Nigel Tomes: “Do you teach that
Satan dwells in man’s body?” To me the implied answer (an honest response) is a simple affirmative—“YES!”
local church: “When man fell by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, sin, the nature of Satan, was injected into man's body and
transmuted it into the flesh. The fall was not simply an outward transgression; it was also an inward poisoning and contamination of our very being.
Brother Witness Lee: My burden is that we would see that
Satan is in our flesh and Christ is in our spirit. We have an enemy in our flesh and a dear Savior in our spirit.
It can be noticed that Nigel Tomes stressed in his writings that “Satan dwells in man’s body.” However, if you will consider the local church’s Beliefs and Teachings, it was said that “the nature of Satan was injected into man’s body and transmuted it into the flesh.” Likewise, Brother Witness Lee taught that “Satan is in our flesh.”
Between the statements of the local church Beliefs and Teaching and Brother Witness Lee, both of them had indicated the word “flesh”; whereas, Nigel Tomes had indicated the word “body”.
Is there any difference between the words “flesh” and “body”? I believe there is a vast difference between these two words as Brother Witness Lee used it.
Brother Witness Lee was very careful in distinguishing between the “flesh” and the “body” since he knew exactly the difference between the "body" and the "flesh". God created man from the dust (body) and breathed in his nostril the breath of life (spirit) making man a living soul (soul). However, upon man’s fall the body was transmuted into FLESH; the soul into SELF; and the spirit was deadened. Therefore, according to Brother Witness Lee's teaching, the "body" refers to the body of man before his fall; the "flesh" refers to the "corrupted" body of man after his fall. This concept is very clear in Brother Witness Lee's writings:
Quote:
Man's Body Being Transmuted into Flesh
God created man with a pure body, but something of Satan was received into man's body and man's body changed in nature. It was transmuted into the flesh. In other words, it was corrupted. Man's body, by being corrupted in man's fall, became flesh, full of lust. In Romans 7:18a Paul said, "For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells." The flesh is the corrupted body.
Satan Becoming Sin within Man
Through man's eating the tree of knowledge, Satan entered into man and became the very sin within man. To see this point we need to read Romans 7:14b, 17, and 20. In verse 20 Paul said, "But if what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me." Romans 7, especially in verses 8, 11, 17, and 20, indicates that sin is a person, the embodiment of Satan, and is living and acting within us. Sin is a personification of Satan. Actually speaking, the sin within us is Satan. At least we can say that the sinful nature within man is the nature of Satan. The sin within man refers to his inward sinful nature. This inward sin is just Satan himself indwelling our corrupted body, that is, our flesh.
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I believe the above observation must be considered first if Nigel Tomes is talking the same thing as Brother Witness Lee in his teachings. In my opinion, Nigel Tomes is totally apart from what Brother Witness Lee was teaching. It seems that Nigel Tomes writing was comparing between an apple and an orange, rather than apple-to-apple or orange-to-orange. I believe there is total confusion in this respect.