Steve Lortz

So... Back to Luke 20. Remember, we're on the trail of zoe aionios, "life of age". The Sadducees who didn't believe in the resurrection asked Jesus, about the woman who had been legitimately married to seven brothers, "33 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife. "34 And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world [aion "age"] marry, and are given in marriage: "35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world [aion "age"], and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: "36 Neither can they die anymore: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." People often ask, when looking at these verses, "what does it mean to neither marry nor be given in marriage?", or "what does it mean to be equal to the angels?" I ain't even gonna try to answer those questions, because I can't! I just don't know. But I do see that Jesus views there to be two ages, "this age" and "that age", and that the resurrection (in which people receive the Spirit of resurrection life) is associated with "that age". Remember Luke 18, "29 And he [Jesus] said unto them [his followers], Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, "30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time [en toi kairoi tautoi "in this opportune moment"], and in the world [aion "age"] to come life everlasting [zoe aionios "life of age"]. I submit, as a working definition for zoe aionios, "the Spirit of resurrection life in the age to come". The certain ruler asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit the Spirit of resurrection life in the age to come. Jesus said that those who made sacrifices for the kingdom's sake would receive the Spirit of resurrection life in the age to come. Is the Spirit of resurrection life in the age to come everlasting? Indeed it is. Luke 20:36 says of those who receive it, "Neither can they die anymore." And Luke 20:36 also says, "and [they] are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." People become the children of God by receiving the Spirit of resurrection life in the age to come. There's your "spiritual seed", Roy! More later... Love, Steve

Thank you, Geisha! I DID ask you to hold my feet to the fire, and you are indeed doing so. You've raised a lot of questions, general and fundamental, as well as specific and not-so-fundamental. And not just in your latest post. I've been reviewing the thread. You were the first to respond, with a clip from Monty Python's Life of Brian :-) I'm not inclined right now to jump forward to 19th century understandings of "resurrection." I want to understand as closely as possible what the word originally meant to Luke and Paul. That way, I will be more likely to read "out from" what they wrote, rather than to read foreign, modern significances "into" the word resurrection. Remind me later on, and we'll discuss some of the other issues you've brought up. Love, Steve

Good movie, but I had way too many flashbacks while watching it. There was one scene where a guy was reading a paperback, "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain" (or something like that). I saw the cover and remembered reading the very same book back then!!! No wonder I was ripe for PFAL. Love, Steve

Well, geisha, you've asked me some questions I don't have any pat answers for. The New Testament is stated this way in Jeremiah 31, "31 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant [New Testament] with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: "32 Not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt [Deuteronomy 5-28]; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband to them, saith the Lord: "33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. "34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." The gathering together as part of the New Testament is promised in Ezekiel 11:17-20, "17 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. "18 And they shall come hither, and they shall take away all of the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence. "19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: "20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they will be my people, and I will be their God." Remember, "they will be my people, and I will be their God" is covenant language, just as "and will be their God, and they shall be my people" of Jeremiah 31:33 is covenant language. Ezekiel 36:22-28 puts the New Testament this way, "22 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; I do not this for your sakes [for the sake of your works], O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. "23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. "24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. "25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. "26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. "27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. "28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." Ezekiel 37:13&14 says, "13 And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves. "14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord." It seems to me that the New Testament, and the resurrection and gathering together that are part of it, were promised to the house of Israel. I am inclined to think that this indicates the believing remnant of the house of Israel, but I don't presently have enough evidence to support or refute my opinion. I don't see any explicit promises of individual resurrection in the New Testament, but how could the house of Israel be resurrected if the individuals who comprise it are not individually resurrected? Love, Steve

This is the promise of resurrection set forth in Ezekiel 37, "12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. "13 And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, "14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord." Previously, Bob asked me if I applied my literal definition of "spirit" as air in motion or breath in all places (or something like that). I replied that I think the figurative meaning of "spirit" is conditioned by the context, and that the "Spirit of God" moving on the face of the waters as used in Genesis 1:2 indicates the life of God as evidenced by His power to move interacting with His creation. Here in verse 14 we have God saying that He is going to put His spirit IN people (yes, Wierwille, spin in your grave, IN people, in the "Old Testament") as part of the promise of resurrection. To distinguish this use of "spirit", I'm going to call it the "Spirit of resurrection life". It is receiving this Spirit that imparts life to the dead souls of Israel. And I decided to capitalize the "S" in "Spirit. After all, it's only God's own. More later... Love, Steve

