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Old 06-08-2014, 05:49 AM   #9
OBW
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Default Re: "Become" or "Not Become" Interpreting 1Cor 15:45

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Originally Posted by awareness View Post
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The last man Adam became a life giving "x" ...

And the Trinity = x.
With the variation in meaning of "spirit," the statement you make is true. But at the same time it is of uncertain truth because it is not clear that there is a single meaning of spirit in both cases.

Given the context of Paul's discussion here in 1 Corinthians 15, I do not think that he is necessarily suggesting that we take on the essence of God in resurrection because he is not talking about that. He is talking about the nature of the body in resurrection.

In John 4, Jesus identifies the nature of God as being "spirit." Would you say that Jesus was not part of the Godhead, therefore not spirit? I would think that his essence was not taken away to become born of woman, then returned to him when resurrected, so he was always spirit in the sense of what it is that is common within the Trinity. Yet his body was strictly limited to the physical. While there is record of him walking on water, there is no record of him simply disappearing or appearing within a locked room, floating up into the sky, or anything like that. Paul says that what was observed after his resurrection is like what the Christian should expect at the resurrection.

At resurrection, the body of Jesus was different than before. Paul said that this difference was "spirit." The Godhead is already spirit. And even man is said in numerous places to have a spirit. But that spirit is associated with the soul, not the body. But at resurrection, the body of Jesus changed. It ceased to be bound to the physics of earth, yet it could be touched, so retained some aspects of they physical. Paul called this body spirit.

And the example of what he meant was Christ — the one who gives life. Therefore, the one who gives life is now seen in a spiritual body, and is therefore a life-giving spirit.

As for the claim by Lee that there is only one life-giving spirit, I give you Romans 8:11, where the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, and that he will also give life to our mortal bodies through his spirit that lives in us. In this verse, I can see the propensity to rush for the conclusion that it is the Spirit that raised Jesus and that will give life to our bodies, but that is not what it says. It seems to say that it is the Father who raised Jesus through his spirit (the Holy Spirit) and that it is because of the Holy Spirit that lives in us that he (the Father) will also give life to our bodies.

And yet Jesus is referred to as life-giving. But it is in the context of a change in our present life — in our soul — not in terms of our future body. It is surely the "making alive" of our spirit that is what that reference to "life-giving" is about in 1 Cor 15. But according to Romans, it is the Father, through the Spirit, that raised Jesus from the dead and will do the same for our bodies at a time yet to come. Why do I say "yet to come"? Because I daily feel the effects of the lack of that life in my body. It aches. It does not regenerate its energy as easily from a short nap or even a night of sleep. No matter how I try, I will never do certain things that used to be fairly easy for me (at least not in this life).

From this, I conclude that to say that the reference to spirit in 1 Corinthians 15:45 is not the same as the use of the term spirit to refer to the thing that John 4 claims to be the essence of God. The word is the same, but the meaning is not identical. It is not simply the same thing. To say otherwise is a kind of equivocation. It is to insist on a singularity of meaning where such singularity does not exist.
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