Originally posted by ItalyBoyBlue"Knowing this, t hat our old man has been crucified with HIm in order that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin as slaves" (Romans 6:6)
Jesus Kills
"Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him" (6:7)
"So also you, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus" (6:11)
Jesus kills off something in man which cannot be healed. It can only be terminated.
So to come to Jesus to "fix" your problems is not too accurate an idea of what He will do. There is something eating away at man which cannot be reformed, corrected, or healed. It can only be killed off.
In that sense Jesus does kill off that unhealable "germ" sickening the human being. So Paul says "I am crucified with Christ"
However, Jesus does not only kill off that evil malignant growth of the Satanic self life. He imparts the divine life of Himself into man. He came to give life and to give life abundantly (John 10:10)
He transfigured Himself into "a life giving Spirit". "The last Adam became a life givins Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)
Here ZOE life is the divine life of God. To give life as in life giving Spirit really means to give God. Life giving Spirit means to God giving Spirit. The last Adam, Jesus Christ, in resurrection, became a God imparting Spirit, giving God to His believers. He gives God the Person to people to be their eternal life.
Man in his fallen state is said to be "alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18).. The fallen human beings are not just estranged and alienated from God. They are estranged and alienated from "the life of God".
That is why there is a sense of the incompleteness of human life without God. Man's life was meant to have within also "the life of God". And in the fall of Adam man became "alienated from the life of God".
So Christ came to give divine life. He says He is the resurrection and the life, the bread of life, the way and the truth and the life. The apostle John says "In Him was life. And the life was the light of men"
He is the life of the Father which was manifested, seen, heard, and handled.
"That which was from the begininng, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the word of life
(And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us);
That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
And these things we write that our joy may bve made full" (1 John 1:1-4)
John writes that this eternal life was manifested from the Father, was seen, was heard, was even handled. And they report this divine life. This divine life is for us to have fellowship with the apostles and with the Father and the Son of God.
"The last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)
Originally posted by jaywillHow is it possible for something to always exist? How can we, being finite beings, possibly hope to verify that anything exists infinitely?
I don't think it is vague.
From eternity .... to eternity.
Simply put God always was and always will be.
I think that time is something that we understand and chiefly exists because we need such a realm. That is speculation. But the clear words of Scitpure [b]"from eternity to eternity" would mean that God always was and will always be.
H ...[text shortened]... ground of being, ever existing, self existing, and dependent upon nothing for His existence.[/b]
Originally posted by EcstremeVenomThe universe could be said to have existed forever, since space-time is all one dimension. Before (and I use the term loosely) space came into existance (as in the physical volume for matter-energy to exist within) there was no time. The word "forever" is, of course, a time dependant term. Of course, the English language is inadequate to describe things like this...
everything starts somewhere, unless it is a cycle or something, but it still had to start somewhere.
Originally posted by EcstremeVenomCommon sense tells us that events are caused - that is, things don't just happen for no reason. But our deepening understanding of the universe and the nature of the laws and processes that underpin it, suggest that common sense is not necessarily the best measure of truth or otherwise.
everything starts somewhere, unless it is a cycle or something, but it still had to start somewhere.
So, saying something had to start, is really no more than saying, our common sense would suggest it required an origin.
Which may be true, but need not be.