BT: Perhaps you misunderstood my
request, Judy. The challenge to you was to provide for me explicit
language; that is, show me in Scripture where the text
uses the language of "spiritual death" or "spiritually dead" or "died
spiritually," something like that, that
could substantiate your claim. I am familiar with the Text. I
don't think it's there.
jt: It's there Bill - 1
Tim 5:6 teaches that "she who lives in pleasure and self gratification -
giving herself up to luxury and self indulgence - is dead even while she
still lives" In Luke 15:24 the father says of his prodigal son "this my
son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!" We know
the son did not die physically but he was living in sin out in the pigpen
with the pigs. Are these examples explicit enough? Then there is
the Church at Sardis in Rev 3:1 to whom Jesus says "I know your record and
what you are doing; you are supposed to be alive but (in reality) you are
dead" (AMP)
BT: Here's what I think about Genesis
and the promise that on the day they eat of it they shall surely die. There
was death that day. There was also the introduction of the Gospel. Instead
of pulling his life-support from Adam and Woman God sacrificed a substitute.
He covered them in the fatty portions of a lamb, the Lamb slain from the
beginning. In doing this, he sealed on that day the vicarious
death of his Son, in their place and on their behalf.
And so, as you see, one does
not need to interpose a foreign concept into the text to make it make sense.
jt: Yes Bill there
was a sacrifice. God killed an animal in Genesis 3:21 so that A&E could
cover their nakedness but it was not the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. Not yet.
Yours is an a priori,
Judy. You have heard this language so many times, for so long, that it
is now a given in your reading of Scripture. You supply it,
in other words, but the words themselves are not their. It is something you
bring with you to your reading of the text, just as you did when you wrote
"let the (spiritually) dead bury their own
dead."
jt: If, as you
claim Bill, my understanding is wrong and these words are not there -
then what is your explanation for this verse. Do you actually believe
that physically dead people can bury other physically dead
people? If so how?
The challenge is still open. . .
jt: I've met the
challenge more than once Bill but I don't expect you to accept my
explanation because your all encompassing incarnational doctrine hath
blinded your eyes.
Judy wrote: I've never
ever read Augustine, Greek or any other philosophy, or religious Manichaeism
Bill, neither do I approve of any type of Calvinism.
Neither did you need to to have your
thinking influenced by these guys. All you needed to do was breath. The
rest is supplied by people around you, when you go to church, for
example, or when you went to school, or when you turn on your radio or
television, or fire up your computer. Lance shared a really neat quote about
how the philosophies of the mountain top flow down the streams to water the
plants in the valley. We get theology and philosophy whether we seek it out
or not. In many ways people are more susceptible and vulnerable to bad
thinking when they eschew these things than they would be if they were to
educate themselves to their subtleties. Maybe Lance could post this parable
again to refresh your memory.
jt: If what you claim
above is so Bill/Lance - then the devil is much more powerful than the Holy
Spirit who Jesus said would lead us into all Truth and the spirit of error
or lawlessness is greater than God and his
righteousness.
jt: I see the
juxtaposition between darkness and light, life and death, good and evil all
through scripture
Ah yes, and so do
I.
jt: and I have no idea
what you are speaking of when you refer to "holistic personhood" -
could you explain further please?
I am talking about the thought that a
person could be physically alive but spiritually dead. The Hebrew mind did
not have the Greek idea that body and soul or spirit could be separated,
parts being alive while others are dead. The Hebrew view of personhood
is that humans are non-reducible wholes. There is no dualism
there.
jt: I don't know about
Hebrew minds or Greek minds Bill but I do know that the mind of Christ sees
man as a triune being made up of spirit, soul, and
body.
Judy wrote: How do you
read Matt 8:21 and Luke 9:59,60?
I thought I had already answered that.
This is a metaphor: "Let the dead bury their own dead," but you
"follow me." Everything that people do that is given priority over following
Jesus is as it were dead works.
jt: But Jesus refers to
the person as dead, not his works. In Luke
9:60 AMP it reads "Allow the dead to bury their own dead" and Matt 8:22 says
"Follow Me, and leave the dead (in sin) to bury
their own dead. And after He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him.
This does not appear to refer to dead works nor does it appear to be a
'metaphor' so far as I can see.
When we think we have something really
important to do that is more important than what Jesus is commanding us to
do, our acts are futile. Metaphorically speaking, they are as dead as the
dead person awaiting burial. Again I ask you, why not let this first
reference to "dead" be a metaphor for the futility of human activities when
those activities are given status of priority over following
Jesus?
jt: Anything given status
of priority over following Jesus is an idol but that is another subject
entirely.
Grace and
Peace,
Judy