It took me a long time to come to appreciate Roy's point of view. I didn't respond to him immediately. I just watched, and tried to figure out what he was saying (sort of like studying the Bible) until I could begin to recognize the patterns. And then I saw his never wavering humility, and I thought, "Ya know, maybe, just maybe, the Lord wants me to be more like Roy." I used to be a Bible-thumping firebrand when it came to the Bible. I could go at trinitarians, proof-text to proof-text, for three hours solid, and I actually did so on several occassions. I no longer study the Bible because I want to prove to other people that I've got all the answers. But studying the Bible is still important to me because, when I stand in front of Jesus Christ, I want to hear HIM say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." I want to share the things I'm learning with other people who can appreciate it. When I've tried to discuss this stuff with my pastors and some of my enthusiastically Christian relatives, their eyes just glaze over. What's with that? I've been watching Bob, too. He seems to me like an agreeable soul who is willing to submit the thoughts and intents of his heart to the critique of the living Word. So, I can't agree with your sentiment, "it is like being right back in TWI." I've been watching you, too. You bring valuable things to the table, even the video of NT Wright. Your perspective on the Lord and His relation with the Way experience is different from mine. You got involved in a personal relation with Him AFTER you left the Way. I was involved in a personal relation with Him BEFORE I was exposed to TWI. But both perspectives are necessary if we're to have binocular vision. I am thankful for your involvement with this thread, and I think I'm getting to know you better as the unique soul you are. As Roy would say, with love and a holy kiss Steve

Roy, I don't necessarily agree with everything you say, but you are a model for me of true humility. You also have permission to hold my feet to the fire if I ever get too highminded! with love and a holy kiss Steve

Luke, chapter 20, "27 Then came to him certain of the Sadducees which deny that there is any resurrection..." Resurrection? Where'd that idea come from? Let's review a little history. Israel left Egypt and eventually conquered part of the land God promised to Abraham. Everything went fine for awhile, as far as things COULD go fine at that time. Then Israel wanted a king. So they got Saul, and then David. In II Samuel 7, David thought to build a house for the Lord, but the Lord said through Nathan, "No, Dave, I'm gonna build a house for you. You're gonna have a son, and he will be my son too. Your house and your kingdom will be established forever." Fast forward a few hundred years. The kingom has been divided in two. Israel is gone. Judah is in captivity at Babylon. What ever happened to God's promises? What about the promise of a kingdom that will be established forever. And while we're talking about promises, how's God gonna fulfill His promises to people who are stone cold dead in the ground? That's the background for Ezekiel. Ezekiel wasn't in Israel. He was a captive, too, far from home in the land of the Chaldeans. That's why Israel was saying "Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts." (Ezekiel 37:11). The Lord replied, "12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. "13 And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, "14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord." We've already looked at a few aspects of these verses, now we're going to look at a few more: Notice the phrase "O my people". The Lord repeats it several times. He doesn't just toss it out, though, the way Wierwille did. Those words are covenant language. Whenever God says "I will be your God, and you will be my people" the context is a promise God has made... a covenant... a testament. If you want to see another covenant, turn back a page or so to Ezekiel 36, "22 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went." God isn't going to do this because of Israel's works. This is a covenant of GRACE in the "Old Testament"!?! "23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen [Gentiles!?!] shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. "24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. "25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you" Baptism. "26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. "27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. "28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." This is a restatement of the New Testment, a testament of grace, not of works, that God had promised by Jeremiah (chapter 31) a generation or so before Ezekiel's time. Do any of its features sound familiar? When the Lord God uses the phrase "O my people" in Ezekiel 37:12&13, He is tying the promise of the New Testament, and the gathering of His people back to the land of their fathers, with His promise of... the RESURRECTION! The word "resurrection" doesn't appear in the books we call the "Old Testament", but plenty of people were arguing about it by the time of Luke. The Sadducees denied that there is any resurrection. I intended to cover Luke 20:33-36 tonight. I din't make it past Luke 20:27. I, at least, found the digression both entertaining and edifying! Love, Steve

Brava! Brava! Love, Steve

Well, LizzyBuzz took her trazedone, and I've got about a half-an-hour before she wants me to start reading. For years now, I've been reading to her as she fell asleep. We started in the early days of our marriage with the Narnia Chronicles, The Lord of the Rings, etc. A few nights ago, I finished Tarzan and the Lost Empire, and then started reading I Am A Barbarian, also by Edgar Rice Burroughs. We're on a "ERB goes classical" trip. I Am A Barbarian is an historical novel set in the days of Caligula. It's sort of like a blood and thunder version of Eddie Cantor's movie, Roman Scandals. We'll get back to zoe aionios after I finish reading. By the way, I do voices and sound effects when I read, and I taught LizzyBuzz how to put the back of her hand to her forehead and swoon when the heroines are about to face a fate worse than death! Love, Steve

I felt this would be a good time to resurrect this post. If I remember my Annotated Alice (which I gave away to the logic ma'arm at the school where I taught), Dodgson wrote this bit after reviewing an argument between two Victorian theologians regarding what constitutes the glory of God! Love, Steve

My parenthesis "the literal meaning of the word 'spirit' as breath" was in reference to the immediately preceding phrase "gulping air". I DID consider using a submarine figure for breathing... "sucking gas"... but I thought that might be just a little too far out I think the figurative meaning of "spirit" is "life as evidenced by the power to move". As I wrote in regard to Genesis 1:2, I think its use there means that God's life as evidenced by His power to move interacts with and informs His creation. I don't know much about ancient Hebrew thinking, but I know that the idea of a supreme god interacting directly with the cosmos would have been scandalous to the Greeks. I believe, if I remember right, that the Spirit of God, the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, the Love of God, etc., were all regarded as "emanations"? I think the meaning of "Spirit of God" is conditioned by the particular context, and we'll be looking at a few of those contexts shortly. We'll start on "ages" before the night is over, if God's willin' and the creeks don't rise! I agree with you that getting thrown into the lake of fire is NOT ultimate salvation Love, Steve

I'm sorry I didn't respond to your observation about ultimate salvation being deliverance from the lake of fire. To tell the truth, I think I've just recently got a handle on what "to be saved" means in Romans 10:9.

I imagine it would spin both ways at the same time. The Stoics might have regarded that as tonic rotation! Love, Steve

That wasn't exactly what I meant, Roy. My wife's name is Elizabeth, and when our grand-daughter was too young to say "Elizabeth", she said something very much like "LizzyBuzz". That just stuck as my nickname for her. My wife, in the God designed manner of all wives everywhere, reminds me regularly that I ought to grow up a little more I DID like the video you linked to very much! You seem to draw on such a wide variety of sources. I like that, too! with love and a holy kiss Steve

Wierwille defined salvation as "being made whole" by receiving the gift of holy spirit first poured out on the day of Pentecost, which replaces the spirit that died on the day Adam and Eve sinned. By reading meanings out from what is actually written in Genesis 2:7 and Numbers 19:13, instead of reading foreign meanings into them, we see that a human being gulping air (the literal meaning of the word "spirit" as breath) is a living soul formed of the dust of the ground, and that a human being not gulping air is a dead soul returning to the dust from which it was taken. If Adam and Eve had lost their spirits on the day they sinned, they would have dropped down dead within three minutes or so. If what we were taught in PFAL regarding salvation was wrong, then what's right? Is there a passage in the Bible where we can learn what salvation is by reading out from what's written? Fortunately, there are many, but one of the most comprehensive is to be found in Luke 18, "18 And a certain ruler asked him [Jesus], saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life [zoe aionios "life of age"]? "19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. "20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother. "21 And he [the certain ruler] said, All these have I kept from my youth up. "22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he [Jesus] said unto him [the certain ruler], Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. "23 And when he [the certain ruler] heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. "24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! "25 For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. "26 And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? "27 And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. "28 Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee. "29 And he [Jesus] said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, "30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time [en toi chairoi toutoi "in this opportune moment"], and in the world [aion "age"] to come life everlasting [zoe aionios "life of age"]." Other people on other threads have examined this passage regarding the question of HOW a person receives salvation. I want to look at the things it reveals about WHAT salvation is. We see a number of phrases; "to inherit eternal life (zoe aionios)" in verse 18, "to enter into the kingdom of God" in verses 24 and 25, "to be saved" in verse 26, and "to receive life everlasting (zoe aionios)" in verse 30; all used as synonyms. They all mean the same thing. "To inherit eternal life" is "to enter into the kingdom of God" is "to be saved". The first thing I want to consider is "What is this zoe aionos, life of age, that Jesus talks about in Luke 18:30? But that's going to have to wait until a later post! Love, Steve

I ain't! LizzyBuzz makes sure I realize it on a regular basis! with love and a holy kiss Steve

"He that toucheth the dead body [nephesh muth "dead soul"] of any man shall be unclean seven days" Numbers 19:11 "Whosoever toucheth the dead body [nephesh muth "dead soul"] of any man that is dead [muth "dead"], and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the Lord; and that soul [nephesh "the living soul who touched the dead soul, and didn't wash his hands afterwards"] shall be cut off from Israel..." Numbers 19:13a The uses in Revelation are figurative. These uses are about as literal and concrete as it can get. We're dealing with Hebrew cosmology here, not Greek, and that can be as big a paradigm shift as switching from Newtonian to quantum mechanics. "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians, hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting of dogs..." Just as God sets forth His anthropology in the first parts of the Bible (Genesis 2:7), so Homer sets forth his anthropology within the first few lines of The Iliad. Popular notions about the body/soul dichotomy and natural immortality of the soul come from Homer and his culture, not from the Bible. Love, Steve

Thank you, Roy. The good news is: God has raised Jesus out from among the dead! The bad news is: dead people really are dead :-( with love and a holy kiss Steve

What does a dead soul know? We've seen from Genesis 3:19b, Genesis 18:27 and Psalm 103:14 that the Bible associates identity with the dust component. This is confirmed in Ezekiel 37:12-14, "12b ...Behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause YOU to come up out of your graves..." "13 And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought YOU up out of your graves. "14 And shall put my spirit in YOU, and ye shall live..." (emphasis added) Since the Bible associates identity with the dust component, and since a dust component that doesn't breathe dies (becomes a dead soul), what CAN a dead soul know? Ecclesiastes 9:4-6,10, "4 For him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. "5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgetten [they no longer remember anything]. "6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun..." "10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest." Psalm 6:4&5, "4 Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies' sake. "5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave, who shall give thee thanks?" Psalm 30:9, "9 What profit is there in my blood, when I shall go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee" Shall it declare thy truth?" Psalm 88:11&12, "11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or thy faithfulness in destruction? "12 Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Psalm 115:17, "17 The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Psalm 146:2-4, "2 While I live I will praise the Lord: I will sing my praises unto my God while I have any being. "3 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. "4 His breath [ruach "air in motion"] goeth forth, HE returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." (emphasis added) When a soul dies, it stops breathing. Its spirit component leaves, and just blows about somewhere else. The dust component, the part that recognizes "me" as "me", returns to the earth from which it was formed. In that very day, its thoughts perish. Because a soul's literal experience of death is the same as its literal experience of a dreamless sleep, the Bible often uses sleep as a metaphor for death. Psalm 13:3, "3 Consider and hear me O lord my God: lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;" Since the Bible also refers to death as a soul returning to its dust, Daniel can combine both these metaphors, Daniel 12:2 "2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake..." There are numerous places in the books of Kings and Chronicles where the phrase "slept with his fathers" is used to indicate that various people have died. The gospel of John illustrates that the sleep/death metaphor was common, and sometimes caused confusion, even in New Testament times, as evidenced in John 11, "11 These things said he [Jesus]: and after that he saith unto them [his disciples], Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may wake him out of sleep. "12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. "13 Howbeit Jesus spoke of his death: but they thought he had spoken of taking rest in sleep. "14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." There is no consciousness in death: the dead know not anything, there is no reward, no memory, no love, no hatred, no envy, no portion, no work, no device, no knowledge, no wisdom, no remembrance, no thanks, no profit, no praise, no declaration of truth, nor of lovingkindness, nor of faithfulness, no knowing of wonders, nor of righteousness, no light, no sound: only forgetfulness, darkness, silence and destruction. If this was all that Israel had to look forward to, then it's no wonder they said, "Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts" in Ezekiel 37:1-14. And that makes it all the more wonderful that God sets forth the promise of resurrection in this passage! Love, Steve

We're looking at Genesis 2:7 to see how Wierwille's definition of salvation lines up with what's actually written in the Word. We've seen that God formed man of the dust of the ground, got his respiration going, and man became a living soul. Did the writers of the Bible believe souls to be immortal? Ezekiel 18:4b says, "...the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Again in Ezekiel 18:20a, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die..." The Hebrew word translated "soul" in Genesis 2:7 is nephesh. The word translated "living" is chai. When God breathed into man's nostrils the breath (neshamah) of life (chaiyim), man became a nephesh chai, a living soul. But there are places where the scriptures also use the phrase nephesh muth, "DEAD soul". Leviticus 21:11a "Neither shall he [the high priest] go in to any dead body [nephesh muth "dead soul"]..." Numbers 6:6 "All the days that he [a person who vowed the vow of a Nazarite] separateth himself unto the Lord he shall come at no dead body [nephesh muth "dead soul"]." The uses in Numbers 19 are instructive, "11 He that toucheth the dead body [nephesh muth "dead soul"] of any man shall be unclean seven days." "13 Whosoever toucheth the dead body [nephesh muth "dead soul"] of any man that is dead [muth "dead"], and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the Lord, and that soul [nephesh "soul"] shall be cut off from Israel..." "16 And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body [nephesh muth "dead soul"], or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days." Not only do we see from these verses that souls are not immortal, we also see that they are not immaterial. Dead souls can be TOUCHED! While a person is breathing, he is a living soul. When he gives up the spirit, that is to say, when that person stops breathing, what's left is a dead soul. What we would call a "corpse", the Bible calls a "dead soul". Genesis 2:7 indicates that a living man is a two part being, with a dust component and a breath or spirit (air in motion) component. This two part being is called a living soul. When a soul stops breathing, it becomes a one part being called a dead soul. Wierwille taught that Adam's and Eve's spirits died on the very day that they sinned. That cannot have been the case. If their spirits had died, they would have stopped breathing, and their souls would have dropped down dead, then and there. Wierwille taught that salvation consists of being made whole by receiving the gift of holy spirit that was first poured out on the day of Pentecost. If Adam's and Eve's spirits didn't die, and the gift of holy spirit is not a replacement for those spirits, then what is it? Love, Steve

