What does it mean that we're a "new creation in Christ"?

[Dave-W]

I haven't encountered dismissing of the emotions, exactly,

I have. I have even read threads here on these forums on how God does not have and even hates emotions. From the OP of the thread "Impassibility of God:"

"Impassibility (from Latin in-, "not", passibilis, "able to suffer, experience emotion") describes the theological doctrine that God does not experience pain or pleasure from the actions of another being." Wiki

"Classic theism teaches that God is impassible — not subject to suffering, pain, or the ebb and flow of involuntary passions. In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, God is "without body, parts, or passions, immutable." (Source)

The 17th century Baptists also confessed that God is "without body, parts or passions, immutable..."
​

I've certainly encountered distrust of the professions which work with them (counselling, psychology etc).

Indeed. I have even seen a deep spiritual distrust of ANY educated profession, including myself with an engineering degree.

The idea seems to be that if you're not spiritualising your experience, you're somehow being ungodly in how you manage it.

That is a gentile christian approach rooted in gnosticism that has written off physical existence as irrelevant to the spiritual. Not a concept that came from Judaism.

 

[Paidiske]

Oh, dismissing of God's emotions, yes, I've encountered that. I was thinking more of whether these congregations expected people to suppress their emotions, and that was not quite my experience. (Emotion was almost encouraged, provided you put it within a "spiritual" framework).

Patripassionism is probably the only classical heresy which I adhere to in some sense; I understand what the Fathers were getting at, and on one level, they're probably right in that there's an aspect of God which transcends emotions as humans can understand them, but to have an emotionless God you have to cut out too much of the Scriptures for it to work, for me.

As an aside, Dave, I get that you're affiliated with the Messianic community and I'm glad that works for you. But for those of us who are gentile Christians, constantly having posts from you which puts down anything non-Jewish as inauthentic or inferior ("gnostic" is even worse) does get wearing after a while.

And in this instance I think you're quite wrong. I don't think it was a neo-gnosticism at all. It was an overemphasised pneumatology and an attempt to make the charismatic experience the defining and abiding characteristic of a believer's life.

 

[Dave-W]

I was thinking more of whether these congregations expected people to suppress their emotions, and that was not quite my experience. (Emotion was almost encouraged, provided you put it within a "spiritual" framework).

Well, If God has no emotion and we are supposed to emulate God ....

"Be ye holy as I am holy ..."

And in this instance I think you're quite wrong. I don't think it was a neo-gnosticism at all. It was an overemphasised pneumatology and an attempt to make the charismatic experience the defining and abiding characteristic of a believer's life.

I came to that conclusion LONG before I moved over to the Messianic community. When I moved back to my hometown and joined the congregation my mom and step dad had help found, (Word of Faith) I also started studying gnosticism because of some of the things they were saying. I started seeing traces of gnosticism or gnostic-esque beliefs in almost ALL of their theology and practice.

Spirit = good; physical = bad. That is at the very core of gnostic thought.

This was part of the chorus lyric to a song they loved:

I am a spirit and I possess a soul
I live in a body but my spirit has control ....​

As hard as I tried no one (including the pastor) seemed to recognize the error in that.

How is it any different than

I am a person
I own a computer
I live in a house ?​

 

[Dave-W]

As an aside, Dave, I get that you're affiliated with the Messianic community and I'm glad that works for you. But for those of us who are gentile Christians, constantly having posts from you which puts down anything non-Jewish as inauthentic or inferior ("gnostic" is even worse) does get wearing after a while.

Yeah - I get that and apologize. I do tend to get carried away on this.

Since I am an engineer by training, I do research when I run into a problem. Or a Holy Spirit prompting. That includes theology as much as anything else. That is what took me into the Messianic community.

Being convinced of its veracity, and applicability to all christians, (even if not required to follow) I do tend to go into teaching mode.

But I come by that honestly - my mom was a grade school teacher and my dad taught industrial trades with the Job Corps. (that was after he left the ministry)

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Does that mean that we no longer carry shame and defensiveness any longer? Does our "baggage" from the past just "wash away"? Because I don't believe that's what's meant by that.

See, read and remember/ watch how Jesus trained His Own disciples ; what
Jesus rebuked them for, chasitsed them for,

encouraged (blessed) them for, simply told them, and so on.

He specifically addressed "shame", "defensiveness", "baggage"
, "the past" ,
and much else,
particulalry "new creations" (all thru New Testament) ;
many
many things not addressed ever in most churches nor in many or most people's lives for centuries in the world today.

