The Body of Christ

[leroy]

For most of my Christian experience I was given to believe that the term, "The Body of Christ" was something like a student body, but a spiritual term.
However, I have come to believe that the body of Christ is literally my body and your body which belongs to him because he lives within our bodies. God who is a Spirit Being, created for His habitation. We are an earthen vessel, a living temple. This faculty with which we were created has been hijacked by dark forces and do so to control people. There are those mentioned in scripture who were possessed of demons. They actually took up residence within a human body, in the place created for God to dwell. At times they used a persons mouth to speak or caused them to do things that the person had no control over.
Would it be correct to say that these individuals were "the body of Satan"?
As to the literal body of Christ being our physical body, I want to offer some texts that lead me to this conclusion.

1) "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Eph. 1:22,23 AV
Jesus is declared to be the head of the body of the Son of God and you and I comprise everything from the neck down, so to speak.
2) "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Eph. 5:30 AV
This text is clearly stating that our flesh and bones are actually the physical human body of the Son of God. It belongs to Him. He created it and redeemed it for His own habitation.
3) "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ...For the body is not one member, but many...Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."
1 Cor.12:12,14, 27 AV
Paul is comparing the human body which is made up of many different parts as an example of the body of Christ. The compelling part of this text, "... so also is Christ. Christ has a body and it is comprised of every believer, a multi-membered body filled with one Spirit.
He is the Seed of the woman in Gen. 3:15 which gives me cause to believe that this promise of victory and the promise in John 3:16 was actually fulfilled in Eden.
4) "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ....And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal 3:16&29 AV
Paul makes it clear that the Seed and Christ are one in the same, and there is only one Seed. yet in the end of the chapter he says that if we belong to Christ then we are the Seed or we are Christ. That is to say that there is only one Seed and only one body, it is Christ's body.
"And if Christ be in you, the body (our mortal body) is dead because of sin; (for it died by sin in Eden) but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Rom. 8:10,11

We were created with the ability to love and obey our Creator, to hear Him and think His thoughts after Him. Also there was placed within us a desire to reach out to Him. However, something did die in Eden on that fateful day. Love and all that followed in its train died and it was replaced with fear, hostility and fleshly desire. If we consider all that the scriptures say about the condition of the carnal mind and heart, that it is at war with God and filled with hatred (emnity) toward God, then it must be so that we were lost without any hope of returning to God of our own accord. That is why God gave us His Son to replace that which was lost.

Consider the amazing gift that the Father promised in Gen. 3:15 and John 3:16. It was ready and available for our first parents. As soon as there was sin there was a Saviour. Does it not say in Revelation that He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world?
The plan of redemption was not an after thought but was established before the creation of this world. In this divine plan the Son had covenanted to lay down His life; all His prerogatives as God and become helpless and dependent upon the Father for everything in order to give us His divine life to replace what we lost through disobedience.
However, He did bring some gifts with Him. There is a love for the Father in the life that He brings. He also gives the ability to obey the Father. If we will be quiet and listen He will be our spiritual ears and we will know the will of the Father for our every day living. We may vicariously feel the longing and drawn out heart of the Son.
Without this gift our first parents and all of humanity would be totally under the control of Satan.
Therefore I had to accept that Adam and Eve were the first members of the human body of Christ, the Son of God.
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:11,12
We can clearly see that eternal life is not some quality or substance that God doles out to those who are saved. Eternal life is a quality only found in God. The eternal life that is promised is in the Son and those who are dead to self and yielded to Christ will live eternally through His life for He will remain within for ever.

Here is a thought to ponder. The Son sacrificed His life to live only within the redeemed forever and the only place the Father will ever see His Son again is when He looks into the eyes of those who have been redeemed from the earth, for it is within these souls that He has taken up an eternal residence. The gift of the Father to a fallen world and the voluntary sacrifice of the Son to be our life was an eternal sacrifice for both of them. The intimate union and relationship that existed between the Father and the Son will be the never ending pursuit, and ceaseless approaching unto the Father through the Son who dwells within. The Son within will draw each soul closer and closer throughout eternal ages to that intimate oneness that only He and the Father knew.
Like a multifaceted gem stone reflects a different part of the light, so each soul may express only a small part of the Son's eternal beauty, and for every soul that is lost that aspect of the Son will not be revealed. That is why God takes no delight in the death of the wicked.

 

[Vinny37]

For most of my Christian experience I was given to believe that the term, "The Body of Christ" was something like a student body, but a spiritual term.
However, I have come to believe that the body of Christ is literally my body and your body which belongs to him because he lives within our bodies. God who is a Spirit Being, created for His habitation. We are an earthen vessel, a living temple. This faculty with which we were created has been hijacked by dark forces and do so to control people. There are those mentioned in scripture who were possessed of demons. They actually took up residence within a human body, in the place created for God to dwell. At times they used a persons mouth to speak or caused them to do things that the person had no control over.
Would it be correct to say that these individuals were "the body of Satan"?
As to the literal body of Christ being our physical body, I want to offer some texts that lead me to this conclusion.

1) "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Eph. 1:22,23 AV
Jesus is declared to be the head of the body of the Son of God and you and I comprise everything from the neck down, so to speak.
2) "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Eph. 5:30 AV
This text is clearly stating that our flesh and bones are actually the physical human body of the Son of God. It belongs to Him. He created it and redeemed it for His own habitation.
3) "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ...For the body is not one member, but many...Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."
1 Cor.12:12,14, 27 AV
Paul is comparing the human body which is made up of many different parts as an example of the body of Christ. The compelling part of this text, "... so also is Christ. Christ has a body and it is comprised of every believer, a multi-membered body filled with one Spirit.
He is the Seed of the woman in Gen. 3:15 which gives me cause to believe that this promise of victory and the promise in John 3:16 was actually fulfilled in Eden.
4) "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ....And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal 3:16&29 AV
Paul makes it clear that the Seed and Christ are one in the same, and there is only one Seed. yet in the end of the chapter he says that if we belong to Christ then we are the Seed or we are Christ. That is to say that there is only one Seed and only one body, it is Christ's body.
"And if Christ be in you, the body (our mortal body) is dead because of sin; (for it died by sin in Eden) but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Rom. 8:10,11

We were created with the ability to love and obey our Creator, to hear Him and think His thoughts after Him. Also there was placed within us a desire to reach out to Him. However, something did die in Eden on that fateful day. Love and all that followed in its train died and it was replaced with fear, hostility and fleshly desire. If we consider all that the scriptures say about the condition of the carnal mind and heart, that it is at war with God and filled with hatred (emnity) toward God, then it must be so that we were lost without any hope of returning to God of our own accord. That is why God gave us His Son to replace that which was lost.

Consider the amazing gift that the Father promised in Gen. 3:15 and John 3:16. It was ready and available for our first parents. As soon as there was sin there was a Saviour. Does it not say in Revelation that He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world?
The plan of redemption was not an after thought but was established before the creation of this world. In this divine plan the Son had covenanted to lay down His life; all His prerogatives as God and become helpless and dependent upon the Father for everything in order to give us His divine life to replace what we lost through disobedience.
However, He did bring some gifts with Him. There is a love for the Father in the life that He brings. He also gives the ability to obey the Father. If we will be quiet and listen He will be our spiritual ears and we will know the will of the Father for our every day living. We may vicariously feel the longing and drawn out heart of the Son.
Without this gift our first parents and all of humanity would be totally under the control of Satan.
Therefore I had to accept that Adam and Eve were the first members of the human body of Christ, the Son of God.
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:11,12
We can clearly see that eternal life is not some quality or substance that God doles out to those who are saved. Eternal life is a quality only found in God. The eternal life that is promised is in the Son and those who are dead to self and yielded to Christ will live eternally through His life for He will remain within for ever.

Here is a thought to ponder. The Son sacrificed His life to live only within the redeemed forever and the only place the Father will ever see His Son again is when He looks into the eyes of those who have been redeemed from the earth, for it is within these souls that He has taken up an eternal residence. The gift of the Father to a fallen world and the voluntary sacrifice of the Son to be our life was an eternal sacrifice for both of them. The intimate union and relationship that existed between the Father and the Son will be the never ending pursuit, and ceaseless approaching unto the Father through the Son who dwells within. The Son within will draw each soul closer and closer throughout eternal ages to that intimate oneness that only He and the Father knew.
Like a multifaceted gem stone reflects a different part of the light, so each soul may express only a small part of the Son's eternal beauty, and for every soul that is lost that aspect of the Son will not be revealed. That is why God takes no delight in the death of the wicked.

