Soyeong
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I've said nothing along those lines.It's a fine line because Gnostics also make a distinction between spirit and soul, and the physical and the spiritual, and they believed originally that all things physical, including the flesh, were evil. But they take this distinction way too far and thereby reason that anything done with or in the flesh is separate from the spirit: and thus they teach something almost akin to two different entity-aspects of a human being. What they do according to the flesh and in the flesh therefore they count as irrelevant because they say that the flesh is evil anyway, and will perish, meanwhile thinking they have some sort of holy spirit entity, (I mean of their own, themselves), which communes with God or God's Holy Spirit, and therefore what they do with and in the flesh doesn't matter because they have a spirit that communes with God while the soul is counted almost as if a throwaway source of evil that is doomed to perish anyway. This, of course, is catastrophic error.
Please interact with Romans 7:13-24 to explain how it Is inaccurate to describe what Paul described as the law of sin as being an evil inclination. For example, the law of sin was causing him not to do the good that the wanted to do and to keep on doing the evil that he did not want. Also, even if we do not describe the law of sin as the evil inclination, please explain why you do not consider what he described as the law sin to be referring to Gnosticism.The idea that Paul is teaching that with the flesh he serves the nomos of sin becomes the same reasoning if you say that the nomos of sin is an evil inclination: for Paul does in fact state that with the flesh he serves the nomos of sin. If the nomos of sin is an evil inclination then Paul would be saying that with the flesh he serves the evil inclination, and that is indeed Gnostic thinking and reasoning.
There is nothing about having different views for how to translate Romans 7:25 that calls someone's honesty into question. In Romans 7, Paul was contrasting serving the Law of God with serving the law of sin, so there is nothing wrong with someone choosing to capitalize "Torah of Elohim" in recognition of its significance and to not capitalize "torah of sin" as referring to something else. While "Torah" mean "instruction" or "law", it generally is specifically used to mean "Law of God", so there is nothing wrong with translating "nomos" as "law" when it is referring to something in contrast with the Torah of God. There is also nothing about choosing to translate it as "torah of sin" that would be incompatible with what I've said, so you're still not explaining why it would be wrong to describe the law of sin as an evil inclination or why describing it as such is perverting what Paul said.Moreover, to be honest with the text, simply insert Torah or torah for nomos, (law), and you may see that it cannot be what you have proposed if you are honest with the text.
Romans 7:25 TS2009
25 Thanks to Elohim, through יהושע Messiah our Master! So then, with the mind I myself truly serve the Torah of Elohim, but with the flesh the torah of sin.
This translator is not willing to be dishonest with the text, but does place the second instance of torah in lower case. Can you call the second mention of torah an evil inclination? That would not be right judgment imo. Here is another translation that typically renders Torah instead of Law where nomos is found, but look what they do in this passage:
Romans 7:25 HRB2012
25 I thank YAHWEH through Yahshua Messiah our Master! So then I myself with the mind truly serve the Torah of Elohim and with the flesh the law of sin.
Is that a fair treatment of the text? rendering nomos as "Torah" in one case and then switching it to "law" in the next occurrence in the same statement? No, imo, that is not a fair treatment of the text.
The law of sin was causing Paul not to do the good that he wanted to do and to continue to do the evil that he did not want to do.I myself also found a torah-teaching concerning sin, just as Paul did: and I found that teaching and instruction in the Torah, but the Torah is not only for showing us what sin is: it is so much more than that. So there is Torah of Elohim, which is of the mind and of above, and there is also Torah of sin, (and death), concerning that which is of below, the flesh, and it is used to mortify or put to death the deeds of the body and our members upon the earth, (of below).
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