The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Jesus' birth and last supper place

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#64

Those who do not have Christ’s spirit are in the flesh.

“Yet you are not in flesh, but in spirit, if so be that God’s spirit is making its home in you. Now if anyone has not Christ’s spirit, this one is not His.” Now if Christ is in you, the body, indeed, is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is life because of righteousness." (Rom 8:9-10)

Those in the flesh are disposed to the flesh. The flesh is at enmity to God. Those in spirit are not at enmity to God because they have Christ’s spirit.

Concerning the law, the apostle Paul said it is “death chiseled in stone” (2 Cor.3:7). Why is it death to those who covenanted with God to do all the law? Because they were in flesh and thus subject to all the curses of the law.

#65

Thank you Eusebius… you have explained according two texts (Rom 8; 2Cor 3) WHO is or is not “in the flesh” well done; I’ve got that. CAN you now please explain WHAT according to your understanding being “in the flesh” actually is, i.e., WHAT exactly are you saying that specifically means?

#66

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16002929_1251058334959532_3826847839140013378_n.jpg?oh=b3aa7707a9d0df13e27a895b95865126&oe=5921886C

#67

And I will compound on davo’s questions, when you answer HIS, (HIS QUESTION) by asking… what constitutes someone here in 2017 being (as you say ) in the flesh and what constitutes a person being in the Spirit. Are only those who believe what you believe, in the spirit? Are you being evangelical or being a rascal that is only trying to stir up conflict like I said before. [size=150]Tell us where and how to get where you are, if you are legit[/size], In the spirit of Paul, as you so often quote. Otherwise, I for one will assume you to be a false proclaimer. You can only play the games so long. :exclamation: :open_mouth:

#68

Hi dear maintenanceman,
I thought what I wrote answered the question posed.
You asked:

Here is my answer:
“Now those who are in flesh are not able to please God. Yet you are not in flesh, but in spirit, if so be that God’s spirit is making its home in you. Now if anyone has not Christ’s spirit, this one is not His.” Now if Christ is in you, the body, indeed, is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is life because of righteousness" (Rom 8:8-10).
So, from the time believers received Christ’s spirit in Paul’s day until 2017 and until Christ returns for us, such ones are not in flesh. They are in spirit. Such ones are able to please God.

Your second two-part question is:

My answer to that is “Neither.” I’m just stating what I believe.

Your third question is:

, In the spirit of Paul, as you so often quote.
I would answer that by saying if one truly does believe God that Christ died because of our offenses, and died for our sins, was entombed and roused again, such a one is sealed with God’s spirit for the day of deliverance, and such a one has the spirit of Christ and has passed from death (to God) to life (to God) (please see Romans 4:23-25; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Ephesians 4:30).

As to your final statement:

I don’t see how it is proper, in a two-sided conversation, that should one not agree with another, that such a one should be accused of playing games or is a false proclaimer, should one not agree with what the other states.

#69

From what I understand, Adam and Eve were in the Spirit. Genesis 2:7 says this, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. If they were not of the Spirit, how were they bearing the seeds of God as it says in Genesis 4:25 "And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, "For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed. From what I understand, we have to be in the Spirit in order to bear the fruit of the Spirit.

#70

Adam’s progeny went so bad that God had to destroy the world with a deluge.

Adam and Eve were created flesh and soulish.

“If there is a soulish body, there is a spiritual also. Thus it is written also, The first man, Adam, “became a living soul: the last Adam a vivifying Spirit.” But not first the spiritual, but the soulish, thereupon the spiritual.” (1Co 15:45-46)

So the first Adam was soulish. The above passage is informing us that Adam was not spiritual. We are told the second Adam, Christ, was spiritual, but Adam was not. He was soulish.
Now then, some poor translations may have translated the Greek word “psuxikon” in verse 46 as “natural.” However, psuxikon is the adjectival form of its noun form “psuxen” in verse 45, which is “soul.”

And what did God reveal to us concerning soulish ones? . . .

1Co_2:14 “Now the soulish man is not receiving those things which are of the spirit of God, for they are stupidity to him, and he is not able to know them, seeing that they are spiritually examined.”

Adam was also flesh and was not able to please God and was not subject to the law God laid down in the garden.

#71

And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” Gen 3:22

So perhaps Adam and Eve, as created, were “in the spirit” and by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because of which they died, became no longer alive to the spirit but began to live to the flesh… became “that which is of the flesh”- no longer “in the spirit”.

That having been born of flesh, is flesh. That having been born of spirit, is spirit. Jn 3:6

The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. Ro 6:8

#72

I would answer that by saying if one truly does believe God that Christ died because of our offenses, and died for our sins, was entombed and roused again, such a one is sealed with God’s spirit for the day of deliverance, and such a one has the spirit of Christ and has passed from death (to God) to life (to God) (please see Romans 4:23-25; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Ephesians 4:30).

As to your final statement:

I don’t see how it is proper, in a two-sided conversation, that should one not agree with another, that such a one should be accused of playing games or is a false proclaimer, should one not agree with what the other states.

I am like some others here. I am done. :open_mouth:

#73

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food(lust of the flesh) and pleasing to the eye(lust of the eyes), and also desirable for gaining wisdom(pride of life), she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Something about eating the forbidden fruit had to do with love of self over the love of God(sacrificial love). The first brings death, the second life. God’s love was demonstrated as sacrificial love, His divine nature, since all things were created through the Logos, who is Christ, the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.

