[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by zeek

The writers of the Bible had a clear understanding of what was meant by spirit. That understanding has been lost to us in modern Western society to a large extent. That's why some of us were receptive to the teachings of Nee and Lee on the human spirit.

An interesting thing is that the apostle Paul was actually fighting against the kind of mentality that separated the physical from the spiritual. This is a huge, huge linchpin in understanding this eminently crucial dynamic of the resurrection and it's implications, both in the present and in the future, for all believers in the Christian gospel, from the beginning until His second coming.

As zeek as pointed out, at the time of the New Testament, there was much more of an awareness of the spiritual side of life. Check out this quote from the Roman stoic, Seneca (a contemporary of the apostle Paul):

God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what I mean..a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian.... No man can be good without the help of God http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger

Sounds almost Judeo-Christian, but this man was NOT speaking of the Holy Spirit of the true and living God of the Bible. As a matter of fact, it was neither the Spirit of God nor anything remotely holy. It is this kind of mentality, this kind of philosophy, that Paul was dealing with when he wrote this epistle to the church in Corinth. To the way of thinking of most in the Corinthian society, there was not much connection with the present, physical world and the afterlife. Our physical bodies were only temporary vessels that would totally and absolutely cease to exist in the afterlife. But Paul knew this was not true. He knew that there was going to be a physical, bodily resurrection - and he was trying to show the Corinthians that the Lord Jesus had actually gone through this resurrection, and had received his resurrected, "spiritual body".

Lots more to say.