The body of Christ?

Just a few thoughts:

For my part, apart from Christ’s literal body whatever its current dimensional abode, I don’t think that we are literally indwelt by him or by any third-party spirits whether good or evil, as if some autopsy could isolate them indwelling our physical frame—the midi-chlorian idea. I think it’s a case of imagery where our physical bodies are likened to tents, as if we allow fellow travellers to journey with us. By extension, the idea is of influence: eg we are to walk in step with the spirit (LSB: Gal.5:25).

We may say that demonisation is demonic influence to a marked degree above the merely evil world, a takeover. We must avoid the paganism of imagining Satan to have his own physical body, but I think it OK in principle to speak of individuals together comprising ‘a/the body of Satan’, a/the church or synagogue of Satan (Rv.2:9), a network controller, demonised at least in their worldview and allegiance.

We may say that divinisation is deity ‘in us’, deific influence, and us ‘in deity’ being our influence on deity—interaction while in our tent life (2 Pt.1:13): https://archive.org/details/the-fat...-heart-231212/page/184/mode/1up?q="Spirit+in". But factoring in what C S Lewis called the asymmetrical relationship of we being creatures, and deity being creator, us ‘in’ deity is also and perhaps primarily our identity-base—not our influence—whereas deity isn’t ‘in’ us as its identity-base, and we are neither called the father’s body nor his bride: trinitarian distinctions. The ‘body’, the tent, can be deity’s influence over any local church, and the church worldwide.

BTW Eph.5:30 lacks “flesh and bones” (σαρξ/οστεων), a scribal addition to the text—J N Darby flagged it as textually suspect. However, if treated as metonymy for body (σωμα), the phrase is simple repetition, and contextually no term implies physicality. The bride of Christ, eg, is not a physical bride but a metaphysical one.

BTW, whether or not Rv.13:8 says that the lamb was slain before Earth’s foundations, is moot: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation 13:8&version=NET

 

[Hopeful 2]

For most of my Christian experience I was given to believe that the term, "The Body of Christ" was something like a student body, but a spiritual term.
However, I have come to believe that the body of Christ is literally my body and your body which belongs to him because he lives within our bodies. God who is a Spirit Being, created for His habitation. We are an earthen vessel, a living temple. This faculty with which we were created has been hijacked by dark forces and do so to control people. There are those mentioned in scripture who were possessed of demons. They actually took up residence within a human body, in the place created for God to dwell. At times they used a persons mouth to speak or caused them to do things that the person had no control over.
Would it be correct to say that these individuals were "the body of Satan"?
As to the literal body of Christ being our physical body, I want to offer some texts that lead me to this conclusion.

1) "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Eph. 1:22,23 AV
Jesus is declared to be the head of the body of the Son of God and you and I comprise everything from the neck down, so to speak.
2) "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Eph. 5:30 AV
This text is clearly stating that our flesh and bones are actually the physical human body of the Son of God. It belongs to Him. He created it and redeemed it for His own habitation.
3) "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ...For the body is not one member, but many...Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."
1 Cor.12:12,14, 27 AV
Paul is comparing the human body which is made up of many different parts as an example of the body of Christ. The compelling part of this text, "... so also is Christ. Christ has a body and it is comprised of every believer, a multi-membered body filled with one Spirit.
He is the Seed of the woman in Gen. 3:15 which gives me cause to believe that this promise of victory and the promise in John 3:16 was actually fulfilled in Eden.
4) "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ....And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal 3:16&29 AV
Paul makes it clear that the Seed and Christ are one in the same, and there is only one Seed. yet in the end of the chapter he says that if we belong to Christ then we are the Seed or we are Christ. That is to say that there is only one Seed and only one body, it is Christ's body.
"And if Christ be in you, the body (our mortal body) is dead because of sin; (for it died by sin in Eden) but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Rom. 8:10,11

We were created with the ability to love and obey our Creator, to hear Him and think His thoughts after Him. Also there was placed within us a desire to reach out to Him. However, something did die in Eden on that fateful day. Love and all that followed in its train died and it was replaced with fear, hostility and fleshly desire. If we consider all that the scriptures say about the condition of the carnal mind and heart, that it is at war with God and filled with hatred (emnity) toward God, then it must be so that we were lost without any hope of returning to God of our own accord. That is why God gave us His Son to replace that which was lost.

Consider the amazing gift that the Father promised in Gen. 3:15 and John 3:16. It was ready and available for our first parents. As soon as there was sin there was a Saviour. Does it not say in Revelation that He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world?
The plan of redemption was not an after thought but was established before the creation of this world. In this divine plan the Son had covenanted to lay down His life; all His prerogatives as God and become helpless and dependent upon the Father for everything in order to give us His divine life to replace what we lost through disobedience.
However, He did bring some gifts with Him. There is a love for the Father in the life that He brings. He also gives the ability to obey the Father. If we will be quiet and listen He will be our spiritual ears and we will know the will of the Father for our every day living. We may vicariously feel the longing and drawn out heart of the Son.
Without this gift our first parents and all of humanity would be totally under the control of Satan.
Therefore I had to accept that Adam and Eve were the first members of the human body of Christ, the Son of God.
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:11,12
We can clearly see that eternal life is not some quality or substance that God doles out to those who are saved. Eternal life is a quality only found in God. The eternal life that is promised is in the Son and those who are dead to self and yielded to Christ will live eternally through His life for He will remain within for ever.

Here is a thought to ponder. The Son sacrificed His life to live only within the redeemed forever and the only place the Father will ever see His Son again is when He looks into the eyes of those who have been redeemed from the earth, for it is within these souls that He has taken up an eternal residence. The gift of the Father to a fallen world and the voluntary sacrifice of the Son to be our life was an eternal sacrifice for both of them. The intimate union and relationship that existed between the Father and the Son will be the never ending pursuit, and ceaseless approaching unto the Father through the Son who dwells within. The Son within will draw each soul closer and closer throughout eternal ages to that intimate oneness that only He and the Father knew.
Like a multifaceted gem stone reflects a different part of the light, so each soul may express only a small part of the Son's eternal beauty, and for every soul that is lost that aspect of the Son will not be revealed. That is why God takes no delight in the death of the wicked.

I agree with you 100%...if your "thought to ponder" is omitted.
I especially liked the Eph 5:30 reference.

Welcome to the site...neighbor.

 

[leroy]

The body of Christ?

Just a few thoughts:

For my part, apart from Christ’s literal body whatever its current dimensional abode, I don’t think that we are literally indwelt by him or by any third-party spirits whether good or evil, as if some autopsy could isolate them indwelling our physical frame—the midi-chlorian idea. I think it’s a case of imagery where our physical bodies are likened to tents, as if we allow fellow travellers to journey with us. By extension, the idea is of influence: eg we are to walk in step with the spirit (LSB: Gal.5:25).

We may say that demonisation is demonic influence to a marked degree above the merely evil world, a takeover. We must avoid the paganism of imagining Satan to have his own physical body, but I think it OK in principle to speak of individuals together comprising ‘a/the body of Satan’, a/the church or synagogue of Satan (Rv.2:9), a network controller, demonised at least in their worldview and allegiance.

We may say that divinisation is deity ‘in us’, deific influence, and us ‘in deity’ being our influence on deity—interaction while in our tent life (2 Pt.1:13): https://archive.org/details/the-fathers-gone-global-exploring-gods-heart-231212/page/184/mode/1up?q="Spirit+in". But factoring in what C S Lewis called the asymmetrical relationship of we being creatures, and deity being creator, us ‘in’ deity is also and perhaps primarily our identity-base—not our influence—whereas deity isn’t ‘in’ us as its identity-base, and we are neither called the father’s body nor his bride: trinitarian distinctions. The ‘body’, the tent, can be deity’s influence over any local church, and the church worldwide.

BTW Eph.5:30 lacks “flesh and bones” (σαρξ/οστεων), a scribal addition to the text—J N Darby flagged it as textually suspect. However, if treated as metonymy for body (σωμα), the phrase is simple repetition, and contextually no term implies physicality. The bride of Christ, eg, is not a physical bride but a metaphysical one.

