The text of the entire chapter puts your quote of a couple verses in context and describes what Paul is referring to regarding the human spirit. Your contention is therefore shown to be false.
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The Corruption of the Human Spirit
- Thread starter AustinC
- Start date
@Oseas3, Derf was making an assertion about the spirit of a man by using a couple verses from Romans 8. He is, I think, attempting to somehow support the contention with free will, but honestly, I think only Derf has a clue what, exactly, he is arguing.
I'm not sure how you can reply in the first place without answers to your questions.
Austin's question is in the OP.
This is not the actual OP question, and AustinC admits that there's not much discussion potential in the OP as written.
I think you were answering this question:
Which I'm ok if you want to answer that, but do it by more than just quoting verses. Tell us why you think those verses apply.
If you can't restate my contention in some form, after several requests to do so, how can you say that it is shown to be false? I have no idea what you think is false. I even tried to do your job for you and tell you what I think you think my contention is. Can you at least confirm or deny that my contention of what your contention is of what my contention is is correct?
Sai
Well-Known Member
The human spirit is dead and totally dead.
Sai
Well-Known Member
What does a dead spirit do (or not do)? Why do you feel the need to say "totally" dead? Doesn't that mean that you feel there are different levels "deadness" for spirits?
Maybe some spirits are "mostly dead"??
According to scripture the spiritual part of men is dead to God. However, it is capable of responding to the world the flesh and Satan. Which is the reason for idolatry, occultism, satanism in that order. For example, when the flesh produces art in the form of music, dancing, imaging, men often act in the directions that those things exhort. People are moved emotionally and psychologically and spiritually. So I suppose the spirit remains, within the body with a capacity to act but from God’s perspective it is as if we were carrying a dead body around, it’s as if we had a corpse inside our flesh.
Is that more accurate?
That's a great clarification, Sai!
Focusing on this particular statement: "According to scripture the spiritual part of men is dead to God", can you give me that scripture reference that says "the spiritual part of men is dead to God"? I've looked for it, and I can't find it. I understand that it might be in different language, like scriptural references to the Trinity, but I'm wondering if someone may have extrapolated too far in that concept of "spiritual death".
Let me explain where my thoughts have gone on this topic.
If men are born "spiritually dead", and they aren't born again before they die, then after a man dies both "spirit" and "body" are then dead, right? So what does a dead spirit and a dead body do? Well, dead things don't do anything, unless we redefine "death" to mean something that looks like life, where a spirit can be actively interacting with persons and environment in some fashion. And once we do that, does death mean death anymore?
There is a proposed third part of man, the "soul", that could be considered still alive, even after the body and spirit are dead. Jesus talks about this in Mat 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
This tells me
1. That the soul cannot be killed by men, and
2. That the soul is not currently dead in those that will be cast into hell, else it needs no destroying in hell
But there is a reasonable amount of disagreement in theological circles about the difference between the soul and the spirit. If the spirit is not the same as the soul, what is the spirit of a man? Do human spirits go to hell? why didn't Jesus say, "Fear him who can destroy body, soul, and spirit in hell"?
If the spirit is dead, then only the soul and body need to be destroyed in hell (for unbelievers), so that makes Jesus' words comprehendable, but I don't think it fits with our idea of human spirits.
So, what is the human spirit? what does "spiritual death" really mean? Is "spiritual death" a biblical term, or is part of a Christian dialect, introduced to help explain something someone didn't understand (and still doesn't, perhaps)?
I appreciate the admission that you don’t know what my contention was, and the resulting conclusion is that you couldn’t then say whether Rom 8 refutes my contention.
My contention is that it isn’t the spirit of the man that is dead, it is the man himself—his whole self. But his death isn’t a current state, but a future state—one that he cannot escape by any means of his own. His death—body, soul, and spirit—is a foregone conclusion.
But Jesus makes him alive again by paying his penalty (or receiving his wages) for him. That aliveness is also not a current thing, but a future hope, which in Christ is the same as a foregone conclusion.
Thus, the total inability isn’t because of a dead spirit, nor is it an inability to believe, but an inability to accomplish. Nothing a man can do will save him from death, but something Christ did can—His death on the cross. And that’s the ONLY thing that can save him. Not a special calling, nor a burning in the bosom.
We just have to believe in it, and Him, who takes away the sins of the world.
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Sounds like you are promoting annihilationism, like the Jehovah's Witness do.
Let us analyse by parts in accord the Word of God:
AustinC says: How corrupt is the Human Spirit...?
What is spirit? What I have learned from the LORD, this is what I testify. JESUS said that His words are spirit and life. So words are spirit, so we can say how corrupt are the human words(spirit).
Paul Apostle said: 1Cor.15:v.33 - 33 Be not deceived: evil communications (evil words) corrupt good manners. Revelation 16:v.13-14 - 13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the Dragon, and out of the mouth of the Beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 For they are the spirits of devils, ...
AustinC says: ... how much corruption is acceptable before God?
Acceptable or bearable before God? God does not accept any kind of corruption as I suppose Austin imagines. See this example: Gen.13:v.13 & 18:v.20-21 & 19:v.12-15.
Other example I quote here: 2Chr.36:v.16 - 16 But they mocked the messengers of God (by the words-the spirit-of their mouth), and despised His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.
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Derf B says: What does that corruption consist of?
