Are we to be “Drunk with the Spirit?”?

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by DeducingLSM

Hello Trapped, not my first time. I'm the one who started this thread awhile back, but looks like people don't like to many "unregistered guests" here so I just picked a name not to cause confusion.

To answer your question, I for a long while had believed that notion while in LC. I have since been convinced that there is no Biblical proof or even a single verse that states that to be the case, so I don't believe it anymore. Sin does not equal Satan, so "Satan entered into man's body" and mingled with men as per Lee or Nee is adding to Scriptures.

100% in agreement with you here!

Originally Posted by DeducingLSM

The reason I believe he is also wrong about men's spirit was untouched by the fall, further illustrates his complete arrogance and devaluation of man's responsibility and blame for the fall. In seeking to find a scapegoat for his own sinfulness, he passed the buck to satan, rather than taking full responsibility for his own life and choices basically making man a victim of some bigger fight between God vs Satan. Also, if our spirit was untouched by the fall, which he claims is the "organ" by which we participate in God, then the whole work of the reconciliation of men to God done by Christ is unnecessary and in vain. Just my view of it, so take it for what's it worth.

Oh I completely agree with you that Lee downplayed man's responsibility regarding sin. He made sin into something that just "got into man" rather than man's disobedience in choosing to sin.

I'll tell you my view. It's free, so also take it for whatever it's worth, but I personally do not believe that some kind of "nature change" occurred when man fell. I have not been able to find a record of it in the Bible. Eve was deceived and Adam committed a sin, and God drove them out of the garden in punishment. I just don't see anything that indicates there was a change in nature when they fell.

When Eph. 2:1 says we were "dead in our offenses and sins", I don't consider this some kind of "dead spirit"; I consider it to be referring to the fact that when we have sinned and are living in our sins prior to accepting Christ, we are doomed to die. "On death row" so to speak.

Or when Ephesians 2:5 says "made alive with Christ", I don't think this refers to a deadened spirit being made alive, but just means we have the promise of eternal life, of being raised to life.

Or when 1 Peter 3:18 says Christ was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit, I think this is referring to being raised with an imperishable spiritual body (i.e. made alive in the Spirit). This is the same thing that will happen to us - the mortal will put on immortality, the perishable clothed with imperishable (1 Cor. 15:54). It's speaking of our being given a spiritual body, not that somehow there we had a deadened spirit there inside of us.

Related to your observation that without a dead spirit then Christ's reconciliation work is in vain, I guess my thought is the transgression itself is what caused the need for reconciliation. Just like if you directly disobey your parents, the relationship gets damaged, and there is patching up and apology and reconciliation that occurs. The only difference is, our parents don't say "the wages of sin is death" to us. But for God, the wages of sin is death, and so we can't patch it up. So Christ had to die to take our punishment for us and reconcile us back to God.

I feel like what I just wrote it all over the place, but I guess my point is I don't see anywhere that says our spirit as an organ was deadened. I would agree that we could describe our position in relation to God as "spiritually dead" before believing, but I think that's a descriptive way of speaking, rather than meaning our actual "spirit was dead". Again, just my thoughts. Feel free to say "but what about xyz?" I haven't thought it through in detail but these are the first things that came up as I thought about it a little.

Trapped