BTW, whether or not Rv.13:8 says that the lamb was slain before Earth’s foundations, is moot: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation 13:8&version=NET

 

[leroy]

I hope this will be received with the spirit of concern and a desire to reach for higher ground within which I write it.
As I read the references posted, I was left with the notion that so called higher education has a way of weaving a tangle of words to explain away the plain word of God with its life and power, so that it is brought to earthly nothingness.
As I have meditated on the scriptures through the years, I find doors open before me with greater light on a given subject that is wonderfully simple yet gives me glimpses of sublime themes that inter lock with other truths that were, prior to that moment of revelation hidden in plain sight.
Jesus prayer in John 17 is filled with the most hopeful and uplifting words that we who have been so degraded after thousands of years of sin are being brought up into oneness with our Creator. We cannot be fixed that is why death is our end. the grave consumes what we have created in cooperation with the adversary. Only the character and our faith will survive the tomb. Those who leave this earth without passing through the grave will have mortified every last element of Satans creations with the help of the Spirit who reveals the dysfunction and renders the remedy. Then Christ will be glorified in his saints. This last generation will vindicate God in His work of redemption, what a massive privilege and responsibility. I suggest that you lay aside these "scholars" and wait on Father to comfort your soul with His hidden mysteries. Thank you for your reply.

 

[leroy]

I agree with you 100%...if your "thought to ponder" is omitted.
I especially liked the Eph 5:30 reference.

Welcome to the site...neighbor.

Can we explore the "thought to ponder"? I would appreciate reading your thoughts on the matter and have a conversation. I have hungered for some time to have a thoughtful exchange over the things that have come to me through the years, that is why I have come here.

 

[Hopeful 2]

Can we explore the "thought to ponder"? I would appreciate reading your thoughts on the matter and have a conversation. I have hungered for some time to have a thoughtful exchange over the things that have come to me through the years, that is why I have come here.

The part I had trouble with was..."The Son sacrificed His life to live only within the redeemed forever and the only place the Father will ever see His Son again is when He looks into the eyes of those who have been redeemed from the earth,..."
Don't you think that Jesus is viewable by Father who sits in the same throne ?

 

[for_his_glory]

One Body with Many Members
1Co 12:12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
1Co 12:13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
1Co 12:14 For the body is not one member, but many.
1Co 12:15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
1Co 12:16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
1Co 12:17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
1Co 12:18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
1Co 12:19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?
1Co 12:20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.
1Co 12:21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
1Co 12:22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
1Co 12:23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
1Co 12:24 For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked:
1Co 12:25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
1Co 12:26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
1Co 12:27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

 

[leroy]

The part I had trouble with was..."The Son sacrificed His life to live only within the redeemed forever and the only place the Father will ever see His Son again is when He looks into the eyes of those who have been redeemed from the earth,..."
Don't you think that Jesus is viewable by Father who sits in the same throne ?

At first this may sound blasphemous and will require a paradigm shift, but the end of it is actually quite glorious for all of us.
Would it be difficult to accept that the human son of Mary was inhabited by the Son of God a divine Spirit Being? Jesus being the head of this human body would be no different than the rest of us. When the father looks into his eyes he would also see his divine son living within him as well. Humanity was combined with divinity in him as it should be with every redeemed soul.
I believe this is the essence of the marriage of the lamb or the incarnation where humanity and divinity become one.....in all of us. What Jesus expressed in his life is an example for all of us to have. A life fully given over and controlled by God himself where His will becomes our will, His thoughts become our thoughts and the actions of our lives are the natural outflowing of the will of God. This is such a glorious thought, this is redemption. We are not left to be the toy of the devil but new creatures in Christ instilled with the power of victory through all of our struggles, that we might by faith take hold of the divine life and live as Jesus lived. This was the purpose of his life. Isn't that something wonderful and glorious to consider?
Our redemption depends on having the life of the Son living in us. "This is the record that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son (dwelling within) has life"... 1 John 5:11,12 . " We were created for habitation by God. I believe Jesus was selected to show us what it means to be fully inhabited, controlled and led by the Son of God within through the power of the Father so that we might see what it means to be filled with God and live as Mary's son did.
He did not die on the cross so that we don't have to die, but he did it to show us how it is done. That is why he told us to take up our cross and follow him. The Son cannot express His life through us unless we lay our life down, daily, moment by moment. Christ in us is the hope of glory. Paul said he was dead, he was crucified with Christ nevertheless he was alive but there was someone else who's doing the living in and through him.
The lineage of Jesus according to the flesh is in Luke 3:23- onward. It says that Joseph was the son of Heli but in the margin of my Bible it says son-in-law. The first chapter of Matthew is the actual lineage of Joseph. Luke 3 is Mary's lineage and it goes all the way back to Adam which is very significant.
I would have to consider the origin of Jesus to come from the body of Mary, from her ovaries. (Bear with me here as I have no scripture)
I don't think that our Father turned his Son into a human embryo and put him in Mary's uterus because that would mean his flesh came from a different source than ours and that is significant. In the first chapter of Romans it describes Jesus as being from the seed of David according to the flesh. This seems to imply genetics and heritage characteristics.
"Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: Rom. 1:3,4 AV
The Bible states that God is a spirit. I will not attempt to define what a spirit being consists of. But we do know that a spirit may inhabit and control humanity.
So I had to come to the conclusion that Jesus was fully human and a descendent of Adam meaning he had to deal with fallen flash and all the temptations that come with it and bear the weight of the evil in all of his ancestors. As the Son lives within all humanity He bears the weight of the sins of the whole world and faces crucifixion daily in the disobedient. Heb. 6:6
But where did His divinity come from? The Son of God who is a Spirit Being inhabited the human son of Mary the two became one, divinity and humanity combined.
I know this is going to raise a lot more questions and I want to deal with them but this could become an epic book if I just assumed and wrote everything that is upon my heart so I will leave you to dwell on this alone in your closet with Father. Please ask your questions as I assume there are many. I would like to explore this further with you.

 

[Hopeful 2]

At first this may sound blasphemous and will require a paradigm shift, but the end of it is actually quite glorious for all of us.
Would it be difficult to accept that the human son of Mary was inhabited by the Son of God a divine Spirit Being?

Yes, it would be difficult to believe.
Jesus was the Word made flesh.
Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus being the head of this human body would be no different than the rest of us. When the father looks into his eyes he would also see his divine son living within him as well. Humanity was combined with divinity in him as it should be with every redeemed soul.
I believe this is the essence of the marriage of the lamb or the incarnation where humanity and divinity become one.....in all of us. What Jesus expressed in his life is an example for all of us to have. A life fully given over and controlled by God himself where His will becomes our will, His thoughts become our thoughts and the actions of our lives are the natural outflowing of the will of God. This is such a glorious thought, this is redemption. We are not left to be the toy of the devil but new creatures in Christ instilled with the power of victory through all of our struggles, that we might by faith take hold of the divine life and live as Jesus lived. This was the purpose of his life. Isn't that something wonderful and glorious to consider?
Our redemption depends on having the life of the Son living in us. "This is the record that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son (dwelling within) has life"... 1 John 5:11,12 . " We were created for habitation by God. I believe Jesus was selected to show us what it means to be fully inhabited, controlled and led by the Son of God within through the power of the Father so that we might see what it means to be filled with God and live as Mary's son did.
He did not die on the cross so that we don't have to die, but he did it to show us how it is done. That is why he told us to take up our cross and follow him. The Son cannot express His life through us unless we lay our life down, daily, moment by moment. Christ in us is the hope of glory. Paul said he was dead, he was crucified with Christ nevertheless he was alive but there was someone else who's doing the living in and through him.
The lineage of Jesus according to the flesh is in Luke 3:23- onward. It says that Joseph was the son of Heli but in the margin of my Bible it says son-in-law. The first chapter of Matthew is the actual lineage of Joseph. Luke 3 is Mary's lineage and it goes all the way back to Adam which is very significant.
I would have to consider the origin of Jesus to come from the body of Mary, from her ovaries. (Bear with me here as I have no scripture)
I don't think that our Father turned his Son into a human embryo and put him in Mary's uterus because that would mean his flesh came from a different source than ours and that is significant. In the first chapter of Romans it describes Jesus as being from the seed of David according to the flesh. This seems to imply genetics and heritage characteristics.
"Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: Rom. 1:3,4 AV
The Bible states that God is a spirit. I will not attempt to define what a spirit being consists of. But we do know that a spirit may inhabit and control humanity.
So I had to come to the conclusion that Jesus was fully human and a descendent of Adam meaning he had to deal with fallen flash and all the temptations that come with it and bear the weight of the evil in all of his ancestors. As the Son lives within all humanity He bears the weight of the sins of the whole world and faces crucifixion daily in the disobedient. Heb. 6:6
But where did His divinity come from? The Son of God who is a Spirit Being inhabited the human son of Mary the two became one, divinity and humanity combined.
I know this is going to raise a lot more questions and I want to deal with them but this could become an epic book if I just assumed and wrote everything that is upon my heart so I will leave you to dwell on this alone in your closet with Father. Please ask your questions as I assume there are many. I would like to explore this further with you.

