Re: [TruthTalk] Re:John 16:13,14

[Bill Taylor]

I know I’m not up on your doctrinal issues, Bill, so please tell me why you seem to reject the idea of someone being spiritually dead prior to being born again of the Spirit.  I’d appreciate it. izzy     There are numerous reasons why I reject this doctrine, Izzy, the foremost of which is because I believe it is impossible for Jesus to have been "spiritually dead" at any point in his lifetime.   Paul tells us that Jesus came in the "likeness of sinful flesh" and that it was in his flesh that he destroyed sin. I believe that it is absolutely essential that Christ had to assume sinful flesh in order to save us in our sinful flesh. If he did not have the same flesh as we, then he did not defeat sin in our flesh -- it's as simple as that. Hence we are still in our sin and he did nothing to restore or revive us in his resurrection. Stated another way, if he was born with flesh other than our kind, which is "sinful," then he may have avoided sin in his kind of flesh, but he left us in the sin of ours; hence he is not our Savior.    According to the classic doctrine of spiritual death, "sinful flesh" is "spiritually dead" (read David's very helpful posting of Augustine on this). The term "sinful flesh" is thus itself a metaphor for the entire person living in a fallen state and a sin nature. And since this nature is spiritually dead, it has no ability or desire to seek God. It must be "quickened" before it can be restored and become "spiritually alive." The common belief is that we are made spiritually alive at the point that we are "born again." This is not a problem for a strict "Calvinist" because he believes that God determines who will be born again and, based upon that decree, reaches down, so to speak, and quickens those whom he wills to save, thus restoring them to spiritual life. But if one does not hold to this view, it presents a real problem: How can one who is dead make a free-will determination to believe and hence be born again so as to be made alive? Cadavers can not make choices, let alone act upon them. Hence those who are not strict Calvinists must equivocate at this point and treat the "spirit" aspect of personhood as if it were not so dead as to not be able to respond to God's call -- which is really to say that it is not dead at all, perhaps really sick: but not "spiritually" dead. Here the desire is to hold onto the classic language but not so tightly as to be true to or consistent with its ramifications. I say just drop the language; it holds no authority over us, since it is non-biblical terminology.   Now let's look again at Jesus. If Jesus was born with our sinful flesh, as the Scriptures attest, and if sinful flesh is spiritually dead, then he too had to have been spiritually dead in his sinful flesh, just as we are in our sinful flesh. Why? because he came in the likeness of our flesh. And so the obvious question is this: At what point did he become spiritually alive -- was it when he was circumcised? or as a boy at his bar mitzvah? was it at his baptism? his resurrection? when was it? Did he too have to be "born again" in order to become spiritually alive? When was his "spirit" revived?   I believe that Jesus was always spiritually alive and that from his earliest childhood, he was in intimate communion with his Father. He was acutely attuned to his spiritual dimension and allowed that aspect of his personhood to direct the other aspects. Hence he walked in faithfulness to his Father with every step, even "beating his way forward with blows," as Luke states it. In other words, there was not a time when he was not alive and living out his right relationship with his Father in absolute obedience. Yet if spiritual death is a requisite of personhood in sinful flesh, then this cannot be true; for either Christ had to have been "quickened" or born again in order to accomplish the things he did in his flesh, or he did not come to us as we are -- in the likeness of sinful flesh; hence he could not have saved us in our sinful state.   Bill