritually. God mercifully preserved their ability to die physically by separating them from the Tree of Life, because it was by the physical death of his Son we would all be saved.
2. Death is separation from God. Eternal life, as Jesus said in his final prayer in John 17, is to know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. It is the Spirit that gives life through the work of Jesus Christ, as Paul wrote in Roman 8.
3. In the Resurrection, the physical and spiritual are reunited in a whole. Christ was the first fruits, and his ressurected body, although certainly tangible and able to be perceived physically, was also spiritual, as he was able to pass from the earth to the heavens. Paul writes of how our physical bodies will take on an eternal spiritual nature that they do not now possess in I Corinthians 15: “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” The Tree of Life, from which humanity was separated in Genesis, makes its reappearance in the final chapter of Revelation in the New Creation, and its fruit will be for those who are resurrected.
4. The context of Christ’s words to Martha in John 11 are important. Lazarus has just died. But when Jesus raises him to life, it is not to an eternally resurrected body. He is just going to heal Lazarus’ old body and restore life to it. It is a temporary raising and Lazarus will die again someday, as it is Christ, not Lazarus, who is the firstfruits of the Resurrection. But he tells Martha, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” He is clearly not talking only about natural life and death, but about spiritual life and death.
One final note, it is a cultural tendency of the Western mind to break things into parts in order to understand them (which has frequently led to misunderstandings with cultures that see things in interactive wholeness), so in speaking of the physical and spiritual separately, I am separating things for the purposes of explanation that really seem quite a bit more intertwined in Scripture. We are not going to be disembodied spirits in the Resurrection, even though we will have a spiritual body. Furthermore, those who are dead spiritually and will spend eternity in hell do also seem to have an eternal existence on both a physical and spiritual level, only it is one of unending torment. Clearly, there is more to all this than can be expressed by human language. Paul noted that the Incarnation, “God manifest in the flesh”, was a great mystery. We can only ever partially explain such realities. They are best perceived by the work of the Spirit (John 16, Romans 8).
LikeLike
Thank you for the compliment, Cheryl.
The photo is in Rocky Mountain NP. The cow moose and her calf were right by the road when we were passing, then crossed the road behind us. I cropped the photo for better detail, as we were several dozen feet away when they crossed.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Further thoughts on what has been written since I started my post – only Chas’ question was there then.
Janice, there has to be a physical restoration as well as a spiritual one. Paul speaks about the necessity for our bodies to be resurrected at length in I Corinthians 15. He notes that our trials as Christians in this earthly life would be utterly meaningless if we did not have the hope of a bodily resurrection.
Chas, further to my comments s to Janice, we have to be careful about talking about our ‘real’ selves that we do not slip into a kind mystical way of thinking that we have no real existence outside of God. God created us to be distinct beings from him. He intends us to have personalities, ideas, and an existence of our own. He just wants us to have that existence in harmony with him, instead of in opposition to him. In the Resurrection, we will still be working and creating as we do now, but without the all permeating stench of sin that our works have now – it says of the New Jerusalem that the works of the nation’s will be brought into her gates. We will still be craftsmen, musicians, artists, etc. Sometimes, things are best explained in the negative. Hindus believe in a progressive series of reincarnations that culminate in the individual being absorbed in the ultimate deity of Brahma. God is not like that. Yes, in him we live and move and have our being, but he delights in us as individuals, and gives us life individually. He does not ultimately absorb us, but rather makes us to be what he always intended us to be, rather than the broken shadows we are now.
Elvera, and others like her, are not unreal, rather, their physical being is breaking down to the point their inner self can no longer properly communicate with the world around them. In those with dementia, it is the brain itself which has broken down most, but aging ultimately limits every human from properly interacting with the world around them in some way. With some, they can no longer create the things they would like to create, because their hands are so worn down, or go the places they would like because their legs are so worn out. With others, they can no longer see or hear clearly enough to interact fully. Some people, mercifully rare, lose all their senses, and become locked in an ivory box where they can no longer receive input from hearing, touch, or sight (Dr. Paul Brand wrote of a couple of such leprosy cases that became that way). Others can hear, see, and perceive, but have lost all motor function to respond, called often ‘locked in’ syndrome, resulting from strokes, brain injuries, and degenerative diseases such as ALS. The hope of the Resurrection promises restoration to all those shattered bodies, so that all of those malfunctions neuron and worn joints and dulled senses will be permanently and eternally healed and restored.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I never knew I was a gnostic before. Now to correct that. I must pray ever more.
LikeLike
Thanks for the input
LikeLike
Cheryl yes we thawed the turkey first.
I am off to show property today. Hopefully these people will decide to buy something.