 

[leroy]

Yes, it would be difficult to believe.
Jesus was the Word made flesh.
Jesus is the Son of God.

You wrote: "Jesus was the Word made flesh".
My question was how did this flesh come about? Romans 1:3 tells us.
"Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;" Luke 3 begining at verse 23 Gives Mary's genealogy all the way back David and continues on back to Adam.
As I read it seems to clearly imply that Jesus was a child of Adam just as you or I. His genetics and heredity were passed on to Mary. He was born a human being and filled with Son.

Why do you find it difficult to believe that the Son of God a spirit being could inhabit Jesus and so identify with him that the two would become one?

I do not say this to make Jesus less than what he actually was. The beauty I see in all of this is that the Father gave his Son to the world not to just one human for 33 years, but he gave his son to everyone of us. Without His Son living in us we would have absolutely no possible chance to turn back to God. Our carnal heart would be at war with God. From what I read, if we did not have the Son we could not have life. We could not desire or love God. And obedience could never happen. God could not fix us or give us a new human life again so that we could start over. Our human life had to die so that a new creature could be born. We did not lose our humanity but our life is the life of the Son of God. first John chapter 5:11,12 tells us this. First John 3:9 declares that we are given the seed (His Son) and He remains in us. 1Pet. 1:23 repeats this truth but adds that the living and abiding lasts forever. The Son must remain with us and in us forever because He is the only life we have.
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever."
Mary's son could not live in us because he is human too. The spirit of the Son that lived in him can and does live in us. Only a spirit Being can live in us. Jesus was the example of what a redeemed human looks like.
You seem to be the only one who has any grasp on these matters. Take what I have said to your closit an see what Father says.

 

[Hopeful 2]

You wrote: "Jesus was the Word made flesh".
My question was how did this flesh come about? Romans 1:3 tells us.
"Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;" Luke 3 begining at verse 23 Gives Mary's genealogy all the way back David and continues on back to Adam.
As I read it seems to clearly imply that Jesus was a child of Adam just as you or I. His genetics and heredity were passed on to Mary. He was born a human being and filled with Son.

Mary was the child of Adam.
Jesus was the Son of God and of Mary.
He had all the fleshly, physical, aspects of Adam, but also the spirit of His Godly Father.

Why do you find it difficult to believe that the Son of God a spirit being could inhabit Jesus and so identify with him that the two would become one?

Jesus wasn't "inhabited" by anything.
He was the Word who put on flesh.

I do not say this to make Jesus less than what he actually was. The beauty I see in all of this is that the Father gave his Son to the world not to just one human for 33 years, but he gave his son to everyone of us. Without His Son living in us we would have absolutely no possible chance to turn back to God. Our carnal heart would be at war with God. From what I read, if we did not have the Son we could not have life. We could not desire or love God. And obedience could never happen. God could not fix us or give us a new human life again so that we could start over. Our human life had to die so that a new creature could be born. We did not lose our humanity but our life is the life of the Son of God. first John chapter 5:11,12 tells us this. First John 3:9 declares that we are given the seed (His Son) and He remains in us. 1Pet. 1:23 repeats this truth but adds that the living and abiding lasts forever. The Son must remain with us and in us forever because He is the only life we have.
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever."
Mary's son could not live in us because he is human too. The spirit of the Son that lived in him can and does live in us. Only a spirit Being can live in us. Jesus was the example of what a redeemed human looks like.
You seem to be the only one who has any grasp on these matters. Take what I have said to your closit an see what Father says.

You seem to be consigning Jesus to a single role.
Flesh bound being.
But He is also the Spirit that He sent back to the repentant.
Remember, He couldn't send the Spirit until He was gone up to heaven.
Jesus is as much the Holy Spirit as He is God.

 

[Carry_Your_Name]

For most of my Christian experience I was given to believe that the term, "The Body of Christ" was something like a student body, but a spiritual term.
However, I have come to believe that the body of Christ is literally my body and your body which belongs to him because he lives within our bodies. God who is a Spirit Being, created for His habitation. We are an earthen vessel, a living temple. This faculty with which we were created has been hijacked by dark forces and do so to control people. There are those mentioned in scripture who were possessed of demons. They actually took up residence within a human body, in the place created for God to dwell. At times they used a persons mouth to speak or caused them to do things that the person had no control over.
Would it be correct to say that these individuals were "the body of Satan"?
As to the literal body of Christ being our physical body, I want to offer some texts that lead me to this conclusion.

1) "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Eph. 1:22,23 AV
Jesus is declared to be the head of the body of the Son of God and you and I comprise everything from the neck down, so to speak.
2) "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Eph. 5:30 AV
This text is clearly stating that our flesh and bones are actually the physical human body of the Son of God. It belongs to Him. He created it and redeemed it for His own habitation.
3) "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ...For the body is not one member, but many...Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."
1 Cor.12:12,14, 27 AV
Paul is comparing the human body which is made up of many different parts as an example of the body of Christ. The compelling part of this text, "... so also is Christ. Christ has a body and it is comprised of every believer, a multi-membered body filled with one Spirit.
He is the Seed of the woman in Gen. 3:15 which gives me cause to believe that this promise of victory and the promise in John 3:16 was actually fulfilled in Eden.
4) "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ....And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal 3:16&29 AV
Paul makes it clear that the Seed and Christ are one in the same, and there is only one Seed. yet in the end of the chapter he says that if we belong to Christ then we are the Seed or we are Christ. That is to say that there is only one Seed and only one body, it is Christ's body.
"And if Christ be in you, the body (our mortal body) is dead because of sin; (for it died by sin in Eden) but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Rom. 8:10,11

We were created with the ability to love and obey our Creator, to hear Him and think His thoughts after Him. Also there was placed within us a desire to reach out to Him. However, something did die in Eden on that fateful day. Love and all that followed in its train died and it was replaced with fear, hostility and fleshly desire. If we consider all that the scriptures say about the condition of the carnal mind and heart, that it is at war with God and filled with hatred (emnity) toward God, then it must be so that we were lost without any hope of returning to God of our own accord. That is why God gave us His Son to replace that which was lost.

Consider the amazing gift that the Father promised in Gen. 3:15 and John 3:16. It was ready and available for our first parents. As soon as there was sin there was a Saviour. Does it not say in Revelation that He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world?
The plan of redemption was not an after thought but was established before the creation of this world. In this divine plan the Son had covenanted to lay down His life; all His prerogatives as God and become helpless and dependent upon the Father for everything in order to give us His divine life to replace what we lost through disobedience.
However, He did bring some gifts with Him. There is a love for the Father in the life that He brings. He also gives the ability to obey the Father. If we will be quiet and listen He will be our spiritual ears and we will know the will of the Father for our every day living. We may vicariously feel the longing and drawn out heart of the Son.
Without this gift our first parents and all of humanity would be totally under the control of Satan.
Therefore I had to accept that Adam and Eve were the first members of the human body of Christ, the Son of God.
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John 5:11,12
We can clearly see that eternal life is not some quality or substance that God doles out to those who are saved. Eternal life is a quality only found in God. The eternal life that is promised is in the Son and those who are dead to self and yielded to Christ will live eternally through His life for He will remain within for ever.

Here is a thought to ponder. The Son sacrificed His life to live only within the redeemed forever and the only place the Father will ever see His Son again is when He looks into the eyes of those who have been redeemed from the earth, for it is within these souls that He has taken up an eternal residence. The gift of the Father to a fallen world and the voluntary sacrifice of the Son to be our life was an eternal sacrifice for both of them. The intimate union and relationship that existed between the Father and the Son will be the never ending pursuit, and ceaseless approaching unto the Father through the Son who dwells within. The Son within will draw each soul closer and closer throughout eternal ages to that intimate oneness that only He and the Father knew.
Like a multifaceted gem stone reflects a different part of the light, so each soul may express only a small part of the Son's eternal beauty, and for every soul that is lost that aspect of the Son will not be revealed. That is why God takes no delight in the death of the wicked.