Now, the corruption consists of adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, murders, blasphemies, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts and evil actions, in accord the spirits-the words- of Devil that dwells within a man.
Derf B says: How does one corrupt a spirit?
If I understood correctly, the question should be to the contrary, that is: How does a spirit corrupt one? There is a legion of spirits which can corrupt men, but men do not corrupt spirits, absolutely.
"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a MAN, he walks through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says: I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he comes, he finds it swept and garnished. Then goes he, and takes to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of the MAN is worse than the first".
In terms of a human being, "spirit" is/are word(s).
Who created man was God and He gave him the power of the speech or to speak, He made man through/by JESUS. God is Spirit -the Word is God- and the Spirit/God- is the Word.
He that is of the earth is earthly(even bestial), and speaks of the earth. But we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. The things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God.
Not like they do. And annihilationism might not be a correct description. What I’ve been thinking is that death is death—complete cessation of conscious thought, action, interaction. We don’t find any other definition of death in the Bible, at least not the first death.
But Christ resolved the death problem by defeating death. All people are raised from the dead, and death itself is thrown into the lake of fire—which I take to mean no one will ever “die” again. There is a second “death”, however, that is different from the first death that was thrown into the lake of fire. I.e., the lake of fire itself. This IS a definition that the Bible provides, twice (Revelation 20:14 (KJV) And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Revelation 21:8 (KJV) But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.), and it is necessary, because the first type of death was eradicated, so its definition can no longer apply.
There are 2 reasons why “annihilation” is not a correct description. 1. Because it is eventually reversed. 2. Because the reversal retains a link between the old man and the new resurrected man. But besides that, I don’t have a problem with annihilation—before the resurrection.
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So, you are arguing that both body and spirit are dead, not just corrupted by sin so that we don't have the ability to become holy, but actually, totally dead...both physically and spiritually? Is that your argument?
I don’t know that I see evidence of a “spiritual death” in the scripture. The term itself is not used. The evidence usually given, Some of which you’ve mentioned, can with a fair amount of ease be interpreted in other ways that fit better with other scriptures.
My argument is that we know what “death” is in every other case except our own, where we feel the need to redefine it to mean “partially dead”.
Speaking of the "dead" or death, let me to share with a biblical verse where our Lord said: "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead".
What is your interpretation of these two types of dead? mainly the "dead" that bury the dead.
I've already said that Paul seems to be using the phrase "dead in our trespasses and sins" to mean that we are as good as dead--death is unavoidable.
Jesus' use of the term "dead" doesn't seem too different from that. If someone walked away from Him, the source of everlasting life, to bury a dead person, the burier was as dead as the dead person--i.e., the alive person was heading toward death without any escape.
But there's another aspect of this. The man said he needed to bury his father--not his DEAD father. Some have suggested that his father was still alive and the son would be waiting for him to die before following Jesus--maybe because the father was not happy about his son following Jesus. Thus the supposed two types of "dead" may have been really just the one type of "dead"--the one I'm talking about, where the man who walks away from following Jesus (he was described as "one of Jesus disciples") is just as good as dead as the man who never followed Jesus in the first place, though neither of them was actually dead yet.
This is the problem we often have--that we read the scripture with a bias toward a particular understanding, and it's hard to step outside of our current understanding to see if there's a more accurate way to view the scripture.
I started reading your post with some skepticism about your definition of "spirit" as being "the words we speak". But by the time I finished, I had changed my mind somewhat. So thank you for your post!
I'm not quite ready to agree that "spirit" in scripture is always "the words we speak", but I'm fairy comfortable with the idea that the human "spirit" comprises our will/wants, which do come out in the words we speak. [Mat 15:11] 11 "Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man."
Now if we consider the corruption to be, as you said, "adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, murders, blasphemies", then our corrupted spirit would be that spirit that wants those things.
The question then would be, how much corruption of the spirit with those things would be enough for God not to be able to save us? I think the answer is that God can save anyone after any amount of those things. But He always seems to desire that we come to repentance, i.e. stop doing those things. And when "repentance" and "salvation" are mentioned in the same verse, repentance always precedes salvation.
[Luk 13:3 KJV] 3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
[Act 2:38 KJV] 38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
[Act 3:19 KJV] 19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
[Act 8:22 KJV] 22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
[Act 17:30 KJV] 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
[Rev 2:22 KJV] 22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
Friend, the way to have a more accurate view of Scriptures, and change your current understanding of the Word of God - the Word is God - God is Spirit -, it is possible only through/by the Holy Spirit, understand?
You, my friend, you have become a prisoner of your imaginations sneaking or meandering through the Scriptures in order to find support for your conjectures and ramblings, thus, you will not go anywhere because you are not interested in the revelation of the Holy Spirit, but in the self-satisfaction of finding exclusively from you to you some biblical content that gets in accord your biblical imaginations and ramblings.
There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are One.1John 5:v.7
Ephesians 2:v.1-10NIV
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins(For the wages of sin is death), 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world (world of Devil) and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Friend, JESUS said: no one can SEE the Kingdom of God unless they are born again.[a] Jesus said more: “Very truly I tell you, no one can ENTER the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. - God is Spirit -. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. John 3:v.3-6NIV
JESUS is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit -the Word- who testifies, because the Spirit -the Word- is the Truth. There are three that testify: 8 the[a] Spirit -the Word - , the water and the blood; and these three are in agreement. 1John 5:v.6-8NIV