Mind of the Spirit / Mind of the Flesh
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I trusted you enough to download a link you offered. This says a lot of my regard of your sincerity in saying, "Much love."
Using the modern trend of a girl identifying as a boy, do you think this might be a similar phenomenon with regard to this subject? A sort of reality warring with an ideal?
truth to me is: Paul is writing to all peoples, to see truth over error in what he went through first, being under Law. That he saw to let go of to win Son Jesus. Phil 3 talks of this, a little deeper. Thanks to God I ask Father in my own prayer closet and hear truth over error eventually and continue to stand in trust Col 1:21-22. Never get answers while in that closet, yet always do get them, a little later down the road as some answers have taken years to for me to hear. Still many out there, I remain in trust to Father and Son to let me know whenever need to know. Trust to Daddy, PaPa, Father is on a need to know basis for me thanks
Like 21:14-15
God so simply loves us all, otherwise Son would not have gone to that cross willingly at all.
Nothing comes up for me when hit on the "in the Spirit". Yet I see to go to Father and ask for the new life offered in his risen Son, John 4:23-24 and see new more and more as one does not quit beleif to see it all over time willingly.
Hebrews 5:12- 6:3
I appreciate your trust! I thought about that as I uploaded it . . . I don't blame anyone who skips over it.
I see this more as that when we are born again there is introduced a new reality in us, but it is opposed by the remnant of who we used to be.
For me the best anology is that our life before Christ was like someone who was blind and reckless driving a wrecked car. Lots of motion, lots of damage, no real progress towards a destination.
Now there is a new driver - the regenerate - but the car is still a wreck. It pulls to one side, brakes are no good, no power, on and on. As we go along, we learn better how to control it, even make some repairs, like that.
We have a new mind of Christ, but our brains are still wired for the life of the flesh. So we learn to superimpose the will of God, expressed in the desires of our new spirit, over the corrupt lusts of the flesh. As we go along, the brain rewires itself in accordance with our choices in our Christian walk.
If we go back to making the wrong choices, choices based in the desires of the flesh,
Galatians 2:18 KJV
18) For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
1 Peter 1:14 KJV
14) As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:
We start rewiring our brains again towards sin.
There are a number of places the Bible speaks in this manner, that we need to be transformed by renewing our minds, etc.
So I'm very interested in your thoughts on all this.
Much love!
For me, the answer hinges on his saying, "now thenit is no more I that do it (sin), but sin that lives in me". So Paul was saying, I used to be the sinner, now I'm not, instead, it sin that lives in me, later specifying, "that is, in my flesh".
Romans 7:20 KJV
20) Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Being regenerated truly makes us a new person, not the man of flesh who is the sinner, but the man of the spirit.
Much love!
U
Undergrace1
Guest
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. Verse14
So the person being written about in 7:14-24 was sold as a slave to sin:
But thanks be to God that, though you USED(USED) to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. Rom6:17
So Paul tells the Romans they USED to be slaves to sin, whereas, the person mentioned in 7:14 IS(IS) a slave to sin. Therefore, if Paul is writing of his Christian life in 7:14-24 he is writing to people who live holier lives than he:
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? Verse16
So if you are a slave to sin it leads to death, therefore if Paul is writing of his Christian life in 7:14-24 he is heading for death, not life according to what he wrote in the previous chapter:
For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.6:14
Yet the person mentioned in 7:14-24 was sold as a slave to sin, so sin was their master.
Yet Paul says sin shall no longer be your master for you are not under law but under grace. Therefore, the person mentioned in chapter 7 must have been living under the law, that was Saul the Pharisee, not Paul the Christian
Just my thoughts
Yes, that's a good presentation of that view. I'm familiar with this.
Romans 7:20 KJV
20) Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
What is your understanding of the meaning of this bolded part above?
Much love!
U
Undergrace1
Guest
As a Pharisee Paul took the law extremely seriously. I would think he wanted to obey it, but knew inside of him he did not. Of course, what he realised as a pharisee would not be what Paul realised looking back on Saul's life.
A bit like me, as a young teenager I actually tried to attain to Heaven as did Saul(apart from obeying the Mosaic law) but I could not rationalise what happened to me then as I could now. Hope that addresses your point
But what does he mean saying it isn't him doing the sins any longer? What does he mean that it's not him, but sin that lives in him, and that this is a change from his previous state?
Much love!
U
Undergrace1
Guest
U
Undergrace1
Guest
Do you mean this?
'''And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.'''
When I tried to attain to Heaven as did Saul, at first my problems were not too bad, the sin was not rampant, and so I could, at times look away from doing what I knew I should not do. So at that point verse17 would not have applied to me. However, the longer I went on, the harder it became, in the end I was literally a slave to sin. It was at that point no longer what I could have success in stopping. I did not want to act that way, so in that scenario I could say it was then sin living in me
Hope that explains what I mean
For me what made the greatest distinction in determining whether Paul were speaking of his life previous to regeneration or after, was that little bit about "no then it is no more I that do it, but sin that lives in me". To me this signified a change from "I'm the sinner", to, "sin that lives in me, that's now the sinner".
Before, he was identified as the sinner. Then something changed, and he was no longer identified as the sinner.
For me, the change was regeneration, that Paul was reborn a new man, as Ephesians 4 shows, created patterned after God in righteousness and true holiness.
Romans 7:21-25 KJV
21) I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
22) For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24) O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25) I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Paul speaks of himself now as being an inner man at war with his "members", literally body parts. "The body of this death". He summarizes in saying with the mind he himself serves the law of God, but the flesh serves the law of sin.
Galatians 5:16-17 KJV
16) This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
17) For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
This is the war between spirit and flesh, the man we are, and the man we were.
This is how I understand it.
My question for you is that if you see this part describing Paul, the unregenerate man struggling with the Law of God, what does he mean when he says "now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that lives in me"?
Much love!
I must not be communicating my question well. I'm interested in what changed in Paul that he said, It's not me any longer that is sinning, it's sin that lives in me.
Regardless, I don't want to just circle around this one, moving on . . .
Much love!
U
Undergrace1
Guest
Well Ive tried to explain that. Looking back at my life when I tried to attain to Heaven as did Saul, the point came, when sin so engulfed me, it was no more I doing it but sin.
But I would n ot have recognised that at the time, only looking back now
Saul wanted to obey the law, but he was an ardent pharisee, the more he tried the more he failed. The more sin became his master. You cannot defeat your master, he controls you, even if in your mind you do not want him to
U
Undergrace1
Guest
OK, thank you! I understand your answer now. In all the times I've discussed this with others, this is the first I've heard this answer.
You are saying then, Paul's choices to sin became so constant and overbearing becoming it's own force inside him causing him to continue without remedy into sin, until Christ came with new life.
Is this what you are saying?
Much love!
and I do not agree whenever I take it for granted as have done that in past. I see to not do that anymore and still take no credit to me once doing right by God for me, doing it through me. Father in Daddy's Spirit and Truth now doing it, thank you Lord Jesus for paving the way for us all at the cross as reconciled to everyone. As I see the only one's Father are in control of are. The willing ones, thank you next willing one enter please Father loves us all through te done work of Son first.
Wow woe is me.
U
Undergrace1
Guest
Absolutely unless I have misunderstood you. I would sum up Paul's core message as:
For sin shall no longer be your master for you are not under law but under grace Rom6:14
To Saul the letter of the law was everything as an ardent Pharisee, the more it is so, I would say the worse the sinner you become, the more sin is your master, the less you can do what you want to do, for it is sin living in you that then does it. It has taken control of your life because:
The power of sin is the law 1Cor15:56