Posted on 03/30/2002 7:53:37 PM PST by malakhi
Taking the last question, first. Her remains won't be found. That's our point. She is in Heaven, body and soul. If you truly found her remains, then the Church would have already been proven wrong in a fundamental dogma -the Assumption- and any testing, per se, would be irrelevant.
Thus, before we even get to testing, finding her remains would -to answer your first question- lead me to doubt what I believe to be the Body of Christ, i.e. the Church, and would probably occasion a significant spiritual crisis.
I wouldn't expect anything less from you, OR. ;o)
Nope. Just busy.
It is not Catholics who have given Mary her place but God. It is He who has called her to come to the head of the table.
Scripture?
Doesn't look like your'e ignoring me.
Cindy, I’m glad you brought this question up yesterday, because I have believed that Christians are considered “perfect”, but hadn’t studied it out to where I had biblical answers for the questions that arise when it’s mentioned.
Let me give you my understanding after studying it last night.
Paul said that when a husband dies, the woman is free from the law that had bound her while she was married and her husband was alive. Ro 7:2-4
Paul wrote, Gal 2:19-20 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Paul said he was crucified with Christ, therefore Paul is dead, yet he lives, but not Paul, but Christ has taken over his body and now lives in Paul.
If we are now dead, and crucified with Christ, then how can we sin? Our old self is dead, our new self is Christ living in us
When we become a Christian and are born again, we can sin no more, because our human, carnal, sinful nature, can no longer effect us since Christ is now in us, that sin can no longer penetrate, because Christ won over sin, and defeated Satan.
The sin which our human body craves, can’t effect Christ in us, all it can do is irritate our humanness, and give us a constant goal to overcome, and to make life more interesting, otherwise God could simply remove us from earth the second Christ comes into us.
Sometimes Satan is temporarily victorious, but every time he wins a small battle, we prepare for a bigger battle the next time, and as we look back over our Christian lives, we can see that most of these battles have now been won, with Christ in us.
Satan will find another weakness to go after, and then it will become our priority, and over time it’s conquered, and we go on to the next battle.
God knows His Son lives with in us, and He sees us as perfect, even while our human soul still wars against Satan.
If these were actual wars we fought with Satan every day, one day we won, the next day we lost, but we went right back out the following day and won again. This went on our whole life, would God condemn us as eternally lost, every time we lost a battle, or eternally saved when we won?
No! we were already saved, and these wars don't determin our salvation, just our rewards since we are dead to sin, and no longer punishable by the law.
When we are quickened, and Christ Spirit in us emerges, this human body, with its lust to gratify itself, will cease to exist, and we’ll emerge perfect and pure as Christ, because He overcame sin once and for all, and it can no longer touch Him or us, while He’s in us.
Our true essence, is Christ Spirit in us, not the physical sinful human flesh, which will die away, but we’ll emerge, Christ like, being the firstborn of many brothers.
A Christian is like a body that’s wearing a full armor suit, and while Satan’s weapons can’t penetrate the armor, it can scratch and dent it’s outward shell which is what the world sees, so we still have to keep the armor cleaned and polished and in good repair for outward appearances.
This is why Paul, on one hand tells us in Philippians 3:12, that Not as though “I” (being the operative word) had already attained, either were already perfect: then three verses later, tells us, V-15-16, Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
Paul took no credit for perfection, but gave it to Christ only, who is perfect.
Romans 6: 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2. God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3. Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7. For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
9. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
JH :-)
1 Corinthians 10: RSV
[4] and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
Allow me to post what I believe is an excellent note from the NAB:
(2) [4] A spiritual rock that followed them: the Torah speaks only about a rock from which water issued, but rabbinic legend amplified this into a spring that followed the Israelites throughout their migration. Paul uses this legend as a literary type: he makes the rock itself accompany the Israelites, and he gives it a spiritual sense. The rock was the Christ: in the Old Testament, Yahweh is the Rock of his people (cf Deut 32, Moses' song to Yahweh the Rock). Paul now applies this image to the Christ, the source of the living water, the true Rock that accompanied Israel, guiding their experiences in the desert.
Paul made it clear when he was teaching tradition and he also made it clear that this tradition was in the past. By that standard no "tradition" past the time of the Apostles is valid.
Please note:
1 Corinthians 11:
[2] I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you.
2 Thessalonian 2:
[15] So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.
2 Thessalonian 3:
[6] Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for your eisegesis concerning the Rock, the water, and Jesus, you may have missed this.
Exodus 17:6
Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Numbers 20:
[6] Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the tent of meeting, and fell on their faces. And the glory of the LORD appeared to them,
[7] and the LORD said to Moses,
[8] "Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water; so you shall bring water out of the rock for them; so you shall give drink to the congregation and their cattle."
[9] And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him.
[10] And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[11] And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his rod twice; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle.
You proved my point. Paul uses tradition as well as scripture. As for the exegisis on Exodus, that's pretty much what I said. There's nothing in there about the rock following them. Thus, as the note from the NAB graciously points out, Paul is using a rabbinic legend(read: tradition) in developing his theology about Christ. Hence, had the Bereans used the same criteria which modern Protestants do, they would have excoreated Paul for adding to Scripture.
Off to Good Friday service. Peace be with you.
That was a great post Jim.
BigMack
HATLB>I think you are misunderstanding me biblewonk. Ofcourse he lived and walked among sinners, but it is impossible for the Son of God to be born into a woman with sin.
47,293 posted on 04/18/2003 11:33 AM MDT by tHe AnTiLiB
Why do you assume this position ?
Do you have any scriptural support for this position ?
What is impossible for the L-rd ?
Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the
Thessalonians, for they received the message with great
eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if
what Paul said was true.
chuck <truth@YeshuaHaMashiach>
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.