Here's a good question for you!
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Butch5
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Where does the Bible say that being made in the image of God means being a spirit? It could simply, and likely does, refer to being a moral agent as opposed to animals.
Curtis
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Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Man would not be made in the image of God unless man himself is also a spirit.
Butch5
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That's an assumption. There's nothing in Scripture that says man is a spirit. That idea must be brought to the text. Keep in mind that the original readers of both the Old and New Testaments read the words breath or wind. They did not read the English word spirit. So, they would not read into the text the idea of a disembodied conscious being. The Bible says God is wind or God is breath. Are you wind or breath? Is man wind or breath? What does it mean that God is wind or breath? It's obviously a metaphor. God isn't literally moving air. He did breathe into Adam the breath of life. So, we see that God is life. We also know that from the rest of Scripture. Paul said that God gives life to all things. He used the present tense. That means that everything that is alive right now is alive because God is giving it life. This too proves that man is not immortal. If he were, it would not be necessary for God to continuously give him life.
B-A-C
Loyal
1Cor 15:44; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
1Cor 15:45; So also it is written, "The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
1Cor 15:46; However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.
Eccl 12:7; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
Luke 8:55; And her spirit returned, and she got up immediately; and He gave orders for something to be given her to eat.
Acts 17:16; Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.
I am willing to bet I could come up with a dozen more...
Butch5
Active
Yeah, but none that say man is a spirit. We know that man has a spirit or breath in him. The point is that it is not what He is, it is in him. "His spirit" referring to Paul again shows possession not person. He denotes person, his denotes possession or ownership.
1 Cor 15 talks of a spiritual body. The word spiritual is an adjective. An adjective describes a now. It gives some qualities of the noun. A spiritual body is a body that has qualities of the spirit. It's not saying that the body is a spirit.
Ecc 12 speaks of the spirit or breath returning to God. Of course, God gave the breath of life to man and it returns to him when man dies.
Luke 8,"her spirit returned to her" I addressed this. Literally, her breath returned to her and she lived again.
None of these passages say that man is a spirit. The Bible states unequivocally that man is flesh and yet people insist on arguing with it.
Curtis
Loyal
Heb 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,
Heb 12:23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,
Butch5
Active
So what does it mean that they came to the breaths of the righteous made perfect? Remember, the Greek words do not mean a disembodied conscious being. That's an English word. See you're bringing a concept to the these words that they don't have. The translators should not use the word spirit because it's a figure of speech and people are taking it literally. When the original readers read this passage they read the words winds or breaths of the righteous made perfect.
So Paul says that they came to God and the breaths of the righteous made perfect in Heaven. What did Ecc 12 say? The breath returns to God who gave it. So, yes, the breaths of the righteous would be in Heaven. That doesn't mean they are spirits. It simply says their breath returned to God.
before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Shaolin
Active
Yes, that is the point. Man is NOT just flesh...he is flesh and spirit. James says the same thing...without the spirit within a man, his flesh is dead.
The point is, man is flesh and spirit; the passages that I gave explain that very clearly.
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Shaolin
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Nice...but it has nothing to do with the OP or answers the question put forth in the OP.
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Shaolin
Active
Thank you!!! However, while I agree that the passages in Proverbs address the phrase "tree of life" as figurative in each individual passage, the tree of life in Eden was apparently a real tree. As for the passages in Revelation...I have been considering those earlier (not here, but in my study on the subject) to see if any insight could be gained from them on God's purpose for placing it in Eden. While we do gain some information (good information at that) from the passages, I can find nothing that leads to answering the question. Again, they do give us more information than what the passages in Genesis 1-3 give us, which is helpful.
I totally agree...God did not want them to live for the rest of eternity in the sin nature. Just think if Adam and Eve were still walking among us today....living for 6,000 years in a sinful state. living for that long, would they ever come to God after experiencing the pleasures of sin? God Himself says that He didn't want His Spirit to strive with men for even longer than 130 years (Gen. 6:3), much less for thousands of years. And, part of that horror could have also been that if they partook from the tree of life before they had children...if they were now immortal wouldn't their children also be immortal? Pretty soon, the world population would be where it is today after only a few thousand years, and God's plans would have been thwarted, by all apparent accounts.
