Bible Study Faith

[Tenchi]

Walking in the Spirit is relying on the Holy Spirit to guide us in God's path of righteousness being in His will for us as a faithful servant. The Holy Spirit helps us to overcome temptations and helps us with the character traits like love, joy, peace and teaches us all truths found in the word of God as being led by the Holy Spirit.

Okay. So, what does it mean to "rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us in God's path of righteousness"? What does this look like, exactly?

How does the Holy Spirit help a child of God to overcome temptation? How does the believer know it's the Holy Spirit who has helped them and not just their own self-effort that they're mistaking for the "power of the Holy Spirit"?

How does the Spirit produce his life, his "fruit" in the person in whom he dwells? How can they know he's actually doing this? How can they tell that it's not just they, themselves, making a fleshly counterfeit of his "fruit"?

What does "being led of the Spirit" look like, exactly? How does he lead in a way that the believer can clearly discern as his leading and not just their own imagination?

we need to crucify this flesh with the affections and the lust that are within the natural man where the nature to sin exist, Galatians 5:22-25.

What does this mean? Paul wrote that he was already crucified with Christ as a result of being saved.

Romans 6:3-7
3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

Galatians 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Galatians 5:24
24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 6:14
14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Colossians 2:11-12
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;
12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Colossians 3:3
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

How does the born-again man who has been spiritually united with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, who has been "crucified with Christ," crucify himself? He has already been crucified; by being saved and thus "belonging to Christ," Paul wrote that he has "crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

What Paul wrote in Romans 7:18 seems to be about the same as what he wrote in Galatians 5:17 and Romans 8:5-8 that the flesh will always lust against the Spirit as the flesh is a hostile enemy against the Spirit.

Oh? Does this mean that our flesh is evil, then? This is what Gnostics believed.

Or, is the problem that our flesh is not properly controlled, that it is not controlled by the right Person? Apart from God, we control our flesh - or try to - but, because its impulses are so strong, we end up being controlled by our flesh rather than controlling it. This bondage to our flesh is helped by the fact that we are, without God, radically selfish, self-interested, beings. And so, when we follow our own will and way, when we are subject only to our self-interest, we become creatures "whose god is their belly." (Philippians 3:19). Is, then, the flesh our problem? Or is the Real Problem that we are in control of our flesh rather than our Maker?

Just like Paul, many of us struggle at times between the flesh and the Spirit, but it doesn't mean we are not Spiritually born again if we fall once in awhile. Jesus will always be there to pick us up and dust us off being our mediator between us and the Father as we repent, knowing that grace does not give us a license to sin.

I agree that saints sin. This fact is demonstrated all throughout the various letters of the NT. But as the born-again person learns to "walk in the Spirit," Paul wrote that they would cease to "fulfill the lusts of the flesh."

Galatians 5:16
16 This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Galatians 5:25
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

For the believer who has learned to "walk in the Spirit," sin becomes increasingly the exception in their life rather than the rule that it usually is. And as this is the case, fellowship with God expands and deepens, and He comes more and more clearly into view in all His excellence and glory. Is this your daily experience, for_his_glory?

Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

I believe that what was written in Isaiah 64:6-8 is for all generations not only Israel, but all of God's creation.

Well, people believe all sorts of things, true and false. What matters isn't that they believe some particular thing but that the thing they believe ought to be believed, that it is true. So, then, is it true, ought you to believe, that Isaiah 64:6-8 was intended for all human generations in all times and places? In Scripture, there are righteous, God-praised men like Job, Noah, Enoch, Daniel, David, Samuel, Elijah, Cornelius, and many others who were not at all as those Isaiah 64:6-8 describes. This fact defeats the idea that the passage is speaking universally, does it not? Isaiah is actually being rhetorically hyperbolic in an effort to make a point about the sinfulness of humanity. He is overstating the case in order to drive home what he is saying. The righteous men I just listed demonstrate this very clearly.

Job 1:1
1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one who feared God, and eschewed evil.

Genesis 6:8-9
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Ezekiel 14:14
14 even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves," declares the Lord GOD.

Acts 13:22
22 And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, who shall fulfill all my will.

Acts 10:1-2
1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band,
2 A devout man, and one who feared God with all his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always.

None of these men were born-again; none of them were constantly indwelt by the Holy Spirit after the manner of a post-Calvary Christian. And yet, they were, nonetheless, righteous men seeking God. So, then, is it correct to believe that Isaiah was speaking accurately in Isaiah 64:6-8 or hyperbolically? The latter seems to be the case, to me.

There are many seemingly good people who do good works, but yet reject Jesus as their Lord and Savior as they have not the Spirit of God in them.

Yes, I know. How does this answer my questions?

If one is Spiritually born again and indwelled with the Holy Spirit then it is Christ working in us and through us using our physical brain and body as we are His vessel that needs to be bringing glory and honor to His name, Ephesians 2:8-10; 2Timothy 2:14-21

Yes. Again, how does this answer my questions? It is with our physical bodies, our flesh, that we do righteous, God-honoring things. It is through our bodies of flesh that the Holy Spirit moves us to do so. How, then, are these good deeds not "works of the flesh" which you've contended are necessarily evil? It sounds to me in the quotation above that you don't actually think godly deeds done in, and with, the flesh are evil.

Luke 14:26, Picking up our cross to follow Jesus is to follow in His footsteps putting Him above everything that includes our parents, siblings, friends and even our own selves as that is what the word hate means in Luke 14:25-33. We pick up our cross and become His disciples here on earth.

How does all this allow you to "experience Jesus" as you said it does?

Here is a good website that explains this better than I can with more detail.

What caused the shift from "Faith Of Christ" to "Faith In Christ" in modern translations?

The phrase "Faith in Christ" can also be translated "Faith of Christ" (or "Faithfulness of Christ" [NET]): In the older school of translations of the Bible into English (I'll call them the "King J...

christianity.stackexchange.com

I enjoyed reading through the exchange. Thanks for posting the link to it! What I read, though, did not establish that "faith" is a superior translation of Galatians 5:22 than "faithfulness."

 

[for_his_glory]

Okay. So, what does it mean to "rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us in God's path of righteousness"? What does this look like, exactly?

How does the Holy Spirit help a child of God to overcome temptation? How does the believer know it's the Holy Spirit who has helped them and not just their own self-effort that they're mistaking for the "power of the Holy Spirit"?

How does the Spirit produce his life, his "fruit" in the person in whom he dwells? How can they know he's actually doing this? How can they tell that it's not just they, themselves, making a fleshly counterfeit of his "fruit"?

What does "being led of the Spirit" look like, exactly? How does he lead in a way that the believer can clearly discern as his leading and not just their own imagination?



What does this mean? Paul wrote that he was already crucified with Christ as a result of being saved.

Romans 6:3-7
3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

Galatians 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Galatians 5:24
24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 6:14
14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Colossians 2:11-12
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;
12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Colossians 3:3
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

How does the born-again man who has been spiritually united with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, who has been "crucified with Christ," crucify himself? He has already been crucified; by being saved and thus "belonging to Christ," Paul wrote that he has "crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."



Oh? Does this mean that our flesh is evil, then? This is what Gnostics believed.

Or, is the problem that our flesh is not properly controlled, that it is not controlled by the right Person? Apart from God, we control our flesh - or try to - but, because its impulses are so strong, we end up being controlled by our flesh rather than controlling it. This bondage to our flesh is helped by the fact that we are, without God, radically selfish, self-interested, beings. And so, when we follow our own will and way, when we are subject only to our self-interest, we become creatures "whose god is their belly." (Philippians 3:19). Is, then, the flesh our problem? Or is the Real Problem that we are in control of our flesh rather than our Maker?



I agree that saints sin. This fact is demonstrated all throughout the various letters of the NT. But as the born-again person learns to "walk in the Spirit," Paul wrote that they would cease to "fulfill the lusts of the flesh."

Galatians 5:16
16 This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Galatians 5:25
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

For the believer who has learned to "walk in the Spirit," sin becomes increasingly the exception in their life rather than the rule that it usually is. And as this is the case, fellowship with God expands and deepens, and He comes more and more clearly into view in all His excellence and glory. Is this your daily experience, for_his_glory?

Continued below.

Tenchi can you just post a couple questions at a time as this is way to much to go through and you already know the answers to your many questions.

I can sum all this up by saying one must be Spiritually born again from above and indwelled with the Holy Spirit, John 3:7-7; Romans 10:9-10; Acts 2. Faith comes by hearing the word of God, Romans 10:5-21, and being obedient to His word for this is a sign. We test the spirits that are teaching us if what they speak is error or truth, 1John 4:1-6.

Walking in the Holy Spirit is to walk in love and obedience to God's commandants as what this looks like is what is described within the fruits of the Spirit as an outward appearance that comes out of love for God and His Son Christ Jesus, Galatians 5:16-26.

Our flesh in it's self is not evil as God created us perfect, but since sin was introduced into the world all have fallen short of the glory of the Lord needing a Savior. Those who belong to Christ Jesus (the Messiah) have crucified the flesh (the godless human nature) with its passions and lusting desires, Galatians 5:24.

 

[Tenchi]

@Tenchi can you just post a couple questions at a time as this is way to much to go through and you already know the answers to your many questions.

Let me explain myself: You clearly have a bent toward teaching which you're trying to do here on CF.net. But, as a long-time teacher myself in a number of different capacities, I see in your instruction both lots of desire and potential but also a lot of confusing "Christianese" - slogans, and catch-phrases, and Christianity-specific terms that say something but often without actually saying anything. So, I'm probing these things in your posts by way of questions in the hopes of prompting you to a clearer, deeper and more biblically-robust understanding of what you're trying to teach.

When I pose questions to you, I've no expectation of an immediate reply. If you want to take days or weeks to respond, go right ahead. Or, if you just find my questions annoying, ignore them. That's perfectly fine, too.