The term "Body of Christ" refers to the church which functions as Christ's presence on earth while he's seated at the Father's right hand in heaven. "Eat my flesh and drink my blood" is not cannibalism, but joining the church and partaking in the holy communion. The bread and wine merely symbolize the Lord's flesh and blood, what really functions as the Lord's body is every single member of the church, we're his hands and feet while he is the head.

 

[leroy]

Mary was the child of Adam.
Jesus was the Son of God and of Mary.

David was a human being and Mary was a human descendent of David. Her son was also a human with the genetics that came down from His predecessors. " made of the seed of David according to the flesh; " I believe he had an individual self-awareness with a conscience and intellect. A complete human. who needed to die to extinguish the fallen nature and be born again as a new creature. He became the second Adam to be the head of a host of new creatures. He was the first born among many by virtue of the resurrection.

He had all the fleshly, physical, aspects of Adam, but also the spirit of His Godly Father.

Forgive my wordiness but let me reason with you.
"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:" Rom. 8:3
There are a number of texts that speak of us humans as vessels or temples for the habitation of God. The promise is that He gave us His Son that "whosoever". I take that to mean that all of us not just Mary's son have the Son as our eternal life.
On another note, He "condemned sin in the flesh" which shows that continual obedience is expected of the believer and is a gift from the Son.
Who was speaking?
God's Son spoke through Jesus of his human temple when he said to the jewish leaders, "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." As a child Jesus may have said something mundane like pass the salt, a simple human request. When He told the disciples that He would send the Comforter and then in the next sentence said that He would not leave them orphans but He would come to them. Then a few sentences later he said that He and the Father would come and make their abode in them, It had to be the Son speaking. Mary's son cannot live inside of anyone, but the eternal spirit being can.
In Mark 5 when the men who were devil possessed yelled at Jesus, "What have we to do with thee though son of God?" who was speaking? It was not the human sufferer, it was the evil spirit that possessed them? The Son of God had a conversation with demonic spirits and cast them out into a heard of pigs. The men and the spirits were virtually one. it was the bodies and voices that were being animated by these dark entities. The Son and Jesus were so identified together that they were one, and the Son spoke through him and animated him as well. There were things that were spoken from the mouth of Jesus that only the Son could have the right to say.
This gives us hope knowing that the same Son is in us and will so identify with us that His thoughts and words become ours. He is not far away on a throne but sitting on the throne of our heart. In us He brings His obedience and love for the Father.

Jesus wasn't "inhabited" by anything.
He was the Word who put on flesh.

Oops! I answered this above.

You seem to be consigning Jesus to a single role.
Flesh bound being.

I see Jesus as a human who was chosen long before he came out of Mary to be a Messiah or Christ. (both mean to be anointed for a purpose, one is Aramaic and the other is Greek, but they are identical in meaning, but you probably already know that) The plan of redemption would demonstrate for humanity how God would save us from our lost condition by giving us His Son to be our life. I believe Satan wanted to get back into heaven and if God was going to forgive humanity and let them back then He would have to let him back too. But the only way back was by allowing the Son to live in the individual and that was something Satan could never abide by. The cross is the main focus of that plan. Jesus was led to the cross every day, just as he admonishes us to do. Every day he had to face things that he had to overcome where his ancestors had failed. The only way to overcome was by a death to self. To acknowledge to Satan that he did not have full power over a human with a sinful nature. This should give us joy knowing that He will do for us what He did in Jesus.
The final act culminating in the crucifixion was to show how serious God is about the sinful nature. It cannot be fixed or repaired it has to be buried. He showed us how to live and how to lay down our life. The Son of God in him lead him through all of these experiences victoriously. And it was the life in the Son of God that brought him out of the tomb. The Son of God did not die on the cross that would be impossible, you cannot kill God, but Mary's son died. His Adamic nature had to be put in that tomb and left there. But the divine Son did sleep and rest in the tomb until resurrection morning when the Father sent an angel to call him forth. He was born again out of that tomb.
The seed of the woman that gives every lost soul a help to return to God, is the Son who has been gifted to live within every soul to overcome evil and give the power of an endless life. Can you begin to imagine, as the sin bearer, He bears every day the sin of everyone even as they commit their horrible acts.
I was taught that He bore the sins of the world on the cross. But I believe the cross is a symbol of the reality of what he has been bearing since the sin of our first parents. In us He bears long and draws us to come to the Father and find release.
When I compare the Son bearing the sins of the world on Calvary, or that He is bearing the sins of the world from Eden until this world is brought to its end, demonstrates a far greater sacrifice than I ever understood. Such love for a lost race......

But He is also the Spirit that He sent back to the repentant.
Remember, He couldn't send the Spirit until He was gone up to heaven.
Jesus is as much the Holy Spirit as He is God.

The thought came to me that if God is holy and God is a spirit yet there is a Holy spirit, hummm.
My feeble understanding is that the Father, is the orchestrater of His will. The Holy spirit communicates that will to us as well as supplies the power to fulfill that will. The Son is the animating agent within humanity to discern and perform the will of the Father.
Jesus did not return to heaven because he had never been there, but the eternal Son with whom he was indivisibly united took him there for the first time. No I don't believe that Mary's son and the Father's Son could have conversations with one another like there were two guys talking things over. Just like it should be for us, the Son lived and moved within Mary's son, and Jesus sense and knowing was certain as to what he should do or say. At the age of twelve he began to sense a knowing of his identification with the sacrificial lamb. His awakening to the Son as his identity was becoming clearer.

PS I think you will really like what I shared with Carry just below.

 

[leroy]

The term "Body of Christ" refers to the church which functions as Christ's presence on earth while he's seated at the Father's right hand in heaven. "Eat my flesh and drink my blood" is not cannibalism, but joining the church and partaking in the holy communion. The bread and wine merely symbolize the Lord's flesh and blood, what really functions as the Lord's body is every single member of the church, we're his hands and feet while he is the head.

Thank you Carry for your comment.
I once heard a riddle that helped me understand several things:
"What only can change a mouse into an eagle?......... The answer is an eagle. When the eagle eats the mouse the proteins, fat, vitamins and enzymes of the mouse become a living part of the body of the eagle.
The Catholics in their communion have something they call transubstantiation where the priest through some ecclesiastical authority actually turns the elements of communion into the literal body of Christ.
In protestant churches these are merely symbols which cause us to remember the Lord's death.

I have come to a third position. We are the literal physical body that the Son of God has purchased and chosen to live in to save us, and when we eat the bread and drink the wine that is when transubstantiation occurs. It actually becomes a part of His human body, the body which belongs to Him. The nutrients within these elements become part of our actual physical body. Truly, anything we eat becomes the body of Christ. So it behoves us to guard well what goes into our mouths. I once read that every loaf of bread is a sacrament. It really brings the reality of Christ sacrifice to where it should be and to where the laying down of His life to be our Life, begins to mean so much more than some symbols.

 

[Hopeful 2]

David was a human being and Mary was a human descendent of David. Her son was also a human with the genetics that came down from His predecessors. " made of the seed of David according to the flesh; " I believe he had an individual self-awareness with a conscience and intellect. A complete human. who needed to die to extinguish the fallen nature and be born again as a new creature. He became the second Adam to be the head of a host of new creatures. He was the first born among many by virtue of the resurrection.

Where do you ever see evidence of any fallen nature in Jesus Christ ?
Your theory doesn't take into account that Jesus was the Son of God too.

Forgive my wordiness but let me reason with you.
"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:" Rom. 8:3
There are a number of texts that speak of us humans as vessels or temples for the habitation of God. The promise is that He gave us His Son that "whosoever".

"Whosoever" what ?

I take that to mean that all of us not just Mary's son have the Son as our eternal life.

If we meet the requirements for that life, it will be given to us.

On another note, He "condemned sin in the flesh" which shows that continual obedience is expected of the believer and is a gift from the Son.
Who was speaking?
God's Son spoke through Jesus

Stop right there.
Jesus IS God's Son.
You are making them two different people !

of his human temple when he said to the jewish leaders, "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." As a child Jesus may have said something mundane like pass the salt, a simple human request. When He told the disciples that He would send the Comforter and then in the next sentence said that He would not leave them orphans but He would come to them. Then a few sentences later he said that He and the Father would come and make their abode in them, It had to be the Son speaking. Mary's son cannot live inside of anyone,

Mary's and God's Son live in me, so I know your theory has holes in it.

but the eternal spirit being can.