I think you meant to type "Romans ch11:" there, bro! We started examing "Exegesis versus Eisegesis" in Romans 11, and we'll get back there yet. Love, Steve

You're welcome, Sunesis! No need to be sorry. Even though Ezekiel is in the set of books we call the "Old Testament", the actual Old Covenant itself is Deuteronomy 5-28, summed up in Deuteronomy 29:1, "These are the words of the covenant [Deuteronomy 5-28], which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb." I think the literal meaning of "spirit" in what we call the Old Testament is "air in motion" and the figurative meaning is "life as evidenced by the power to move". By the first century, "spirit" took on a multi-layered extension of meanings, especially among Paul's readers. It'll be fun when we get there. But I think we need to look at "nephesh" or OT "soul" before jumping forward to the first century. Love, Steve

You might want to go back and read post #55 again, Gen-2. I couldn't figure out what you were writing about in post #56 until I went back and looked. You've conflated something Jeff wrote in post #55 with the fact that he also quoted me in that same post. Here's one way I look at time. If you could take a spherical object like a basketball, and move it through a plane, and only see the intersection, it would first look like a point, then like a circle expanding until it reached its maximum size. Then the circle would start contracting until it became a point again, and then disappeared. I think "eternity" is somewhere outside the intersection, but for the time being, human consciousness is limited to the intersection. It seems to me that people who argue God can't have foreknowledge are limiting God's perspective to the human point of view. Love, Steve

Well, we were looking at Genesis 2:7, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath [neshamah "breath"] of life; and man became a living soul." You notice I've included the Hebrew word neshamah, which I believe to be correctly translated "breath". But before we can look at neshamah, I want to look at ruach, which means "air in motion", as it's used in Ezekiel 37: "1 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit [ruach 'air in motion'] of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, "2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. "3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. "4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. "5 Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath [ruach 'air in motion'] to enter into you, and ye shall live: "6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath [ruach 'air in motion'] in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. "7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. "8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath [ruach 'air in motion'] in them. "9 Then he said unto me, prophesy unto the wind [ruach 'air in motion'], prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind [ruach 'air in motion'], Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds [ruach 'air in motion'], O breath [ruach 'air in motion'], and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. "10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath [ruach 'air in motion'] came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. "11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. "12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. "13 And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves. "14 And shall put my spirit [ruach 'air in motion'] in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord. The word ruach occurs ten times in these fourteen verses. Twice ruach is translated "spirit", interestingly enough in the first and the fourteenth verses, with reference to the Spirit of God, five times it is translated "breath", and three times as "wind". In the entire Old Testament, ruach is translated "spirit" 232 times, "breath" 28 times and "wind" 90 times. All the rest of the English words used to translate ruach are in the single digits. The literal meaning of ruach is doubtlessly "air in motion". So what does the word "spirit" really mean? In antiquity, before the days of electronic monitoring equipment, or even an awareness of what the pulse meant, the surest way to tell whether or not a person was alive was by finding out if that person was breathing. If air was moving in and out of his body, he was alive. If air wasn't moving in and out of his body, he was dead. Because air moving in and out of the body was so closely associated with life, ruach took on the figurative meaning of "life as evidenced by the power to move". When Genesis 1:2 says "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters", its figurative meaning is that the life of God, as evidenced by His power to move, exerted itself in what He had created. So why does Genesis 2:7 say God breathed into man's nostrils the breath [neshamah] of life instead of the spirit [ruach] of life? Well, to the best of my understanding, all breath is wind, or air in motion, but not all wind moves in and out of bodies. Some wind just blows about wherever it pleases. So the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, got his respiration going, and man became a living soul. More before long. Remember, we're on the trail of Wierwille's accuracy in his definition of salvation. Love, Steve