TRUE GOSPEL - Christ’s Suffering and Ours
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
There is also an antitype which now saves us baptism not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.
Isaiah 29:8
It shall even be as when a hungry man dreams, And look he eats, But he awakes, and his soul is still empty, Or as when a thirsty man dreams, And look he drinks, But he awakes, and indeed he is faint, And his soul still craves: So the multitude of all the nations shall be, Who fight against Mount Zion.”
Revelation 21:6
And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.
To get a better understanding of the phrase "flesh and blood", we must consider other passages that use the phrase. The first time this phrase appears in the New Testament is in verse 17 of the following passage:
ReplyDelete"13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ." (Matthew 16:13-20)
Notice that Jesus very clearly indicates that the Kingdom of Heaven is intended for men (v19), which once again certifies that the phrase "flesh and blood" in 1 Corinthians 15:50 does not refer to "men" as opposed to "spirits". Notice also that the emphasis of this passage is on natural versus spiritual perception. Jesus was asking the disciples what people were perceiving about Him, and, even though all the answers that they gave had some element of truth to them, they all fell short of Yeshua's true and full nature. That is when Jesus asked the disciples what they perceived, and that is when Peter declared that Yeshua was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God (v16). Peter was able to perceive this because he was willing to step outside the bounds of natural man in order to perceive something that was beyond the reach of religious man's understanding. When people were saying that Jesus was "Elijah", they were saying so because of what they had been taught at the synagogue about Malachi 4:5-6, and, when they were saying that He was "Elijah", they were actually saying that Jesus was a literal reincarnation of the "raptured" Elijah (in much the same way that the foolish matriarchal Church of today believes that the literal, historical Elijah will come back as one of the "2 witnesses" mentioned in Revelation 11).
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14)
ReplyDelete"53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." (John 6:53-56)
ReplyDeleteNotice how Yeshua is speaking of things that sound totally nonsensical to the natural soul, so much so that the large crowd that had gathered around Him that day to make Him king went away in disgust after hearing these words. Therefore, it is clear that the Lord used these words regarding His "flesh" and His "blood" to "weed out" those who were following Him in their natural, earthly understanding and who could not transcend the realm of the soul and operate in the understanding of the Spirit. In a sense, the Lord was telling the crowd to absorb His "flesh and blood" in order to replace theirs. In their "flesh and blood", they were unable to have life inherently within them, according to verse 53, which points to 1 Corinthians 15:45.
"And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." (1 Corinthians 15:45)
A living soul has life in it in the same way that a woman can have a baby growing inside of her; however, once the baby is out of her, that life is no longer inside of her, and she depends on a male impregnating her again in order to have another life on the inside. This means that a female does not have new life inherently within her; she can act as a host to it, but she cannot beget it. A male, by contrast, does have life inherently within him, and that life goes with him wherever he goes. Thus, when Yeshua declared to the crowd of John 6 that their "flesh and blood" did not have life inherently within them, He was calling them "living souls", and, by telling them to absorb His "flesh and blood", He was calling them to walk as "life-giving spirits" that would carry life within them and be able to give it out to others, just as He was able to by imparting His "flesh and blood" to others.
The last New Testament verse that includes both the words "flesh" (sarx) and "blood" (haima) is verse 13 of the following passage:
ReplyDelete"13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:13-14)
Notice how this passage points to a transition from a "blood" that purifies "flesh" at the natural level (v13) to a "blood" that purifies "flesh" at a spiritual level (v14). The latter blood, the blood of Christ, is spiritual in nature, and it cleanses a spiritual "flesh", the conscience, from "dead works", i.e.- works that have no life inherently within them, so that we may serve the living God who has life inherently within Him.
From all of the above, we can safely conclude that the phrase "flesh and blood" in Ephesians 6:12 refers to an attitude that remains focused on a natural understanding of its surroundings and is unable to peer into the realm of the Spirit.
In Scripture, the Lord divides the human body into 3 components: flesh, blood, and bones, each of which correlates with the 3 components of the human being: the body, the soul, and the spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The flesh correlates with the "body", since it is the most visible and "external" of the 3 components; the blood correlates with the "soul", since the "life of the flesh is in the blood", according to Leviticus 17:11 (the word "life" in that verse is translated from the Hebrew word nephesh, which literally means "soul"); and the bones correlate with the "spirit", since it is the most "hidden" of the 3 components, and it is also the one most capable of lasting beyond death, which correlates with the Spirit's eternity.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, those who operate in the realm of "flesh and blood" are those who see the world in terms of the material (i.e.- the body) and in terms of temporal emotions and relationships (i.e.- the soul), but who cannot understand the spiritual components of the things behind what they see and feel. Thus, those who "wrestle against flesh and blood" are those in the Church who see Christianity's battle in terms of natural factors
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion, when the Spirit of God declares that we are not "wrestling against flesh and blood" in Ephesians 6:12, He is warning against getting caught up in the natural realm and losing the spiritual dimension of the battle we are to engage in, but He is no way denying the role that human wills have to play in those spiritual issues, and He is no way stating that our battle will not involve battling against the human agents of those spiritual issues. Otherwise, the Holy Spirit would be contradicting Himself in passages such as 1 Corinthians 16:22, Hebrews 6:4-8, Luke 10:10-14, Romans 1:16-19, and Matthew 23:13-38, and the Bible as a whole would quickly degrade into a bunch of self-contradicting gibberish.
ReplyDelete