Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
Once again, there is an attempt to make something simple and straightforward so extreme that it might be easier to get a camel through the literal eye of a needle.
Within the context, and consistent with other passages, this is talking about the source from which we operate. Our mindset. Our worldview. Many ways to say it, each with a different slant on what it is talking about.
But no matter the wording, it is another way of saying what Paul said in another place when he said to "have the mind of Christ." If you want to argue that means to literally have Christ's mind implanted in your head in the place of your own, feel free. But it is not a reasonable meaning. Instead, it is talking about following. About being and doing. Not about being replaced. "Think like Christ did." "Put yourselves in his shoes and act like he did. Don't keep acting like the heathen that you used to be."
The context here in Colossians 3 is that Paul is telling them to quit lying. And he underscores that the Christian life is one of putting off the old ways and putting on new ways that are "renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." Not being made into its creator, but into the image of its creator. Interesting that before the fall, we were said to be in the image of the creator. "Let us make man in our image." God didn't say "let us make another God." Just a new creation that is in his image.
It probably looks like I am just fighting Lee and the LRC. But there is a huge library of truth in scripture and he majored on such a small part of it. And misunderstood too much of what he majored on. And we all, with unengaged minds, simply took it in and didn't stop to read the words of scripture that were contorted to say what we would never have come up with. Doesn't it ever bother you that way too much of Lee's teachings required you to dump what the plain words said and instead accept something else as true?
This kind of thinking about Colossians 3 is a great example. Paul is talking about the stopping of an outward behavior. He uses the metaphor of putting off and putting on of a personae in the same way that we would talk about changing clothes. But he says we have done it. Note that he is telling people who "have put off . . ." to stop lying. He is not saying that if you put of and put on you will stop lying. He is saying "stop lying because you have . . ." You have a basis. A way. Peter may have actually said it better when he generically said that we have everything required for godliness. We don't need to go get it. We need to use what we have. He and Paul are on the same page in this matter.
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Are we one spirit with God? :
"'The two will become one flesh.” But
he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 1 Corinthians 6:16-17 "
"“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:31-32 "
Is not there only one who is holy?:
"Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For
you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” Revelation 15:4 "
But we also are holy, making us God.
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9 "
"If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. Romans 11:16 "