JDS (Jesus Died Spiritually)

victoryword said:

While The father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God and therefore a TRINITY, they are three totally seperate and distinct beings.

When Jesus became a man through His incarnation, He, like the rest of us, possessed a spirit, soul, and body (1 Thess. 5:23). Therefore Jesus indeed has a spirit that was distinct from His body and distinct from the Holy Spirit.

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I double checked the verse 1 Thess. 5:23... it says:

"May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

But that doesn't imply that Christ's soul was a separate entity from the Holy Spirit... it doesn't say anything about Christ's soul. Let me check up some more on this.

Bastoune said:

Does Jesus have another spirit other than the Holy Spirit? How does the eternally begotten Word have another Divine Nature other than that of the Holy Spirit?

His flesh He took (DNA and all) from His Mother Mary, His Spirit and divinity solely from His Heavenly Father.

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Careful...Jesus was as fully human as you or I, yet without sin. He was also fully Divine, being the pre-existing Son of God. As a human, He had a human spirit the same as we. It is a great mystery, this union of the Divine and human in one human body, possessing both human and divine attributes in perfect harmony.

A careful examination of scripture will reveal that Mary was actually the first surrogate mother. She did not contribute any of her DNA (a concept unknown to the people of the time). The scripture says that what was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. That does not mean that the Holy spirit fertilized one of her eggs. Jesus could not share any portion of his fleshly body with Mary or any other existing human, or He would have inherited the sinful nature as well. What the Holy Spirit did was create in Mary's womb a completely new human, untainted by Adam's sin. His birth established Him as of the line of David, because Jewish lineage is matriarchal. But He was a completely new human, the Second Adam, firstborn of a new race of humans.

Bastoune said:

These verses show that indeed, man is object of wrath, but do we partake in Satan's VERY NATURE?!? Or do we become his "spiritual children" by adoption?

I'm not disagreeing with you in the sense of falling from grace but Satan is a fallen ANGEL, we are mortals with flesh.

Romans 8:23: "we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

Just as we are called Children of God now - "because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Rom. 8:24; cf. Gal. 3:26, 4:7), we are still awaiting our redemption... or condemnation (Rom. 8:19-9:26; Heb. 12; Phil.2:12; Psalm 2:11; John 3:8 )

But Adam was not, though fallen, of the same nature as Satan, merely his "spirtual child" -- one who rejected God.

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Hi Bastoune..
Unfortunately, this approach to the inner nature of fallen man leads to so many problems that it is almost impossible to address them all. Unregenerate people are indeed children of the devil, exactly like Jesus said, Paul said, and John said: literally and precisely. So many questions are raised by your position on this that I am not sure where to start???
The stream of NT teaching indicates consistantly that the reason man sins, and cannot do good is because he "is of his father the devil". He is born with the devil's nature. He is "an evil tree" and cannot do good. He is "by nature a child of wrath."
This is why man has to be born again... to be rid of this fallen nature. Once he is born again, he is created in the image of He who created him. I dunno bro... I am not sure where you could possibly go with this approach. It seems to be pretty empty of any power or any actual "salvation". What you seem to be saying is that nothing really happened to us when we got saved. No new birth, no new nature, no becoming a member of the body of Christ... Jesus was not really made sin for us... so we were never really made the righteousness of God in Him...
Well... I vowed to my self not to get into this discussion again. It is pretty useless because usually the sides are to far appart to accomplish anything.
May God reveal to each of us the truth, and may we be blessed in His light! In the name of Jesus!

didaskalos said:

Unregenerate people are indeed children of the devil, exactly like Jesus said, Paul said, and John said: literally and precisely. So many questions are raised by your position on this that I am not sure where to start???
The stream of NT teaching indicates consistantly that the reason man sins, and cannot do good is because he "is of his father the devil". He is born with the devil's nature. He is "an evil tree" and cannot do good. He is "by nature a child of wrath."
This is why man has to be born again... to be rid of this fallen nature. Once he is born again, he is created in the image of He who created him. I dunno bro... I am not sure where you could possibly go with this approach. It seems to be pretty empty of any power or any actual "salvation". What you seem to be saying is that nothing really happened to us when we got saved. No new birth, no new nature, no becoming a member of the body of Christ... Jesus was not really made sin for us... so we were never really made the righteousness of God in Him...

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I don't have a problem with sticking with what Jesus and the Apostles said about the subject, in fact, that's what we should do! Taking it beyond those words, though, steps into the realm of speculation and personal opinion. Sadly, there's a lot of that going on today, mixing personal opinion and speculation in with the Word, in such a way that it leads to wrong conclusions.

It sounds as though you believe in the doctrine of Total Depravity. I agree with that, I believe that's what the Bible teaches. To hold to an idea of man having some redeeming quality within himself, some "good", is at the least Semi-Pelagianism, and at worst, fully Pelagian. Both were condemned as heresy. Semi-Pelagianism is still around, though, mostly in the more liberal churches, although they don't call it that.

When Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin, He made it possible for us to be translated from the Kingdom of Darkness in to the Kingdom of God's Dear Son. The method of translation? Spiritual union with Christ, by faith in Him, so that we are counted as having died with Him, were buried with Him, and rose again with Him. Our spirits are born again by virtue of that union, so that we become new creatures, alive in Christ, and all sins forgiven, past, present and future. Our lives become hid with Christ in God, and we are clothed with the Righteousness of Christ. We are free from the law of sin and death, and able to live a life of true service to God, and to be pleasing to Him. We are counted , and are to count ourselves, as dead to sin, and alive to Christ. The Greek word in Romans translated as "dead" can be translated as "corpse". Count yourselves a corpse to sin. Corpses don't sin, they don't do anything, they have no reactions at all....For the first time in our lives, we can actually choose NOT to sin! Praise be to God!

The only thing that has not been changed as of yet is our present physical bodies, which will be redeemed and changed at the coming of our Lord. He has, however made provision for this present body, in terms of health, and sanctification by obedience to the Word. According to Isaiah 53:4-5 and 1 Peter 2:24, Christ not only bought our redemption from sin, He also bought physical healing for us by the things which He suffered.

I see a past, present, and future application of the atonement. the past is the Cross, which freed us from sin. The present is our sanctification, the growth in faith, truth, and knowledge of our Lord, and our being used by Him to further His Plan in the present age. The future is when we are redeemed bodily, at His return, and our salvation is complete.

didaskalos said:

Hi Bastoune..
Unfortunately, this approach to the inner nature of fallen man leads to so many problems that it is almost impossible to address them all. Unregenerate people are indeed children of the devil, exactly like Jesus said, Paul said, and John said: literally and precisely. So many questions are raised by your position on this that I am not sure where to start???
The stream of NT teaching indicates consistantly that the reason man sins, and cannot do good is because he "is of his father the devil". He is born with the devil's nature. He is "an evil tree" and cannot do good. He is "by nature a child of wrath."
This is why man has to be born again... to be rid of this fallen nature. Once he is born again, he is created in the image of He who created him. I dunno bro... I am not sure where you could possibly go with this approach. It seems to be pretty empty of any power or any actual "salvation". What you seem to be saying is that nothing really happened to us when we got saved. No new birth, no new nature, no becoming a member of the body of Christ... Jesus was not really made sin for us... so we were never really made the righteousness of God in Him...
Well... I vowed to my self not to get into this discussion again. It is pretty useless because usually the sides are to far appart to accomplish anything.
May God reveal to each of us the truth, and may we be blessed in His light! In the name of Jesus!

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Being sinful in nature does not make one of the same nature as the Devil who was a fallen angel. We are fallen humans, in flesh.

nobdysfool said:

Careful...Jesus was as fully human as you or I, yet without sin. He was also fully Divine, being the pre-existing Son of God. As a human, He had a human spirit the same as we. It is a great mystery, this union of the Divine and human in one human body, possessing both human and divine attributes in perfect harmony.

A careful examination of scripture will reveal that Mary was actually the first surrogate mother. She did not contribute any of her DNA (a concept unknown to the people of the time). The scripture says that what was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. That does not mean that the Holy spirit fertilized one of her eggs. Jesus could not share any portion of his fleshly body with Mary or any other existing human, or He would have inherited the sinful nature as well. What the Holy Spirit did was create in Mary's womb a completely new human, untainted by Adam's sin. His birth established Him as of the line of David, because Jewish lineage is matriarchal. But He was a completely new human, the Second Adam, firstborn of a new race of humans.

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Completely human, yes. And from whom did he get his humanity if not from His human mother? What you state here sounds like heresy.

One man I knew, from the Assemblies of God Church, he preaches something which is complete heresy, that Jesus' blood and could not have come in contact with Mary's blood or bodily fluids, less He be tainted by her sinful nature; but Christ took his HUMANITY from her "seed" (it is curious that the language conveys a woman's "seed" - I forget the Hebrew, but in the Greek "spermatos" is pretty clear the root) and only from her (Gen. 3:15; cf. Rev 12:17; Romans 16:20). This man's words resembled the early heresy Doceticism, which believed Jesus passed through Mary like water through a tube. She was a vehicle, contributing nothing to Jesus’ being. I will not get into how Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus dealt with this heresy, but it has been refuted since its origin in the late 1st, or early 2nd Century.

And in regards to being in the Branch of David, read the Gospel of Matthew. The genealogy is traced through the adoptive Father, JOSEPH, not Mary. Yes, Judaism is a matriarchal inheritance, but in legal inheritance, Joseph's line is shown. We do not see Mary's genealogy.

The conception was supernatural. Christ's humanity was fully human.

Apparently, I don't expect you to understand the theology of the Immaculate Conception, but the Gospel of Luke offers insight into how this is (as well as, if you study OT and Talmud, along with Luke, you realize Joseph as a pious Jew could never have engaged in any sexual relations with Mary once the Holy Spirit overshadowed her; she was no longer his spouse, per Jewish law). But these are topics for another thread.

(Sidenote: I see where Christ indeed would have had a human soul as well as human body...)

Bastoune said:

Being sinful in nature does not make one of the same nature as the Devil who was a fallen angel. We are fallen humans, in flesh.

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But we now have a divine nature.... we are no longer fallen.
You seem to be saving that no one was ever fallen, and of course no-one is really "born again" with a new nature.

You can have the same nature as a fallen angel or God...
why not?

The conception was supernatural. Christ's humanity was fully human.
Apparently, I don't expect you to understand the theology of the Immaculate Conception, but the Gospel of Luke offers insight into how this is (as well as, if you study OT and Talmud, along with Luke, you realize Joseph as a pious Jew could never have engaged in any sexual relations with Mary once the Holy Spirit overshadowed her; she was no longer his spouse, per Jewish law). But these are topics for another thread.

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Actually I do understand the theology of the Immaculate Conception, and it strikes me as a very convoluted way to explain how Jesus could have been born sinless. Basically, it states that Mary was also sinless. My problem with that is, if that were possible, then why couldn't God have done so for every person born since the Fall? If Mary were sinless, then she could have been the Saviour. If Mary was born sinless, then that means that she as well was conceived by the Holy Spirit, the same as Jesus, and Mary's mother was equally blessed as having borne a child of God. Then we'd have to deal with the "Mother of the Mother of God", or God's Grandmother. I'm going to appeal to Occam's Razor here: "The simplest explanation that fits all the facts is usually the correct one."

It's much simpler to just realize that Jesus was conceived entirely of the Holy Spirit, and Mary was, in effect, a surrogate mother. The whole idea that Joseph could not have engaged in normal marital relations with Mary after Jesus' birth has more to do with the Catholic Church's guilt-ridden view of sex and the belief that somehow sex was the Original Sin. Neither find support in scripture.

You're right, though, it is a topic for another thread. I mean no disrespect to Mary, to Catholics or to God. I don't think my position disrespects any of them.

nobdysfool said:

Actually I do understand the theology of the Immaculate Conception, and it strikes me as a very convoluted way to explain how Jesus could have been born sinless. Basically, it states that Mary was also sinless. My problem with that is, if that were possible, then why couldn't God have done so for every person born since the Fall? If Mary were sinless, then she could have been the Saviour. .

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But here you demonstrate you have no idea about the Immaculate Conception. It is by GRACE that Mary was REDEEMED, by the merits of her Son. You should read the following link on the EOC board:

http://www.christianforums.com/t50824&page=4

Mary was created "full of Grace" -- Grace being a gift from God. Thus she could not have been a savior for she needed her savior to redeem her in this unique way.

In Luke 1:28, Gabriel greets Mary not with her name, but with the word/title "kecharitomene," or "full of grace." It is the past participle of "charitoo" and translates best as "made full of grace."

In Semitic usage, a name expresses the reality of the person/thing to which it refers.

This is a unique title given to Mary, and suggests a perfection of grace from a past event. Mary is not just "highly favored." She has been perfected in grace by God. "Full of grace" is only used to describe one other person - Jesus Christ in John 1:14.

Now remember that grace is a gift from God (cf. Ephesians 2:8, 3:7), therefore it is not earned. Mary did not earn her honor, she was preserved solely by the "grace" of God, as we can see in the title "kecharitomene." Her redemption came in a different way than did ours, yet she herself was saved by grace.

As the link shows, was a perfect Ark of the New Covenant. Now, the womb of the woman who carried the Incarnate Lord, could not have been tainted with sin, lest the Devil have a foothold on the Lord.

This is another reason why Irenaeus (who was a disciple of Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of the Apostle John) called Mary the "new Eve" - for just as Christ was the "new Adam" (cf. 1 Cor. 15:45), so was Mary a new Eve, also without the taint of Original Sin.

To have a problem with the title "Mother of God" is to be rather Nestorian of you. Do you not believe that Jesus was fully GOD? Then if Mary is His mother, is she not the Mother of God?

Jesus was "holy, harmless, undefiled and SEPARATE from sinners" - in this sense He was not one of us. He did not have the nature of Mary. The Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary, taking her seed, Darkness did not overcome Light" - the Light won and her humanity was the basis of our Lord's humanity - otherwise He would not have been of this human race. "The Holy Ghost overshadowed her". He was incapable of sin because of this. He never became sin itself or became a sinner. His Divinity except its full expression was intact. Thus as Peter says, "He committed no sin" because He was born without any tendency to sin. He took the guilt of our sin and in that way was made sin.

Jesus was "holy, harmless, undefiled and SEPARATE from sinners" - in this sense He was not one of us. He did not have the nature of Mary. The Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary, taking her seed, Darkness did not overcome Light" - the Light won and her humanity was the basis of our Lord's humanity - otherwise He would not have been of this human race. "The Holy Ghost overshadowed her". He was incapable of sin because of this. He never became sin itself or became a sinner. His Divinity except its full expression was intact. Thus as Peter says, "He committed no sin" because He was born without any tendency to sin. He took the guilt of our sin and in that way was made sin.

But here you demonstrate you have no idea about the Immaculate Conception. It is by GRACE that Mary was REDEEMED, by the merits of her Son. You should read the following link on the EOC board:

http://www.christianforums.com/t50824&page=4

Mary was created "full of Grace" -- Grace being a gift from God. Thus she could not have been a savior for she needed her savior to redeem her in this unique way.

In Luke 1:28, Gabriel greets Mary not with her name, but with the word/title "kecharitomene," or "full of grace." It is the past participle of "charitoo" and translates best as "made full of grace."

In Semitic usage, a name expresses the reality of the person/thing to which it refers.

This is a unique title given to Mary, and suggests a perfection of grace from a past event. Mary is not just "highly favored." She has been perfected in grace by God. "Full of grace" is only used to describe one other person - Jesus Christ in John 1:14.

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oh please, no Mary-exalting/worshipping doctrines in this Charismatic section please. It's really a turn-off!

If Jesus Hadn't died spiritually, then we would have to.

If Jesus Hadn't died spiritually, then we would have to.

I like your name, newbie!

Hello everyone,

Pastor J here. I believe that Jesus did infact die spiritually. After all isnt that the penalty of sin, spiritual death? Spiritual death initiated physical death, but it began with the spiritual. Remember God said to Adam, "the day you eat of it you shall surely die"? He went on to live over 900 yrs. physically after he ate the fruit. The death God was referring to was a spiritual one which resulted in a physical death. Had not Jesus first died spiritually, He never could have died physically.

Matthew 27:46
(46) And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

• Verse 46 speaks of His Spiritual Death.

Matthew 27:50
(50) Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

• Verse 50 speaks of His Physical death.

Spiritual death doesnt mean to cease to exist, it means simply to be out of the presence of God. Billy Graham actually coined the phrase 'spiritual death'.

I admit, I dont like the thought that Jesus died spiritually, but scripture seems to be very plain to me that not only did He die spiritually, but He also suffered spiritually.

Here is a good bit to chew on:

Jonah 1:17-2:6

(17) Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

(1) Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,

(2) And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, [and] thou heardest my voice.

(3) For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

(4) Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.

(5) The waters compassed me about, [even] to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.

(6) I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars [was] about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.

• Notice that Jonah refers to the whales belly as "hell". There was nothing victorious about this experience except for when his life was "brought up from corruption" (the resurrection).

Now lets see what Jesus had to say about Jonah's experience:

Matthew 12:40
(40) For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

This is but one of the many examples of the fact that Jesus died & suffered spiritually.

I used to strongly oppose this teaching, but after much study, I cant help but see it in scripture.Pastor J

Thank you.

I was in Sydney in 1970 on RR from Vietnam. It is a beautiful place and the people were very friendly.