LikeLiked by 1 person
From my scheduled daily Bible reading in 1 Corinthians 15:42-46
“So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.” That is what I believe. Is that gnosticism? Maybe I did not make my statement clearly before according to Cheryl’s understanding. Please help me understand my being judged as having gnostic beliefs. I am saddened and embarrassed to be called out like this. But I will not lose my joy in the Lord over it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
God’s timing that I was in the exact place in the Bible that I needed to be for today. He is ever so good.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Back to my Thanksgiving dressing. We enjoyed it immensely. It made the house smell like Thanksgiving. I put enough broth in it so it was soft for Art’s needs. He had a second helping. Since cornbread dressing has always been my very favorite dish of the day, it was all that we needed. And I have leftovers!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Why do some people always find it necessary to shame others?
LikeLike
Nice pic Peter.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Happy Black Friday. I wonder if there are many in-person shoppers out today? It’s a good day to go grocery shopping (we single-households figure these things out through the years), not many people will be needing to stock up on food after yesterday. I may hit Sprouts for a couple quick things, but in the meantime I also put in a larger order for pickup tomorrow at Ralphs.
It was a strange Thanksgiving. The LA Times had a photo of a family who hauled table and chairs out onto a deserted local beach at sunset, which was pretty creative.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Janice: pride, guilt, deflecting attention off their behavior, attitude of thinking themselves better than others, similar shame issues trying to dump elsewhere, vindictiveness, but often, fear.
Is that enough?
https://www.michelleule.com/2011/03/23/shame-on-me-no-thanks/
LikeLiked by 2 people
Coffee is on
LikeLiked by 2 people
Interesting sermon topic for us coming up on Sunday:
“Beautiful, Redeemable Ruins” Rev. 21: 4, 5
LikeLike
Another friend posted a Thanksgiving photo of “the family pod” in 2020, the pared down version with 5 people rather than what (I assume) is usually many more around the table.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Janice, I hope you weren’t referring to me in your question of why “some people” always find it necessary to shame others.
If you’re interested in more about gnosticism, or why I cautioned that the wording in 7:49 was gnostic, this is a good article on the importance of the body in the Christian faith: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/05/evangelical-gnosticism
LikeLiked by 1 person
What Janice said at 7:39 with the addition that our physical bodies will be made new for clarity.
Other questions this brings to mind:
When we are born, are we born with a dead spirit?
Or born with a live spirit that dies upon our first sin or is Adam and Eve’s sin the clincher?
Or do children have living spirits until the mysterious age of accountability?
When God makes us alive in Him, is that when we become spiritual bodies, as mentioned in 1 Cor 15: 44?
When people are suffering in all eternity, is it without a spirit as their spirit is dead?
Ask a question in the Bible and there will be more!
LikeLiked by 5 people
Good article, Cheryl
LikeLike
Mumsee, we are all in Adam unless we are born again in Christ; we are “born” in sin, conceived in sin. Again, “death” means separation, not absence. A person who is spiritually dead still has a spirit, but it is a spirit that is separated from God.
Christ was born of a virgin because apparently in some mysterious way God chose to have sin pass through the father. That’s just one of many reasons the RC view of the sinlessness of Mary makes no sense. The whole reason for the virgin conception was to avoid the Adamic nature. If Mary could have been conceived in the normal way, but sinless, then Christ could have been too, and the virgin birth was unnecessary. And any of the rest of us could have avoided sin, too, if Mary could have. It’s contrary to Scripture’s thinking on several levels. (And Mary herself refers to “God my Saviour” in the Magnificat.)
LikeLike
Oh, maybe that was the difficulty, I did not mention the resurrected body which I fully believe in. I talk to my friend Karen about that because her body is so full of suffering. I know in the new heaven and earth that we will enjoy our perfect physical bodies without pain and suffering. Jesus will be the light, and not us. That is just one way of realizing we are not totally fused, but Jesus desires for us to be as one abiding in Him and Him in us. It is so easy for people to make assumptions as to what one means when a person does not expound on the complete subject. God resurrects from the dead. Yes! All the glory to Him for His ability to do that which is miraculous. If we were only spiritual beings in heaven then we would have no need of the place Jesus has prepared for us. But the thing I do not understand yet is that the dead body is awaiting that resurrection for this period of time. So isn’t the soul in heaven with Jesus at the point of death while we wait for the dead to rise first when God says the time is right?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Remember, one absolute essential belief to the Christian faith is that Jesus had a physical body. John states that those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh have the spirit of Anti-Christ. The physical form in which we exist is an essential part of our being. Jesus went to great pains to demonstrate his resurrected body existed on the physical plane, eating food and allowing himself to be repeatedly touched to demonstrate the physical reality of the Resurrection. The tomb was empty because Jesus’s physical remains were resurrected. This body of mine, that is scarred and maimed by its time in a sin-aick world, will be the body I am resurrected with, only all the imperfections will be perfected. It is as much me as my inner self is.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Morning! We awakened to a couple inches of fresh snow! I hear it was an icy mess for shoppers trying to get to their sales…but once they made it to town it was totally dry. Thankfully I am one to never shop on the Friday after. But I will try to venture into town to support Small Business Saturday tomorrow…they are feeling the effects of the recent edict from the people who know better than we in our great state 🤦♀️
That is a beautiful photo you captured Peter.