So Jesus isn't your "eternal spirit being" ?
Again you are errantly separating Jesus from Jesus.

In Mark 5 when the men who were devil possessed yelled at Jesus, "What have we to do with thee though son of God?" who was speaking?

Jesus, the Son of God and of Mary, was speaking.

It was not the human sufferer, it was the evil spirit that possessed them? The Son of God had a conversation with demonic spirits and cast them out into a heard of pigs. The men and the spirits were virtually one. it was the bodies and voices that were being animated by these dark entities. The Son and Jesus were so identified together that they were one, and the Son spoke through him and animated him as well.

"him" was the Son.
If you were to say the Spirit of God spoke through Jesus I would agree with you.
But to say the Son of God spoke through Jesus, is just weirdness.

There were things that were spoken from the mouth of Jesus that only the Son could have the right to say.
This gives us hope knowing that the same Son is in us and will so identify with us that His thoughts and words become ours. He is not far away on a throne but sitting on the throne of our heart. In us He brings His obedience and love for the Father.
Oops! I answered this above.

I see Jesus as a human who was chosen long before he came out of Mary to be a Messiah or Christ.

I see it differently
The Word put on flesh and was named Jesus.
This miracle was planned before anything was created.

(both mean to be anointed for a purpose, one is Aramaic and the other is Greek, but they are identical in meaning, but you probably already know that) The plan of redemption would demonstrate for humanity how God would save us from our lost condition by giving us His Son to be our life. I believe Satan wanted to get back into heaven and if God was going to forgive humanity and let them back then He would have to let him back too. But the only way back was by allowing the Son to live in the individual and that was something Satan could never abide by. The cross is the main focus of that plan. Jesus was led to the cross every day, just as he admonishes us to do. Every day he had to face things that he had to overcome where his ancestors had failed. The only way to overcome was by a death to self. To acknowledge to Satan that he did not have full power over a human with a sinful nature. This should give us joy knowing that He will do for us what He did in Jesus.
The final act culminating in the crucifixion was to show how serious God is about the sinful nature. It cannot be fixed or repaired it has to be buried. He showed us how to live and how to lay down our life. The Son of God in him lead him through all of these experiences victoriously. And it was the life in the Son of God that brought him out of the tomb. The Son of God did not die on the cross that would be impossible, you cannot kill God, but Mary's son died. His Adamic nature had to be put in that tomb and left there. But the divine Son did sleep and rest in the tomb until resurrection morning when the Father sent an angel to call him forth. He was born again out of that tomb.
The seed of the woman that gives every lost soul a help to return to God, is the Son who has been gifted to live within every soul to overcome evil and give the power of an endless life. Can you begin to imagine, as the sin bearer, He bears every day the sin of everyone even as they commit their horrible acts.
I was taught that He bore the sins of the world on the cross. But I believe the cross is a symbol of the reality of what he has been bearing since the sin of our first parents. In us He bears long and draws us to come to the Father and find release.
When I compare the Son bearing the sins of the world on Calvary, or that He is bearing the sins of the world from Eden until this world is brought to its end, demonstrates a far greater sacrifice than I ever understood. Such love for a lost race......

The thought came to me that if God is holy and God is a spirit yet there is a Holy spirit, hummm.
My feeble understanding is that the Father, is the orchestrater of His will. The Holy spirit communicates that will to us as well as supplies the power to fulfill that will. The Son is the animating agent within humanity to discern and perform the will of the Father.
Jesus did not return to heaven because he had never been there, but the eternal Son with whom he was indivisibly united took him there for the first time. No I don't believe that Mary's son and the Father's Son could have conversations with one another like there were two guys talking things over. Just like it should be for us, the Son lived and moved within Mary's son, and Jesus sense and knowing was certain as to what he should do or say. At the age of twelve he began to sense a knowing of his identification with the sacrificial lamb. His awakening to the Son as his identity was becoming clearer.

PS I think you will really like what I shared with Carry just below.

Mary's son and Gods Son are the same person.
Jesus Christ.

 

[leroy]

Where do you ever see evidence of any fallen nature in Jesus Christ ?

"...God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. ..." Romans 8:3
Think about it, if Christ is In you He has put on sinful flesh as well. How else could He bring His pure life into you. To keep you from sin?
What I read in Luke 3:23 and onward is that his genetic ancestry goes all the way back to Adam. The man Jesus had no prior existence before Mary's conception. Life begins at conception. The divine Son has always existed. His entrance into the world was as a spirit being who could inhabit people (live in human temples)
Have you not read, "Christ in you the hope of glory? "It is no longer I that live but Christ lives in me" "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you."

Your theory doesn't take into account that Jesus was the Son of God too.

"Whosoever" what ?

John 3:16 Fo God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that "whosoever".... That is offered to everyone.

If we meet the requirements for that life, it will be given to us.

What are those requirements?

Stop right there.
Jesus IS God's Son.
You are making them two different people !

The marriage union and procreation are the premier object lessons of our union with God. The two become one. Yes two specific individuals is what I have been trying to share.
When Christ is in you, two different beings have become one. John 17 is full of this oneness concept. Christ, a divine spirit, the Son of God in a human is the object of the plan of redemption. This is Father's example of how we are to be saved. Humanity and divinity become one. Our human nature partakes of the divine nature. 2Pet.1:4 Eternal life and the divine nature are not some kind of substance God hands out. They come into us in the person of the Son.

Mary's and God's Son live in me, so I know your theory has holes in it.

I use to think the same as you about Jesus until I read Romans chapters 1-8 in one sitting. My erroneous belief about chapter 7 and Paul's supposed problem with sin was turned on its head. I had never read those things in context before and I had swallowed the "christian" doctrine of the treadmill of sin and repent. I remember saying to myself, "My friends are right! Christians don't sin!" I set my heart to ask for the life of the Son. However, every time I prayed, "Father I want the life of your Son." In my minds eye I saw a loaded revolver pointed at my forehead. It was so real It terrified me and I stopped praying. A few days later the urgency came upon me and I would prayed again, and there was that loaded revolver. This went on for a whole month and at the end of the month I was completely drained and discouraged. I sat on the edge of my bed and said, "If you think you can do something with my heart, help yourself. I'm a lost man." I was resigned to being lost and was just okay. I felt that God had done everything he could to save me but I was not savable. I had been running from Him for 11 years when this happened. So I gave up and expecting to die in a car wreck or something like that in the next month or so and then face judgement.
When a drowning man gives up trying to save himself it is then and only then that the lifeguard will attempt to save him because if the man is still fighting he will drown the lifeguard as well as himself. When I gave up it was then that God did for me what I could not do for myself. There would be nothing for me to boast about. As I've looked back on the experience, the revolver was telling me, if you want my Son's life yours has to go. Over the next two weeks my life completely changed apart from any effort on my own. I was absolutely bewildered, again and again after something occurred, God whispered to my heart, "Did you notice that you didn't do such and such?" I was continually being kept and then reminded that I was being kept. After two weeks one of my friends who had been trying to share with me, came over and I told him what had been going on and I didn't know what was happening to me. He asked me a very pointed questions, he said, "In the last two weeks have you done anything outside the none will of God, have you sinned?" It's like I ran into a brick wall. I was absolutely shocked because I could not bring any thing to mind that I had done that I would consider sin. With the wind completely out of my sails I quietly said, "No!!?? He said to me, "Well then you've been born again. "I said what??? How could that be I didn't do anything." Sometime later I realize that when a child is born he doesn't do anything, he is push from darkness into light. I expected to die and be lost and here he was telling me that I had been born again!!?? But I could not rebut what he said because I could not remember violating my conscience during those two weeks. Shortly after that I begin to understand more about the nature of Christ and the incarnation. God intended that His Son should dwell in everyone of us to be our eternal life to keep us throughout eternity. His son would be so completely identified with us that we are one.

So Jesus isn't your "eternal spirit being" ?
Again you are errantly separating Jesus from Jesus.

Well, let me ask you where did the humanity of the savior come from? People like to say he was fully human and fully divine. Do you hold this view? Describe this human part. Did the human part exist before the world was created?

Jesus, the Son of God and of Mary, was speaking.

Who was speaking on the part of the possessed men? Was it the devils or the men? Who was doing all the terrible things they did? Who went into the Pigs?