God saw every selfish act by every being that ever lived, resolved though the unselfish, sacrificial act of His Son, Who is the radiance of the Father’s glory and the exact representation of His nature. So God saw before creation that all futility would be relieved by the birth of true love, His love, born in the heart of every one who sees Christ crucified(whenever, each in their own order) as the expression of God’s deepest being, the I AM.

“I am determined to know nothing among you but Christ, and Him crucified”.

“Love builds up, knowledge puffs up”.

#74

The interesting thing is that the fruit WAS good for food - I don’t see the lust in that.
And it WAS pleasing to the eye - no lust in that.
And it COULD bring wisdom - which we are exhorted to obtain all through Scripture - no lust there either?

#75

Those are very good points :exclamation: The way I see it is the problem (sin) came because of the doing of something they were told not to do, in other words, they broke the covenant. And we know (because of scripture) that God was not fond of that. (i.e. Israel)

#76

I’m sorry you feel that way maintenanceman.

It is too bad that, when two brothers can’t agree on a given theological matter, one feels the necessity to disenfranchise the other person.
I understand.

#77

Dear DaveB, I appreciate your thoughts on this matter and hope I am allowed to say something concerning this
which would not cause you to think I am here, as some have falsely accused me of, to be combative.

I agree with you that we, who are believers, are entreated to seek out God’s wisdom in the Scriptures.

It is helpful to understand that Adam was soulish. He was not spiritual. The first Adam was soulish. The second Adam (Christ) was spiritual.
That being said, the soul has soulish sensations such as taste, seeing, feeling. And so the fruit appealed to Adam and Eve’s soulish appetite.

Can we at least agree that Adam and Eve were made of flesh? And can we agree that mankind’s will is the will of the flesh? And can we agree that the flesh is enmity to God?

#78

I agree with that. But one needs to ask: “Why did they disobey?”

#79

Bingo!

#80

When that which is good for food, becomes more important than the word of God, it is only lust eating.

“Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”

When that which is pleasing to the eye becomes more than that which is the anchor of the soul, it is lust reaching for it.

The love of God was violated in someway that goes beyond just disobedience ot a command. Could we really think that as the Voice of the Lord walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the garden that there was no relationship there? No intimacy? No communion? There was a choice made. A violation of trust. A wound in the relationship that once secured their being in innocense.

When that which makes one wise becomes more important than the ties that bind our souls as one in the love of Christ, it is lust seeking it, the desire to know exceeding the desire to be as He is, willing to lay down His life for His friends, “giving liberally to all without reproach”.

God had not given them enough? That which was offered was so superior to His love that trust should be viloated to have it?

I think here we get close to the reason God subjected all to futility. We could not know what we had lost until we wallowed in the absence of its beautifull simplicity, having traded it for something so much less that had been sold to us as “more”.

I think we get close to what it means, that the whole creation will be set free from futility into the glorious liberty of the children of God- released to the freedom of covenanted love. A covenant based not on God’s commands or our obedience, but rather a covenant based on who He Is, revealed within us with such depth by the triumph of grace over depravity, that sacrificial love becomes “all in all”= the divine nature; “the water of life”- and fellowship, communion, union and harmony within Him and altogether as one community of joy being the realization of all God’s desire and ours- a tree of life. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” The whole creation groans in anticipation.

Who would think of committing a sin upon another? Now we fully realize there is NOTHING “more” than love, because He that had ALL, poured it all out for us, so that we who had become futile and empty in our selfish pursuits of “more” could be given everything in the one place we refuse to look for it. The resolution of every question and every need and desire settled in communion with Him in the simplicity of love, and trust, a secret that unlocks every mystery and provides the key for every door, the true knowledge of God.

#81

Eusebius,To me, the breath of life, whether you want to call it soul or not, means the Spirit. He obviously became a LIVING being because of it. Also Abel was able to please God. How is this possible if what you suggest is true? Adam was a human being, no different than we are today. We either obey God’s word and live in the Spirit or we don’t. If we don’t, our souls, spirits, or whatever else you want to call it, dies, and we become lifeless empty bodies. And no, not all of Adam’s progeny was destroyed. Noah was saved.

#82

Hi LLC,
Every human receives God’s breath or spirit to get them to live. But that does not make one spiritual.

These verses tell us Adam was not spiritual:

“If there is a soulish body, there is a spiritual also. Thus it is written also, The first man, Adam, “became a living soul: the last Adam a vivifying Spirit.” But not first the spiritual, but the soulish, thereupon the spiritual” (1Co 15:45-46).

As to Abel, most likely he had the spirit of Christ and was able to please God:

“Concerning which salvation the prophets seek out and search out, who prophesy concerning the grace which is for you, searching into what or what manner of era the spirit of Christ in them made evident, when testifying beforehand to the sufferings pertaining to Christ and the glories after these” (1Pe 1:10-11).

If we obey God’s word it is only due to the fact that we have Christ’s spirit in us.
If one does not heed God’s word, this is due to them being dead in a figurative sense. When Jesus said “Let the dead bury the dead” He was telling the person that there are people who are dead to God and dead to Me. Let them bury the literal dead.

#83

Eusebius, I think you are mincing words. Adam and Eve were obviously reconciled to God and living in the Spirit after they left the garden. Otherwise, they would not have been able to bear the fruit of the Spirit, as I mentioned in my previous post.