That is another good question. My mind seems to think that the healing of the nations wouldn't necessarily be speaking of physical health. If we follow the narrative closely in the last two chapters of Revelation, there will apparently be survivors after the Great Tribulation and Christ's thousand year reign on earth...there will be nations still that are apparently not in relationship with God that Jesus will rule over. I could be wrong, but it seems like the leaves specifically for the healing of the nations has some part to do with national issues - perhaps the leaves might be used as "healing" in keeping peace between nations still in the flesh. I have never studied it in depth, so I have no definitive answer there.
While I understand your point here, Scripture says that it is our glory to look into things that God has not revealed in His Word. It is neither here nor there...someone I am witnessing to asked the question, and from years of experience, I have learned that when someone you are witnessing to asks a question, if you shovel it off to the side it becomes a hindrance to them coming to the Lord, so I do my best to answer those questions. I am also praying about the answer...if I get one, then great; otherwise I will have to tell him that Scripture does not say, and God has not revealed it to me. He will have no answer...but better that than making stuff up!
Blessings!
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Shaolin
Active
That was part of God's plan, and the penalty for eating from that tree was spiritual death...separation from God, which is what sin does. Man had to fall before he could rise to a much higher place, where God wants us to rise to (relationally speaking). In the Garden, man would never be able to come to trust and depend upon God, because everything he needed was there. Love blooms from trust, and without it man could never come to the place where he trusts God, he could never come to the place where he could actually love God.
That is what all of this is about...God desired beings that He could love that had the ability to love Him back and desire to enter into personal relationship with Him. We could not do that in a state of child-like innocents of mind, and we could never escape that innocent nature unless we fell.
Blessings!
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Shaolin
Active
While I understand your point, we must also understand that simply giving breath to a dead body will not revive it. While what you say is true about the words for spirit, we also understand that there are other words that have been used in Scripture and given a purely spiritual meaning to. Both נפח and πνεῦμα are used in this very same way. When we assign a "standard" definition to the word when it is clear that it means spirit, then we pervert the meaning of the word in the text, and thus, pervert the text. As an example, when the Scriptures say that an "unclean spirit" possessed someone or was cast out, are you going to suggest (in great error) that the word pneuma in such a text actually means "unclean breath?" If you would, then you would be cutting your nose off despite your face (or shooting yourself in the foot, which ever you prefer).
Again, while I understand what you are saying, you are not being straight with the texts. Your hand is part of your body, its not that you "possess" it...it is part of you. If I chop off your hand, again, it is not used in the sense of possession, but in the sense of it is part of you...part of your body. By rejecting the clear teaching of Scripture that human beings are flesh and spirit, you pervert numerous passages and not just one doctrine of Scripture.
Do you realize that you are making the same argument that heretic Jehovah's Witnesses use in their false doctrines, which has been condemned for the last 2000 years as just that...false doctrine? I understood that in order to be part of this forum, one had to uphold the essential doctrines of the Christian faith...but what you are claiming is not one of them.
Sorry, but what you are saying is only half truths. Here...
1 Samuel 28:7-15
7 Then Saul said to his servants, "Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her." And his servants said to him, "Behold, there is a medium at En-dor."
8 So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments and went, he and two men with him. And they came to the woman by night. And he said, "Divine for me by a spirit and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you."
9 The woman said to him, "Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land. Why then are you laying a trap for my life to bring about my death?"
10 But Saul swore to her by the LORD, "As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing."
11 Then the woman said, "Whom shall I bring up for you?" He said, "Bring up Samuel for me."
12 When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman said to Saul, "Why have you deceived me? You are Saul."
13 The king said to her, "Do not be afraid. What do you see?" And the woman said to Saul, "I see a god coming up out of the earth."
14 He said to her, "What is his appearance?" And she said, "An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe." And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage.