LikeLiked by 3 people
So we are born with a dead spirit.
LikeLike
And this was a scripture I had read this morning. Psalm 103:13-14
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust…..
LikeLiked by 4 people
One of the great passages on the hope of the Resurrection:
“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” (Job 19:25-26)
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, Jesus=fully man and fully God. No doubt about that. He is perfection!
LikeLike
Your questions are good, Mumsee.
LikeLike
Questions of what comes after death are not clearly answered now. Like the old testament Saints who believed God would save them, but did not know how, not even clearly understanding the prophecies they uttered, so it is with us. We know God has given us eternal life and will resurrect our bodies, but we do not how, even with the inspired prophecies we possess. Some questions have no clear answer right now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
True, Roscuro. But as in the section you cited in Job, and David mentioned it after the death of his baby, we will see Him while in our bodies. But questions are good as they get us into the Word and discussion. None of us will have all the answers. I doubt we will have full and absolute knowledge even then. But we will have all eternity to work on it and the greatest of Teachers and minds that can grasp without holding onto our stubborn ideas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I believe it pleases God to see us doing that as long as it is in unity and not disunity. Using us to prune and sharpen. And many of these conversations get put into place here with my husband and children, hopefully helping them to get a better grasp of the value of knowing Him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Janice, you referred to the soul as the “core” and the body as just a “shell.” That was the wording I was referring to. And I wasn’t trying to say you were a gnostic, just cautioning you that that wording is the way gnostics word it, so be careful. Saying that the body is unimportant and only the soul matters lessens the value of the body in a way orthodox Christianity doesn’t do.
We’re all at risk of picking up thinking that we’d disagree with if we had time to think about it, or that we’d disagree with if someone pointed out what those we’re reading or listening to are actually saying.
Gently pointing out an error is not meant to be mean. As the body of Christ we are supposed to help one another take every thought captive to Christ. I hope that others would be willing to do it for me when I need it, and that I’d be able to see it as an act of love and service when they do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Premature rant. I finally got the prescription that the surgeon’s office was supposed to mail to me. It is for a medication that is currently in short supply, so it was written in such a way to allow for smaller, more frequent doses that would be more likely to be available. But every doctor prescribing this must have done the same thing, because, now the smaller more frequent doses are in short supply, while the larger, less frequent dose is available. I know the surgeon wanted the larger, less frequent dose ideally, but she did not write the prescription to include that option. Without the doctor ordering it, the pharmacists cannot fill it. So, this could be a long search.
LikeLike
Lots of good discussion.
I started this at 7:11 by quoting John 11:28. “He that l lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Having reached my 90th, and considering Elvera’s condition, I have pondered this.
It seems to me that when a person is born again, he does, indeed, have a new life that cannot die. I’m not dogmatic on this, but I have come to believe that when a person dies, he/she will leave this body and go to be with the Father.
At the time appointed, we will receive new bodies. This will be when Jesus returns to Earth again. I haven’t located it, but I believe the Bible says we will be with him when he returns.
Lots of theories about this which I will not, at this time, discuss.
We have enough already.
Thanks for your input.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Chas, I will reiterate what I said a couple of weeks ago about grandson. I believe God meets Elvera where she is in her mind and body. Her spirit is alive in Him. Even though we may not see a connection with any form of thinking we recognize, I believe God is speaking to her through this and through your actions of love. By serving her, you are serving Him exactly as He wants.
LikeLiked by 4 people
All great discussions to which I have nothing to add.
I think something is bad wrong with me. Last year I paid Nephew to decorate for Christmas. Yesterday when Third Son was here I got him to help me get the Christmas decorations down. While I was showing property Mr. P brought some of the boxes in. When I got home I put one of the trees up in the stand then I wandered around trying to figure out what to do next. I put out three nativity sets (small ones) My arms itch and Mr P wasn’t able to get the lights on the tree so I sent a text to Nephew and asked if he needed money. He said yes so I will wait until Sunday afternoon and let him do most of it.
This really isn’t like me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kim, I used lot of twigs/sticks from our property in glass bottles/jars with the little fairy lights on them this year. I asked husband what he thought the theme for 2020 Christmas was ( I usually change up the theme). He had no clue. I joked that it was “Dead Christmas 2020”. It’s not really, it’s quite pretty actually.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kim. Did you make a sale?