 

[Paidiske]

Spirit = good; physical = bad. That is at the very core of gnostic thought.

This was part of the chorus lyric to a song they loved:

I am a spirit and I possess a soul
I live in a body but my spirit has control ....​

As hard as I tried no one (including the pastor) seemed to recognize the error in that.

How is it any different than

I am a person
I own a computer
I live in a house ?​

​

I completely agree with the problem you've highlighted, but I don't think it was the problem in the congregation I was describing. It wasn't so much physical=bad, but more, everything physical is spiritually charged. It led to some very unhealthy dynamics.

 

[Dave-W]

I completely agree with the problem you've highlighted, but I don't think it was the problem in the congregation I was describing. It wasn't so much physical=bad, but more, everything physical is spiritually charged. It led to some very unhealthy dynamics.

OK - gotcha. It still "feels" gnostic to me. Too much focus on the spiritual to the detriment of the physical.

 

[mkgal1]

This has not been my experience. Perhaps I've never belonged to what you would call a patriarchal church or had strictly patriarchal views.

Have you personally experienced the things that you are writing about or are your views from the outside looking in? I realize that is only two views but they were the ones that came to mind.

I think there needs to be the addition of the term "fundamentalist" to get to what I'm referring to. There seems to be a divide between that group and a church with a patriarchal church tradition (like the Orthodox churches, for example).

In fact.....I came across this thread right before I responded here (this gives a feel for the culture war between faith teachings):
An "Apology" from P and P

The OP linked this article: An Apology to the Eastern Orthodox Community

One of the things that has helped me is having belonged to other religions prior to my becoming saved and born again in Christ. I can truly see the wonder in Christianity. Also, I joined a 12 Step Group when I was very young which started me out on a generic God and when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior my faith became a rich and glorious set of beliefs. Also the 12 step group emphasized working on ones character defects and other things so it naturally adapted to my religious beliefs as well. God bless.

Interesting that you bring up the 12-step group. I have a couple of FB friends that I really admire their posts and writing. They both have belonged to 12-step groups for years, and there's something so....expressive, I guess.....about their thoughts that I'm really drawn to (and I wasn't noticing it in our church---quite the opposite, actually). They wrote of relationships....they wrote of their emotions....they wrote of their admiration of nature and the connection to God they feel when they hear the sound of waves crashing...etc.

That's what led me to really critique where we were as a family (as far as that church, I mean). We'd been there for over 20 years and our lives were encompassed in it--all our friends attended there, our daughter went to school there, it was our social life...etc. We were definitely in a bubble. So....yes, I experienced all of this from the inside.

 

[mkgal1]

I was thinking more of whether these congregations expected people to suppress their emotions, and that was not quite my experience. (Emotion was almost encouraged, provided you put it within a "spiritual" framework).

I've experienced the expectation of people to suppress their emotions--and it leaves them feeling like robots (with no relational connection to each other--and no empathy, either).

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

That's what led me to really critique where we were as a family (as far as that church, I mean). We'd been there for over 20 years and our lives were encompassed in it--all our friends attended there, our daughter went to school there, it was our social life...etc. We were definitely in a bubble. So....yes, I experienced all of this from the inside.

Watch everywhere, anywhere, God permits, for new creations in Christ Jesus - lives transformed and completely changed both from what they once were, and from what their ungodly neighbors are -
and
pray constantly to know what to do , if anything,
always
abiding in JESUS, and HIS WORD abiding in us, to do HIS WORD,
not just to hear it.

p.s. "NEW CREATIONS", as written,

are continually full of peace, (unshakeable peace),
joy (full of great joy, no matter the circumstances),
and righteousness !

All one with the Father and the Son, freely granted always with Salvation and forgiveness (no guilty conscience in God's Presence - His Very THrone in prayer)
in JESUS.

 

[mkgal1]

For an example, this is what I believe allows a person to grow spiritually---once they have this attitude:

There is a pattern and rhythm of living and walking with God that is a pattern of life to death to new life, or being oriented to becoming disoriented, to being reoriented (Palm Sunday to Good Friday to Easter Sunday). This implies that brokenness, death, failure, etc. are part of God’s pattern of bringing forth the new—unless a seed falls into the ground and dies…..
~What Sets Restoring the Soul Apart From Other Programs?

....and my past experience (in a conservative protestant evangelical church) seemed to very much resist all that. Instead of seeing our growth (sanctification) as a repeating and on-going process--it was more like a one-time event that happened when we said the "sinner's prayer".