15 Then Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" Saul answered, "I am in great distress, for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams. Therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do."
Samuel's body was dead, but since human beings are spirits temporarily dwelling within fleshly bodies, Samuel himself did not die. He was a spirit...now, unless you are going to go the way of the JW on this, your point is made completely useless and moot, because your point is in error.
Human beings are flesh and spirit together, to deny that is to make yourself a heretic and pervert the truth of Scripture.
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Shaolin
Active
Shaolin
Active
The text clearly states that God made man in His "image" (head, two arms and hands, two legs and feet, and torso) and in His "likeness" (the spiritual aspects of God - righteous, holy, and spirit). Animals do not have spirits, yet they breathe...another hole in your theory.
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Shaolin
Active
Actually, what you have given is an assumption, and that not only based upon no Scripture but also in direct opposition to what Scripture clearly teaches.
It is also an assumption on your part (and not substantiated by Scripture anywhere) that God continuously gives you life. You were given life the moment your daddy's ***** hit your momma's egg and you were conceived. At some point after that, God sent (or caused to happen) a spirit into that forming infant. From that point forward, you are alive because YOU eat and drink and YOU keep breathing...and because God has not yet seen fit to end your physical life. You assume much into the contexts and texts with no validation whatsoever.
Plus, the Greek verb in the present tense speaks of the present when the text was written (unless the context specifically stretches its meaning), the Greek present tense does NOT mean continuous action...that is the great mistake of many a calvinist in a number of their false doctrines.
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Shaolin
Active
You demonstrate that you don't know how to study Scripture. Please educate yourself on Biblical principles of interpretation, one of the primary principles is the Topical Principle, along with the Progressive Revelation Principle. Putting these into action, we collect all of the passages that have to do with the subject matter (in this case the spirit of man) and take them all together - that is the ONLY way to come to the truth of what Scripture teaches on any subject, and by failing to do that, we (you) pervert the Scriptures and key doctrines of Christianity.
For example, there are over 300 passages that address eternal life in the Bible; taking only three of them (you stake your theory on only one passage...hmmm...) is about as smart as taking three pieces of a 300 piece jig-saw puzzle, laying them on the table, and exclaiming, "What a beautiful picture!!!" I have not worked a detailed study on the spirit of man, so I do not know exactly how many passages in Scripture address the subject...but what I do know from what I know of Scripture, you are dead wrong in your presupposition on the matter.
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Shaolin
Active
As the passage in I Samuel that I gave you clearly demonstrates, while the "breath returns to God" may well speak of actual breath, it does not imply that every use of the word "breath" means the same thing...you are breaking several principles of Biblical interpretation, none of the least is the Bias Principle as well as ignoring the Contradiction Principle.
The spirits of the righteous made perfect does NOT speak of breath...it speaks of one's spirit. Here...try and explain this away...
Revelation 6:9-11
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.
10 They cried out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"
11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.
The soul and spirit are the same thing in Scripture (most of the time)...these were NOT mists floating around in heavenly space, and breaths cannot speak as these do, nor can a mist wear a white robe (or any robe for that matter). As Jesus said to the pharisees, you are wrong because you don't know God or the Scriptures.
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@Butch5
Probably best to clarify that man has a spirit rather than man is a spirit. There will be a celestial body for those worthy of the firstfruits of the resurrection.
As the Lord causes the increase.
Since angels are not marrying nor given in marriage and the firstfruits will be made higher than the angels to be like Him and that is also referring to immortality, it does make one suspect why Adam & Eve never bothered to eat from the tree of life because they wanted to have children. I mean really. They knew it existed. One would think immediately after Eve was created from Adam, Adam would lead her to the tree of life, but they were not dying and so probably saw no need and since they were under the commandment to multiply, eating from the tree of life seems to take a back seat to everything else until they had sinned and for why they were kicked out of Eden so they would not eat from the tree of life.
If we look at that face of the issue, one may discern this as truth with His help, but since we prophesy in part & know in part, we will know for sure when we come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ... if noy before by His grace & help.