LikeLike
Mumsee, when you say we are born with a dead spirit, I think of it not as a dead spirit for it would have had to be alive for it to have died. I guess I think of it more like we are made in the image of God which includes having within a space for the Spirit to dwell. It is like being a lantern with a wick that has not been lit. We have been created ready to receive the Spirit but not everyone does receive.
Janice
LikeLike
That header is very cool, Peter!
LikeLike
Janice, I was going with the definition of death as being separation. I like your picture though as dead men walking is so over done. And that lines up with the verse on becoming spiritual bodies.
LikeLike
Mumsee, all human beings, believers or otherwise, have material and immaterial being, or what we call body and soul or spirit. Unbelievers think, they feel, they make choices. But we are born at enmity with God–spiritually dead. We do not seek God, and unless He “quickens us,” we will remain spiritually dead.
By the way, there has been some spiritual discussion in times past (I rarely remember names) as to whether Jesus had a true human spirit or whether He had a human body energized by the Holy Spirit, and the orthodox consensus was that if He had not had a human spirit/soul, He would not have been fully human, and He was. So He had full humanity, including a human spirit, but He was also fully God. We can’t comprehend it and it’s hard even to try. At any rate, our spirit is distinct from the Holy Spirit, who indwells us but remains separate from us. It might be helpful to remember that Old Testament saints were made alive spiritually, but not indwelt by the Holy Spirit; the two processes are not interchangeable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We all have a spirit of our own (see I Corinthians 2:11), only it is separated from God due to sin. The Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, gives life to our spirit:
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Roman 8:16)
“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”(I Corinthians 2:11)
We are not empty vessels waiting to be filled. We have a spirit of our own, and physical death happens when are body and spirit are separated (James 2:26). Our spirit exists eternally, only our faith in Christ or a lack of it will determine whether it exists in eternal torment (I Peter 3:19) or eternal fellowship with God. The angels, who exist eternally both fallen and the unfallen are spirits (Hebrews 1:7); but unlike the angels, we also possess a body. That body is what makes us both mortal (see Genesis 3:22) and also gives us a hope the angels do not have. We all rebelled, but were all given a way back through Jesus Christ, who took on our physical nature and, being made “in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4).
LikeLike
Okay, so I am seeing Janice’s lantern with the wick is the separated spirit. When the Spirit of God comes and lights us up, that is when we enter eternal life. Remember those pics that went around of the cell lighting up when the sperm entered and life began? And not lighting up in others? Rather like that. Interesting. All the stuff was there, just waiting for the Spark to ignite.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, and yes, we know that all analogies fail at some point.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Cheryl, Pastor A preached at length about the work of the Holy Spirit. He carefully went through all Christ’s words on the topic to show that Christ did his works by the power of the Holy Spirit – demonstrating it was possible to be a human and walk in the Spirit of God – and also chowing that Christ was fully human with body and spirit and yet fully God. If Jesus did not have a human spirit, he would just have been an empty physical shell animated by a non-human spirit, and he could not have died for us. Furthermore, if that had been the case (which it was not) instead of being the second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, he would have been the Third Person of the Trinity. Actually, the view of him being an empty physical shell filled with a spiritual eminance from God was one of the versions of the Gnostic heresies of the early Church. The reason John is so vehement that God the Son came in the flesh is that the heresy that he wasn’t actually in the flesh was already being circulated.
LikeLiked by 2 people
We’re getting some stricter rules come Monday:
~ Los Angeles County will ban most public and private gatherings next week as part of a stricter stay-at-home order, health officials announced Friday, Nov. 27, as the coronavirus case rate continued to climb.
The new order will go into effect Monday, Nov. 30.
Officials reported 24 more coronavirus-related deaths and 4,544 new cases in Los Angeles County on Friday. The five-day average of new cases is now 4,751.
The new health order will ban all public and private gatherings except for protests and religious services, and shut down playgrounds and card rooms. It will also limit occupancy at various businesses, including capping essential retail at 35% capacity. The new order was triggered because the county’s case rate topped 4,500. ~
LikeLiked by 1 person
So interesting to see peoples’ reactions to the Covid stories on FB/social media — fake news! ‘enemy of the people’! none of it’s ‘real’
LikeLike
Thank you for all the compliments on the photo. It was awesome to see moose and elk in the wild.
And no one complained about my forgetfulneess. I totally forgot it is Friday.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The conspiracy theory engines must be churning overtime these days.
LikeLiked by 2 people
As for the physical body, I feel mine tonight. I spent the day dealing with leaves. Lots of leaves. 4 pickup loads worth. And there are still a lot more.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Gotta get ready for church. That means charging up my phone.
LikeLike