It is that spirit body which is either alive in The Seed Life of God, or conscious in the seed life of death, the seed life of sin.
Those in Christ are alive by the Presence in their spirit of the seed life of God upon their Belief in Whom God has sent. There is no thing to be added to the Life God alone can impart to the dead spirit of a man. You cannot make or keep your spirit alive, so your efforts to keep the Law neither adds nor adds to or retains the Life which God alone gives by His Grace. You can neither add nor take away anything from the righteousness God IMPUTES to the spirit born from above.
Tell me Phil, do you know why the Restrainer must be taken out of the way before the antichrist can be revealed, coming with all signs and lying wonders? (2 Thess 2:6&7)
Tell me Phil, do you know why the Restrainer must be taken out of the way before the antichrist can be revealed, coming with all signs and lying wonders? (2 Thess 2:6&7)
Tell me MHGinTN, do you have dementia? I’m being serious. How many times do I have to answer that question for you? Obviously one more time. I provide you a link that you won’t read, because I’m a Satanist cult member and if you click on the link and start to read you will be hypnotized and will follow Satan??? What gives with you anyway? I read and watch your Andy Woods filth. So why not give me the common courtesy and read/watch some of mine?
http://aloha.net/~mikesch/fathers-on-antichrist.htm
Paul distinctly tells us that he knew, and that the Thessalonians knew, what that hindrance was, and that it was then in existence. The early Church, through the writings of the Fathers, tells us what it knew upon the subject, and with remarkable unanimity affirms that this “let,” or hindrance, was the Roman empire as governed by the Caesars; that while the Caesars held imperial power, it was impossible for the predicted antichrist to arise, and that on the fall of the Caesars he would arise. Here we have a point on which Paul affirms the existence of knowledge in the Christian Church. The early Church knew, he says, what this hindrance was. The early Church tells us what it did know upon the subject, and no one in these days can be in a position to contradict its testimony as to what Paul had, by word of mouth only, told the Thessalonians. It is a point on which ancient tradition alone can have any authority. Modern speculation is positively impertinent on such a subject.1
1 As to the “ let” or hindrance to the manifestation of the “man of sin “ referred to in 2 Thess. ii., Mr. Elliott says: “We have the consenting testimony of the early Fathers, from Ireneus, the disciple of the disciple of St. John, down to Chrysostom and Jerome, to the effect that it was understood to be the imperial power ruling and residing at Rome.” — “ Horae Apocalyptica;,” vol. iii., p. 92.
Romanism and the reformation: from the standpoint of prophecy, by Henry Grattan Guinness, Hodder and Stoughton, 1887, pg. 194.
The testimony is clear, the early church fathers quoted above generally expected the Antichrist to rise to power very soon after the fall of pagan Rome as prophesied in the book of Daniel, chapter 7. At the time that Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, the Caesars ruled, and until they were removed they restrained the Antichrist from rising to prominence and exercising his power. This is why Paul could not speak openly about the restrainer in his letter, because he did not want to invite unnecessary persecution by identifying Rome openly and predicting its demise. Pagan Rome’s rule ended in 476 A.D., so the above fathers were writing, in some cases, hundreds of years before the event, demonstrating that they understood prophecy, at least on that point.
There is only one entity that fulfills the timing spoken of by Paul, and expounded upon by the above quoted church fathers, which rose in prominence after the fall and division of the Roman empire in the 5th century, and subsequently took control of both civil and ecclesiastical governments, ruling for 1260 years (3 1/2 times) exactly as prophesied, and that is the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church, from 538 A.D. to 1798 A.D.
Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) gave this remarkable testimony, which when examined in conjunction with Daniel chapter 7, precisely identifies the little horn, the man of sin, the Antichrist power:
The Catholic Church which was founded and instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ to procure the eternal salvation of men, has, by reason of this divine institution, the form of a perfect society. Therefore, she must possess liberty such that she cannot be subject to any civil power in the execution of her sacred ministry.
To act with freedom, as it is just she should, she has always needed the assistance which was suitable to the conditions and the necessities of the age. It is, therefore, by a particular decree of Divine Providence that, at the fall of the Roman Empire and its partition into separate kingdoms, the Roman Pontiff, whom Christ made the head and center of his entire Church, acquired civil power.
Certainly, it was by a most wise design of God Himself that in the midst of so great a multitude and variety of temporal princes, the Sovereign Pontiff enjoyed political liberty, which is so necessary for him to exercise his spiritual power, his authority, and his jurisdiction over the whole world.
Source: Papal Teachings: The Church, selected and arranged by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes, translated by Mother E. O’Gorman, R.S.C.J., Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, St. Paul Editions, Boston, © 1980, 1962 by Daughters of St. Paul, Library of Congress catalog card number 62-12454, par. #225, page 160.
Did you know that Paul taught we have a physical body AND a spirit body? The spirit body remains alive even as the physical body is returning to the dust from whence it came.
It is that spirit body which is either alive in The Seed Life of God, or conscious in the seed life of death, the seed life of sin.
We’ve talked about this too.
http://aloha.net/~mikesch/death.htm
CONCLUSION
When we die, we sleep in the grave - we have no thoughts, no consciousness, no existence at all, until our resurrection. At the resurrection of the just, at the second coming, the righteous will receive eternal life. That is the reward for faith: