You are correct that the Cross only affected spiritually life, but more importantly it EFFECTED life.
It goes to your understanding of the fall. Christ reversed the fall. Man and God were created to be in an eternal relationship and Adam was persuing that relationship when the fall occurred.
As I stated earlier, most, if not all protestants make the fall a spiritual event. However, it was a spiritual separation, namely sin, that prompted the judgement of that sin. Which was death. Man became mortal. He died. At the exit to the Garden God confirms that sentence, dust to dust, Gen 3:19. that will be the state of man when he physically expires at the end of a mortal life. But God had already given the promise of the correction in Gen 3:15. Christ would come to reverse that judgement. So we have death in Adam and life from Christ.
Then lets move to the Birth of Christ. Do you not, or do you believe, that Christ assumed our fallen human natures? this is a physical state, not a spiritual state. Do you believe in the Incarnation, which is that Christ assumed our natues, completely, wholly, without difference in one iota, but in this nature did not sin.
In your theology, Christ's Incarnation is wholly unneccesary. You have ADam dying spiritually and Christ giving life Spiritually. Why does Christ even need to be a human being in this scenerio?
If you consider sin to the the primary problem of man, then a sacrifice could have been done by some righteous man who God could have instilled some special favor of grace to perfectly keep the law and be a perfect sacrifice. A sacrifice does not require a resurrection. Why is a resurrection even necessary for Christ in your theology. I see no point in it so far?
If you are of the belief that the text of I Cor 15:20-22 is that Adam passed a spiritual death upon mankind, then Chrsit only passed spiritual life to some, those that believe, then the equation falls. There is no limitation of the word all in this text not several others that all pertain to the Work of Christ on the Cross.
Scripturally Adam did not pass on spiritual death to anyone. If so, we would not be responsible for our own sins, but those of ONLY Adam. He did not pass on his sin and guilt. They are all his very own and no man possesses them. Hoever, the effect of that one single sin, was a judgment of death upon Adam. It touched his very nature, became mortal. So affected it was that it, mortality was passed on to every single human being.
Mortality means death, separation of body and soul, It is the end of the human being as he was created, to be both eternal and in union with God. thus Death precluded the purpose of God's created order from ever being accomplished.
Man cannot give himself life. He cannot save himself. How can a dead mortal being give himself eternal, immortal life?
this is the question you have failed to answer in your discourse and why you are jumping all over the place between some being physcially alive, some being physically dead and the physically dead somehow becoming ONLY spiritually alive. An impossbility.
But God wanted His creation, which was good not to be destroyed, physically, (spiritual in not even in the picture here) by death. Death is the realm of Satan. He rules this world through death. If death cannot be defeated, then God is not omnipotent. God would of necessity need to at least share in the power over this created order.
ONLY the Giver of LIFE, physical life could restore LIFE to mankind, namely the world. Since God is not a respector of persons, He created all, He gave all His image, we are all the same essence, He in His great LOVE and MERCY would send Christ, to restore life, physical life to the world.
It is why He can be literally called, the Savior of the World, He is the Light of the World. He came to redeem sinners. Are not all men sinners? These are all those texts that speak of Christ reconciling the world. NEVER, NEVER does it ever say that Christ reconciled ONLY believers and never touched the physical universe.
It is also why He gives Light to every man that cometh into the world. Why each man will stand before Him, physically, to give an account of what He did with that Great Gift of LIFE and HIS choice of freely living in that LIFE. This is borne out in Rom 1:18-23.
Your view leaves mankind actually, in death. A spiritual existance is moot in your whole view because if Christ failed to even raise one single soul from death, then not a single soul would be raised from death. If none raised from death, then your faith is in vain. I Cor 15:14-19.
the Physical is before the spiritual, I Cor 15:46. You cannot even think about the latter unless and until man has life. The dead, mortal being, cannot believe, cannot have an eternal existance with God, so why bother even in this life.
Now, lets look again at the result of this salvation of mankind from death through Christ.
When Christ defeated death, by His resurrection, it also defeated sin which is the sting of death. Mankind was released from the condemnation through Adam. We ALL , mankind, both believers and unbelievers shall be raised from the dead. They will be raised because Christ arose from the dead. He raised our mortal natures to immortality. God did not want to give some power to Satan, He did not wish His good created order to be destroyed. He is not partial as most of protestants make God. You leave Him an unmerciful God to most of His creatures bearing His Image. You leave Him an unjust God who would even consider leaving any of His creatures in death solely because of the one sin of one man. He showed mercy to all, Rom 11:32 and just in that every man will stand before Him and declare to Him what they did in this life time, this mortal life on this earth with the Great Gift He gave to them, LIFE and the call to be in union with HIM for an eternity.
It became apparent to me in this discussion why protestants always claim that this view is Universalism. It is because you believe that the Work of Christ on the Cross is spiritual rather than the physical it was. That is why you also believe that a spritual aspect, faith, can give eternal life, a physical state. Also why you would also hold to some form of OSAS as how can you actually be physically reborn and lose that LIFE.
Faith is not a change of physical natures but a spiritual one. We are not born again physically, but spirtually into a union that was lost because of the fall, death, physical existance.
Resurrections. Obviously you have gone all over the map on this.
There are two of each, one is spiritual the other physical. They align with each other.
Christ gave physical life to mankind. We all shall die once physically. It is to rid the body of sin, or the mortal state, of all of mankind, no exceptions, Christ lost none to death. All shall be raised, Satan and death will be totally defeated.
We all shall be raised physically, ONLY because Christ arose from the grave and gave our mortal natures immortality. If He did not do this, ONLY those that He actually died for, could be saved spiritually as well, which also means, all that He redeemed, are also soul saved. This falls right into the classic Universalist mode, of none being lost even to hell. Actually in your view, hell cannot exist. You have no one eligible for hell. You left them all under condemnation of Adam. dust to dust.
I know that you say that the dead are raised in the end, but you have no theological answer for their resurrection. Just another of many contradictions. You want them to be judged again, but for what. They are already judged. Judged under the sin of one man, not even their own sins. Man needs life, and the free choice to sin, to stand in judgment for his sins.
Lets look at some of these contradictions, especially those of the "first resurrection". this is a spiritual resurrection. It occurs at the rebirth of our spiritual union with Christ which is by faith, repentance and baptism. Because it is a spiritual union it is possible to falther, to fall from it as did Adam. But if we do not believe or at some point leave the union with Christ, we are not condemned to a physical death, but a spiritual death. This is the Second Death, a spiritual aspect.
You have stated that unbelievers by some miraculous means were raised, physically. But you also stated they were raised mortals. Where in scripture is this supported within your view? then, so far, you failed to answer the question, how long will they live as mortals. Being mortal is a physical state of death, dying. Does hell cease to exist in your theology? It is not eternal in existance? When does the Bible state that those in hell will die (physically)?
Let us look at the texts over which you are stumbling, the phrase "in Christ".
Your perception of "all will be made alive in Christ", puzzles me; let's do a search on "made alive":
1Cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Col 2:13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, {the} just for {the} unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
In 1Cor15, "made alive" is "in Christ".
In Eph2 "made alive" is "through faith".
In Col2 "made alive" is also "forgiven of all sins".
In 1Pet2 "made alive" is by the Holy Spirit.
the context will tell you, but I can now see why the context is baffling when you only believe in a spiritual restoration by Christ. But it was both, whether your view includes it or not.
I Cor 15:22 is a absolute equation. As in Adam all men died (physically), so also all men shall be made alive in Christ, (physcially). Christ's work does not effect a spiritual renewal, but does effect a physical life. Even the secondary work, the atonement does not effect a spiritual renewal. But both do affect a spiritual renewal which is by faith.
Eph 2:5 is the physical. It is referencing Christ's work, His Saving Grace, absent of anything man can render, it is in parentheses for that reason, because of the transition Paul makes to separate believers in verse 9 who are also saved throrugh faith, an individual man response.
I can now see your viewpoint since all things are spiritual, it would of necessity need to be the same, but it is not. The Incarnation did occur whether your view actually recognizes it or not, so also did the resurrection for all.
Col 2:13, Might I also point to vs 12 where it plainly says we were baptised with Him and raised with Him, THROUGTH FAITH. A spiritual participation, by baptism, Rom 6:3-4, the first resurrection, a spiritual resurrection.
However, vs 13 starts right out with referencing mankind. Mankind, everyone, in Adam was dead in sins a treaspasses and your flesh uncircumcised and having forgiven all treaspasses, having wiped out the requirements that was against us. What requirements? Death, Christ wiped out death. Death to all. Vs 11 also confirms this. The believer partakes of this by baptism and we can enter a spiritual union because Christ triumphed over sin, death, powers of principalities, (Satan) the flesh, law and evil spirits. Christ triumphed over all so that we can share in the victory through faith. We don't need to perform the work of our salvation which is impossible. But the union which we were created to have with God, has been restored, the ability and capability given to all of mankind because He desires that all men come to Him. He left NONE under the power of death and sin.
Man, In God's justice, can and will be judged for his own actions, for his own sins, and not those of Adam. Christ is after all, the Second Adam, not a half an Adam, or worse, no Savior at all.
I Pet3:18, This verse is not even speaking of believers. It is solely speaking of Christ, but the analogy would fit. Chist suffered death in the flesh, but was raised by the Holy Spirit. But then so are we. we were made alive physically through Christ and made to LIVE IN Christ by the HOLY Spirit.
Not just the context of the immediate verse, but the whole Context of what Christ accomplished for mankind, actually the universe.
this raises another question regarding texts as Col 1:15-20, If Christ only reconciled man spiritually, just how is the universe a spritual entity only? Or how does it become spiritually reconciled, by faith?
I will answer your specific questions in the next part.
To be continued..... to part II.