"him" was the Son.
If you were to say the Spirit of God spoke through Jesus I would agree with you.
But to say the Son of God spoke through Jesus, is just weirdness.

Because of Jesus' humanity, he could not dwell in them. His humanity was not omnipresent. But the divine Son who is a spirit being could definitely make His abode within them.

I see it differently
The Word put on flesh and was named Jesus.

Put on flesh. How? From where did this flesh come? when did it happen?

This miracle was planned before anything was created.

Mary's son and Gods Son are the same person.
Jesus Christ.

Yes the two had become ONE

 

[Hopeful 2]

"...God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. ..." Romans 8:3

The LIKENESS of sinful flesh: not "sinful flesh".
God didn't send His Son as a sinner to die for us.

Think about it, if Christ is In you He has put on sinful flesh as well.

You are mistaken.
Christ wasn't "in me" until after I has repented of, or, turned from, sin.
I was an ex-sinner when I was baptized into Him.

How else could He bring His pure life into you. To keep you from sin?

You forgot to factor in repentance.
Besides, at my baptism into Christ I was also "immersed" into His death; thereby destroying what was once sinful.

What I read in Luke 3:23 and onward is that his genetic ancestry goes all the way back to Adam. The man Jesus had no prior existence before Mary's conception.

The man Jesus existed as the Word, before He took on flesh.

Life begins at conception. The divine Son has always existed.

He existed as the Word.

His entrance into the world was as a spirit being who could inhabit people (live in human temples)

The Word entered into this world as a baby of skin and bones.
Only after His resurrection could the Holy Spirit "inhabit" people.

Have you not read, "Christ in you the hope of glory? "It is no longer I that live but Christ lives in me" "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you."

The Holy Spirit is one with Jesus.
Just as Jesus is one with the Father.

John 3:16 Fo God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that "whosoever".... That is offered to everyone.

Yes, thanks be to God !

What are those requirements?

The requirements are, a true, real, permanent, repentance from sin, and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of past sins. (Acts 2:38)
After that, there is still, loving God with all our hearts, souls, and minds; plus loving or neighbors as we love ourselves.
Followed by enduring faithfully until the day of judgement.

The marriage union and procreation are the premier object lessons of our union with God. The two become one. Yes two specific individuals is what I have been trying to share.

What does procreation have to do with us being united in/with Jesus ?

When Christ is in you, two different beings have become one. John 17 is full of this oneness concept. Christ, a divine spirit, the Son of God in a human is the object of the plan of redemption.

Christ wasn't a spirt, divine or otherwise, while He walked in the flesh.
He was a human being.

This is Father's example of how we are to be saved. Humanity and divinity become one. Our human nature partakes of the divine nature. 2Pet.1:4 Eternal life and the divine nature are not some kind of substance God hands out. They come into us in the person of the Son.

Our past human nature is destroyed at our immersion into Christ and into His death. (Rom 6:6, 2 Cor 5:17)

I use to think the same as you about Jesus until I read Romans chapters 1-8 in one sitting.

How do you think I feel about Jesus ?

My erroneous belief about chapter 7 and Paul's supposed problem with sin was turned on its head. I had never read those things in context before and I had swallowed the "christian" doctrine of the treadmill of sin and repent. I remember saying to myself, "My friends are right! Christians don't sin!" I set my heart to ask for the life of the Son. However, every time I prayed, "Father I want the life of your Son." In my minds eye I saw a loaded revolver pointed at my forehead. It was so real It terrified me and I stopped praying. A few days later the urgency came upon me and I would prayed again, and there was that loaded revolver. This went on for a whole month and at the end of the month I was completely drained and discouraged. I sat on the edge of my bed and said, "If you think you can do something with my heart, help yourself. I'm a lost man." I was resigned to being lost and was just okay. I felt that God had done everything he could to save me but I was not savable. I had been running from Him for 11 years when this happened. So I gave up and expecting to die in a car wreck or something like that in the next month or so and then face judgement.
When a drowning man gives up trying to save himself it is then and only then that the lifeguard will attempt to save him because if the man is still fighting he will drown the lifeguard as well as himself. When I gave up it was then that God did for me what I could not do for myself. There would be nothing for me to boast about. As I've looked back on the experience, the revolver was telling me, if you want my Son's life yours has to go.

If it had "to go", why cling to some notion of your "human nature partaking of the divine nature" remaining with you ?

Over the next two weeks my life completely changed apart from any effort on my own. I was absolutely bewildered, again and again after something occurred, God whispered to my heart, "Did you notice that you didn't do such and such?" I was continually being kept and then reminded that I was being kept. After two weeks one of my friends who had been trying to share with me, came over and I told him what had been going on and I didn't know what was happening to me. He asked me a very pointed questions, he said, "In the last two weeks have you done anything outside the none will of God, have you sinned?" It's like I ran into a brick wall. I was absolutely shocked because I could not bring any thing to mind that I had done that I would consider sin. With the wind completely out of my sails I quietly said, "No!!?? He said to me, "Well then you've been born again.

It seems odd he would think that without knowledge of your repentance and baptism into Christ.

"I said what??? How could that be I didn't do anything." Sometime later I realize that when a child is born he doesn't do anything, he is push from darkness into light. I expected to die and be lost and here he was telling me that I had been born again!!?? But I could not rebut what he said because I could not remember violating my conscience during those two weeks. Shortly after that I begin to understand more about the nature of Christ and the incarnation. God intended that His Son should dwell in everyone of us to be our eternal life to keep us throughout eternity. His son would be so completely identified with us that we are one.

When did you get baptized ?
What was the manifestation of the gift of the Holy Ghost ?

Well, let me ask you where did the humanity of the savior come from?

I have never thought about it before, but the obvious answer is from Mary.

People like to say he was fully human and fully divine. Do you hold this view?

What is the definition of divine that you use ?
Jesus was fully human and fully sanctified.

Describe this human part. Did the human part exist before the world was created?

No, as the Word had not yet taken on skin and bones.

Who was speaking on the part of the possessed men? Was it the devils or the men? Who was doing all the terrible things they did? Who went into the Pigs?

In Matt 8, it was the devils, using the man's voice.

Because of Jesus' humanity, he could not dwell in them. His humanity was not omnipresent.

I see no references to Jesus dwelling in men, in Matt 8.
Jesus could not dwell in anyone until after His resurrection form the dead and He could sent the gift of the holy Ghost to the repentant.

But the divine Son who is a spirit being could definitely make His abode within them.

I don't even think of Jesus as any "spirit being" even after His risen body was glorified.

Put on flesh. How? From where did this flesh come? when did it happen?

It happened at His conception onside of Mary.

Yes the two had become ONE

There weren't two.
God and Mary had one son; Jesus, who was the Word made flesh.

 

[leroy]

Hello again Hopeful, I am enjoying our conversations and I appreciate your efforts to understand and share. Clearly your understanding of the nature of Christ and the incarnation is the standard belief of both Catholics and all protestant churches today. A belief of continual obedience is a minority belief. Throughout history the majority is always on the wrong side of things. I would implore you to seek Father on this subject of the nature of Christ. I will try again to make things clear.

The LIKENESS of sinful flesh: not "sinful flesh".
God didn't send His Son as a sinner to die for us

You mean it was a kinda sorta sinful flesh, but not really? It says that he "condemned sin in the flesh". I take that to mean He bore sinful flesh without sinning and by so doing, condemned the idea that sin could not be overcome.
My father was an alcoholic among other soul destroying activities. I could very well be carrying genes for any of these damaging practices and yet live a very healthy life style so that these genes are never expressed. Even though, "the sins of the fathers are passed on to the children...." they may be overcome by the child and never acted upon. Even though I bear the results of my father's sin and have the propensity to become an alcoholic, (sinner) if I never acted upon it, I would not be an alcoholic (sinner). Are you following me so far?
Adam could only pass on to his children sinful flesh which carried with it the propensity of every evil that Satan injected into it. Able evidently chose to expressed very little of those evil traits, but Cane was a murderer from the beginning as was his father the devil.
A baby is born with sinful flesh which is under the sentence of death because that nature was the product of humanity surrendering to the Adversary. Anything that is the creation of the devil has to parish, no matter how good or how bad that life may be, their nature condemns them to death.
That nature was the same as Satan's, it was filled with an intense hostility towards God (enmity). It cannot love God or obey God. It cannot seek after God or repent of its evil. That is why God sent His Son to live in us as the Seed and give us assistance to repent and seek after the Father.
Love was replaced with fear and natural desires. I think we can agree on that. However, despite having sinful flesh, a baby is not a sinner at birth. It takes an act of knowing disobedience to qualify as sin yet that child is still condemned to death. The satanic nature must be destroyed because it cannot be fixed.