I can sum all this up by saying one must be Spiritually born again from above and indwelled with the Holy Spirit, John 3:7-7; Romans 10:9-10; Acts 2.

Amen. Have you ever had to explain in detail to a new, curious and intelligent believer what these statements mean? These statements alone, at least in my experience, are never enough to satisfy them. They need and want explanations, not statements. A pedant offers statements of fact; a teacher, in contrast, provides explanations of facts. I hope you'll work to be a good teacher full of helpful and clear explanations, not a pedant.

 

[for_his_glory]

Let me explain myself: You clearly have a bent toward teaching which you're trying to do here on CF.net. But, as a long-time teacher myself in a number of different capacities, I see in your instruction both lots of desire and potential but also a lot of confusing "Christianese" - slogans, and catch-phrases, and Christianity-specific terms that say something but often without actually saying anything. So, I'm probing these things in your posts by way of questions in the hopes of prompting you to a clearer, deeper and more biblically-robust understanding of what you're trying to teach.

When I pose questions to you, I've no expectation of an immediate reply. If you want to take days or weeks to respond, go right ahead. Or, if you just find my questions annoying, ignore them. That's perfectly fine, too.



Amen. Have you ever had to explain in detail to a new, curious and intelligent believer what these statements mean? These statements alone, at least in my experience, are never enough to satisfy them. They need and want explanations, not statements. A pedant offers statements of fact; a teacher, in contrast, provides explanations of facts. I hope you'll work to be a good teacher full of helpful and clear explanations, not a pedant.

I'm sorry you see what the Holy Spirit gives me to teach from the word of God to be so confusing and hard to understand in your opinion, but I try to bring these teachings to a level that even a child could understand. So many love to use big fancy words that even I have never heard of and have to look them up in order to understand what they are talking about.

I've been teaching the word of God in all simplicity for over 27 years, starting out as a license Evangelist going into the Prisons teaching the word of God to others and seen before me how God worked through me to bring many to Christ and even here in personal PM's since 2011 so I would think my type of teaching the word of God is pretty much effective just how it is.

 

[Hopeful 2]

Okay. So, what does it mean to "rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us in God's path of righteousness"? What does this look like, exactly?

It looks like a life lived without sin.

How does the Holy Spirit help a child of God to overcome temptation?

You'll have to ask the Holy Spirit how He does it.

How does the believer know it's the Holy Spirit who has helped them and not just their own self-effort that they're mistaking for the "power of the Holy Spirit"?

As long as God is getting the credit, why would it matter how He did it ?

How does the Spirit produce his life, his "fruit" in the person in whom he dwells? How can they know he's actually doing this? How can they tell that it's not just they, themselves, making a fleshly counterfeit of his "fruit"?

The Spirit does it by changing the old man into the new creature.

What does "being led of the Spirit" look like, exactly? How does he lead in a way that the believer can clearly discern as his leading and not just their own imagination?

It looks like a life lived without sinning.
As to how He does it...He is God with whom nothing is impossible.

What does this mean? Paul wrote that he was already crucified with Christ as a result of being saved.

Where does he say "saved" ?

Romans 6:3-7
3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

Galatians 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Galatians 5:24
24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 6:14
14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Colossians 2:11-12
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;
12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Colossians 3:3
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

How does the born-again man who has been spiritually united with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, who has been "crucified with Christ," crucify himself? He has already been crucified; by being saved and thus "belonging to Christ," Paul wrote that he has "crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

Men don't crucify themselves.
They are water baptized into Christ's death, burial, and resurrected with Him to walk in newness of life.

Oh? Does this mean that our flesh is evil, then? This is what Gnostics believed.

Flesh, in one sense, is just skin and bones.
In another sense, flesh refers to the worldly oriented mind.
To which are you referring ?

Or, is the problem that our flesh is not properly controlled, that it is not controlled by the right Person? Apart from God, we control our flesh - or try to - but, because its impulses are so strong, we end up being controlled by our flesh rather than controlling it. This bondage to our flesh is helped by the fact that we are, without God, radically selfish, self-interested, beings. And so, when we follow our own will and way, when we are subject only to our self-interest, we become creatures "whose god is their belly." (Philippians 3:19). Is, then, the flesh our problem? Or is the Real Problem that we are in control of our flesh rather than our Maker?

If one is, as you wrote, apart from God, they are on their own.

I agree that saints sin. This fact is demonstrated all throughout the various letters of the NT. But as the born-again person learns to "walk in the Spirit," Paul wrote that they would cease to "fulfill the lusts of the flesh."

People that are apart from God, commit sin.
Those walking in Him don't commit sin, as there is no sin in God.

Galatians 5:16
16 This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:25
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
For the believer who has learned to "walk in the Spirit," sin becomes increasingly the exception in their life rather than the rule that it usually is.

Sin becomes an impossibility for those walking in the Spirit.
Men can't introduce sin into the Spirit in which they walk.