1. maybe I don't....Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
2. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
3. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
4. And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
5. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
6. But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;
Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
I was about to give up on explaining things to you, but this post of yours, gives me hope that you are close to understanding what I have been saying. I numbered your points to make it easier to answer.
Your first sentence opened my eyes to where your confusion lies. And in answering that one, many of the others will be answered also. The stumbling block to understanding, is that you have gotten the cart ahead of the horse. You said, "Follow peace with all men, and
holiness" or we will not see the LORD, but I think you meant "see the kingdom of God". I say that because every eye will see HIM coming when He comes to take back the Earth from the unbelievers, and to set up HIS thousand year Kingdom.
Revelation 1:7 (NKJV)
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7 [/SUP] Behold, He is coming with clouds, and
every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.
Revelation 19:20-21 (NKJV)
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20 [/SUP] Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.
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21 [/SUP]
And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.
Where are genuine believers at that time? Actually, I believe we are riding behind Him as part of the armies of heaven, because we were called out of earth to go to heaven seven years earlier for the Wedding of the Lamb in the New City Jerusalem in Heaven. Who repopulates the earth during the Kingdom after He killed the
rest? The 144,000 Jews sealed from harm in their mortal bodies. That is a whole different discussion, that I tried to get started a couple months ago, but no one was interested in that discussion.
http://christianchat.com/bible-disc...ng-out-bride-go-wedding-lamb.html#post1604022
Back to your point number 1. The reason I say you got the cart ahead of the horse, is that is not the requirement Jesus said we had to meet to be with Him in the Kingdom of God:
John 3:3 (NKJV)
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3 [/SUP] Jesus answered and said to him,
"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
I know I have tried to explain born again a number of time, but perhaps I did not keep it simple enough to avoid confusion. The Key to understanding born again is that it is something that happens to our human spirits, not our bodies. Our human spirits were not alive to the will of GOD at natural birth, because of the sin nature that we inherited from Adam.
Colossians 2:13 (NIV)
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13 [/SUP] When
you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature,
God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,
Which part of us was once dead at natural birth? The human spirit:
John 3:6 (NKJV)
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6 [/SUP]
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
And here is proof that
born again only happens to the human spirit:
Romans 8:10 (NIV)
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10 [/SUP] But
if Christ is in you,
your body is dead because of sin,
yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
So exactly what does the Holy Spirit do to our human spirit as HE enters our heart to take up residence?
Romans 5:5 (NKJV)
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5 [/SUP] Now hope does not disappoint, because
the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
John 3:36 (NIV)
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36 [/SUP]
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
Once again, look at Rom. 8:10 above. Notice it says,
your body is dead because of sin, so we know the eternal life is not referring to the human body; but rather the human spirit. So as the Holy Spirit enters the heart of a human being, that person's human spirit becomes eternally alive, and in tune with the will of GOD, because at the same time HE the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts the Love of GOD. And you know as well as I do, that Love of GOD manifests itself in the form of willing submission to His Lordship and willing obedience.
You may not know this, but the human spirit prior to "born again" is focused only on the desires of the flesh, so it impossible to at that point to distinguish between the human mind and the human spirit. However after we are born again, when we are a babe spiritually in Christ, the Human mind still focuses a lot on the will of the flesh, while human spirit thinks too, and focuses on doing the will of GOD. At that point it becomes very obvious that we have two different thinking processes going on within us. In fact they war against each other quite a bit at times. In fact here we see Paul in that inner struggle, before He had the spiritual maturity to have His human spirit dominate the will of the flesh (sinful nature).
Romans 7:14-25 (HCSB)
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14 [/SUP] For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made out of flesh, sold into sin’s power.
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15 [/SUP] For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.
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16 [/SUP] And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
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17 [/SUP] So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me.
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18 [/SUP] For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.
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19 [/SUP] For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.
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20 [/SUP] Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me.
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21 [/SUP] So I discover this principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me.
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22 [/SUP] For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law.
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23 [/SUP] But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body.
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24 [/SUP] What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this dying body?
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25 [/SUP] I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.
As we feed on the word of GOD, and put it to practice, our human spirit gets stronger and stronger, and eventually it will dominate the will of the flesh, most of the time. But that sin nature remains in the flesh, thus the body will die because of our sin nature. BUT when we are raised in our glorified body or changed in the twinkling of an eye, that body will have NO SINFUL NATURE IN IT.
In your point
2., you seem to have a slight misunderstanding of what it means to be set free from sin. It does not mean to remove sin from the body, but rather to be set free from sin's dominion over you. Again that comes from being born again and having an eternally living spirit with the Love of GOD in it. THUS with the addition of the Power of the Holy Spirit, we can then really say NO to temptation for the first time. So once again it is a spiritual holiness that is empowered by to Holy Spirit HIMSELF, striving to become dominate over the will of the flesh, but the flesh still dies, but NOT THE NEXT BODY.
In your point
3.,you are right that we strive to cleanse the body, just like the spirit was cleansed when we were born again. But that struggle to cleanse our bodies is a DAILY lifelong struggle from the time we were born again until the day we die.
Luke 9:23 (HCSB)
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23 [/SUP] Then He said to ⌊them⌋ all,
“If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
In your point
4., that "new man" is a reference to the new "born again" human spirit empowered by the Holy Spirit.
In your point
5., that is saying that if we are truly children of GOD, then our behavior should reflect Who our Heavenly Father is. In other words, if you are truly saved by GOD, then let your actions show it. Another verse that says the exact same thing is Php. 2:12.
True story: back in the late 80's I was in a Golf Tournament, and one of the guys in our foursome, was one of those that would cuss a blue streak and throws his clubs every time he hit a bad shot. I hit lots of bad shots too, but took them in stride, never got angry, and never cussed. Even though I never told him anything about myself, when we got back to the Club House, he actually came over to my table, and apologized for his cussing and attitude, stating he could tell I was a Christian by the way I played the game. Sometimes we are the only Bible some people will ever read.
In your point
6., I agree wholeheartedly. The only thing I could add to that, is our human spirit was born holy when the Holy Spirit brought it to eternal life, but the Sanctification of the Body, is a lifelong step by step process of becoming more and more like HIM.