An analogy: let us say that the fallen nature or sinful flesh that Jesus received from Mary is compared to the Titanic at the bottom of the sea. The Son became one with Jesus and lifted that boat and swam to New York by a power outside of Himself, supplied by the Holy spirit.
He could bear the sinful flesh without ever allowing it to express itself. Even though that nature, that sinful flesh had never yielded to sin, it still had to be made extinct. Jesus had a sinful nature but by the Son's life in him he took part of the divine nature and escaped the corruption in the world. At every step in life Satan was there to try and activate that sinful flesh, but the son of Mary took it to the cross again and again by his union with the Son and through the power of the Holy Spirit he was given the power to resist. The last and final cross on Calvary made extinct the agent that Satan could use to find access to the soul. So the new creature came from the tomb and there was nothing in him that the devil could speak to. He was a defeated foe.

You are mistaken.
Christ wasn't "in me" until after I has repented of, or, turned from, sin.
I was an ex-sinner when I was baptized into Him.

I have no desire to suggest that you should abandon your beliefs in obedience but correct me if I am wrong. I think you have shared that the Holy spirit was given after your baptism. Also that the Savior was not in you until you repented.
According to the bible the fallen nature is filled with an intense hostility towards God. It cannot love God or obey God. It cannot seek after God or repent of its evil. On that fateful day Love was replaced with fear and natural desires. If the Seed was not in you, drawing you to the Father how could you repent?
"Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Acts 5:31

You forgot to factor in repentance.

Actually, I did repent, I was first brought to agree with God of my lost condition. That was why I prayed earnestly for a month. I finally repented of thinking that there was something I could do to come to God. His redemption is His own work. All we can do is allow the Son, under the power of the spirit to draw us to where the Father can do for us what we are unable to do for our selves. Then over a two week period I found myself turning from the many evils of my past life. Truly, the Savior was giving me repentance, (turning away) from my sins.

Besides, at my baptism into Christ I was also "immersed" into His death; thereby destroying what was once sinful.

Dear friend, I would like to make one small correction, if I may. Your baptism was the symbol of accepting what God had declared to be true 2000 years ago. The old man was crucified that the body of sin might be destroyed with Jesus and you were raised to life with Jesus 2000 years ago.

The man Jesus existed as the Word, before He took on flesh.

Not sure but are you saying that the 'MAN' Jesus existed BEFORE he took on flesh?
The Son was with the Father from eternity ,and the godhead is 'spirit' according to the bible not (MAN), humanity. I'm sure this is a typo.

He existed as the Word.

There seems to be a legalistic necessity in the use of names. There are many names by which we know God. They are descriptive and varied yet cannot tell the whole. God cannot be limited to any given name but each use tells us something that helps us grasp divine truth.

The Word entered into this world as a baby of skin and bones.

I would say it a little differently. The Word entered that human baby of skin and bones.
The plan of redemption needed to show to both the fallen agencies of darkness and us, that God could take a man with the corrupt baggage that 4000 years of degradation could bring and carry him through this life without sin. In doing so He gained the right to destroy that sinful flesh which was Satan's rightful creation, and still bring these lost souls home to His heart of Love. leaving Satan nothing to say anymore.

Only after His resurrection could the Holy Spirit "inhabit" people.

I'm not sure why you hold this belief. After the disciples were deprived of Jesus personal presence they would begin to feel the need of the spirit. So Jesus was telling them that the Spirit would come and supply their needs to help them and to bring to remembrance all that he had taught them. The spirit was poured out upon them on the day of Pentecost for a clear reason. All of the feasts tell us some thing about the plan of redemption and what God would do. As we study those feasts and the events surrounding them after the death of Jesus, we can get an understanding of what God is doing in the world. For he does nothing without revealing it to us.
"Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.
1 Peter 1:10,11
The Son, a spirit being, (sorry but I feel I have to keep reminding you of this) Was in people before Bethlehem. I believe He came into humans in Eden. As soon as there was sin, there was a Savior. Adam and Eve would have no ability to turn to God if they didn't have the Son living in them to replace that which had perished on the day of sin. He was the Seed of the woman.

To be continued

 

[leroy]

The Holy Spirit is one with Jesus.
Just as Jesus is one with the Father.

Yes, thanks be to God !

The requirements are, a true, real, permanent, repentance from sin, and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of past sins. (Acts 2:38)

See if this sounds sweet to your soul. Father has taken the salvation of the helpless soul upon Himself. He will perform the requirements within the soul through the Son. The Son will, on the soul's behalf, bring an awareness of its great need. As the soul feels the great conviction of heart, the Son will place sinners the trembling hand in the Father's and forgiveness cleanses the heart. His baptism will express his belief in what Father has brought to pass.

After that, there is still, loving God with all our hearts, souls, and minds; plus loving or neighbors as we love ourselves.
Followed by enduring faithfully until the day of judgement.

The only source of true Love is in the heart of God. The Son in love will decide and act in the soul to bring about the Fathers good pleasure and He who has began a good work in you will preform it unto the day of Christ.

What does procreation have to do with us being united in/with Jesus ?

In the procreative act the mother provides a genetic package which is fully mommy. The father provides genetic material that is fully daddy. When the two genetic elements combine a new creature is formed. No longer fully daddy fully mommy but mommy and daddy combined. In truth the two have become one in that child.
As the bride stands before her husband make it in unashamed she's not concerned about her shape or any possible imperfection because she knows her husband loves her and she feels safe. She feels a longing need for life to come in to her that she might produce a child from her husband. The husband takes his longing bride and puts his life into her and a new creature is born that is a combined new creature.
We are the bride of Christ and Paul considers us a chaste virgin for our divine husband who is the Seed within us. As the Son goes through the process of bringing the bride to the Father we stand naked and unashamed, even though we are covered with putrefying sores from the top of our head to the soul of our foot. We know we have nothing to hide in the presence of the Lover of our soul. As the Father turns His gaze upon us he says, "I see no spot in thee, Thou art all fair my beloved." The Father's gaze is creative. He cannot see us in anything but a perfect state. If he saw any flaw that is all we would ever be. As he looks upon us forgiveness, cleansing and healing take place. As the love of the Father comes into the soul consuming our need, He consummates with the Seed dwelling within and the Son is born again with the soul. He begins to live and move taking possession of the soul creating a new creature. Again and again the soul is consummated with the Father and the Seed. Every time something new that needs to be revealed there is a consummating effect and Christ continues to grow up within us until we come to the fullness of the stature of the Son of God and He is glorified in His saints
to be continued

Christ wasn't a spirt, divine or otherwise, while He walked in the flesh.
He was a human being.

Remember the demoniac's. There was a spirit in them speaking through them and animating their actions. The devil hijacks an element within the human soul that was created by the Creator. That we might be a temple for His indwelling, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It is God who lives in us both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
Does the Son live in us? Did He live in Adam and Eve?
The prophets who had "the Spirit of Christ which was in them." Was the Son living in them?
How could Father save us unless He was in us, giving us His divine life,
keeping us from falling by providing a way of escape.
Jesus was our human example, he showed us what it was like to have a sinful nature and yet be kept by the life of the Son of God who lived in him. This is exactly how our salvation is to take place we are sinful human beings but God provides His Son to be our life and our salvation. He is the keeping agent which prevents us from falling. He is the spirit, we are the human body, Jesus is the head of that body.

Our past human nature is destroyed at our immersion into Christ and into His death. (Rom 6:6, 2 Cor 5:17)

Father believes it is destroyed and by believing what He believes we face the lies of the familiar spirits that it is still alive. In this our faith is strengthen.

How do you think I feel about Jesus ?

I believe that it is the same as all catholics and main stream protestant churches. But correct me if I am wrong.

If it had "to go", why cling to some notion of your "human nature partaking of the divine nature" remaining with you ?

I had to lay down my human efforts. The throne of the heart has room for only one. Our humanity is something that will always be with us. and is the partaker of the divine nature. We don't stop being human when we are born again. Humanity and divinity combined is the quality of the new creature that emerges from the tomb. (watery grave)

to be continued again