Is there a higher walk for believers in Christ?

[Peterlag]

From my understanding, it is living out ones' life in accordance with what Christ commanded and for some of us, that means in accordance with the sermon on the mount.

I can be led by the spirit because it's separate from me.

 

[Episkopos]

What is the defenition of a sinner?

There are three kinds of sin as per the bible. Chata-ah, Pesha, and avon.

To sin means to miss the mark. (Chata-ah) Sinners then are those whose aim is untrue. They mean well enough but are unable to hit the mark due to the weakness of the flesh.

There are the sins of the flesh...with its love of sin. Lust, greed, envy. (Pesha)

Then there is iniquity among the religious hypocrites who claim things for themselves that are false. (Avon)

For every mile of road (where one can stop short of the destination) there are two miles of ditch (where one gets waylaid along the way).

In the end all that is not of faith is sin. This is about the faith OF Christ.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Those who have not been illumined into the higher walk, do not understand this point.

The higher walk is living out your new identity or walking in the spirit.

don‘t fall for this special case of religion thinking you are special only if you hit that walk.

It is, that man can fall from that lofty position on occasion (not a daily habit) and hopefully be restored as we see in the examples quoted by you apart from your own understanding of Romans 7 which incidently was unknown until Augustine came along with his Greek philosophy and brought it in to the church aka Calvinism.

I do not follow men.. Romans 7 is clear. It Is not that hard. And is further proof of what I am saying we just need to take the word of God as written

Paul could not stuggle with the flesh and spirit before he was saved, He could only struggle after he was saved.

So those who claim he spoke of pre salvation when he spoke of the flesh are not taking the words of paul as written. They are making hin say something not founded in scripture.

 

[rebuilder 454]

I believe the spirit of Christ is my new nature and therefore I have been able to function in it. To live in it, walk by it, and be in it. When I finally figured this out is when the lights turned on. Most of my life I believed I was in a battle between what I thought was my old man fighting against what I thought was my new man. Now I'm not fighting. I moved right in the darn thing. It seems to me one cannot walk in or by the spirit if our old nature (which is dead) thinks it's fighting against our new nature.

Nonetheless, we do in fact have 2 natures.
...and it is a battle.
The nature you feed is the one that wins.
The battle is for what dominates you.
Otherwise we are robots.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

There are three kinds of sin as per the bible.

To sin means to miss the mark. Sinners then are those whose aim is untrue. They mean well enough but are unable to hit the mark due to the weakness of the flesh.

There are the sins of the flesh...with its love of sin. Lust, greed, envy.

Then there is iniquity among the religious hypocrites who claim things for themselves that are false.

In the end all that is not of faith is sin. This is about the faith OF Christ.

I asked what it means to be a sinner. in Gods defenition. What is the defenition of a sinner.

Non of these three defenitions meet the answer to the question

 

[Peterlag]

I should have been more precise. I agree in the main but I might differ on what in the flesh' means in context, ie living out of ones natural instincts and thoughts not necessarily sinful, but leaning on the arm of the flesh which needs deliverance from God as in Romans 7. It cannot be a gradual thing as flesh and spirit are clearly defined. The crisis comes twice: once when we first come to Christ and wish to be delivered from the sinful side, then once again when we see that even our best works are not in accordance with His desires.

A note on Romans 7...

Paul is talking to those who are into or know the law. And then the context of the whole chapter is how we can see it's all about human's and how they toy with their flesh.

What Paul talks about in the seventh chapter of Romans is what occurs to the believer who still thinks the Law applies to them. They end up spiritually dying by the commandment and realize that the commandment does not produce life. The war is with their flesh because they are still believing the Law has power over them. In the eighth chapter of Romans is where it explains how we overcome this whole issue by living in the spirit and being dead to the Law. We cannot live by faith in what Christ has done for us and still think our obedience to written laws are necessary. To do so takes away from the perfect work of Christ and places salvation and righteousness back in our own hands. Romans 8 states "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin..."

 

[Episkopos]

I asked what it means to be a sinner. in Gods defenition. What is the defenition of a sinner.

Non of these three defenitions meet the answer to the question

Maybe you need to learn to ask better questions...ones that line up with the truth. We waste a lot of time trying to filter the truth through our limited minds.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

@Hepzibah and @Episkopos In order to understand what a sinner is, You must understand what sin is.

Can either of you define sin?

I think the biggest problem in the church is it does nto teach what actual sin is.. so we have people who think they are ok who are blinded to the fact they are sinning all the time.

 

[Peterlag]

What is the defenition of a sinner?

Someone who is not born again or not walking in Christ.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Maybe you need to learn to ask better questions...ones that line up with the truth. We waste a lot of time trying to filter the truth through our limited minds.

Or maybe you need to actually answer questions. And learn how to discerrn

I asked what the defenition of a sinner was

You answered with what you thought were 3 defenitions of sin.

That does not answer what the defenition of a sinner is..

 

[Hepzibah]

don‘t fall for this special case of religion thinking you are special only if you hit that walk.

*There is no pride in a man who has been brought down to the very depths of himself and saw how God saw him.

I do not follow men.. Romans 7 is clear. It Is not that hard. And is further proof of what I am saying we just need to take the word of God as written

Paul could not stuggle with the flesh and spirit before he was saved, He could only struggle after he was saved.

*It was while he was a believer but had not yet learned how to walk in the Spirit and the crisis came at he end of the chapter and into Romans 8.

Does it not bother you that your interpretation was not held by the disciples of the Apostles?

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Someone who is not born again or not walking in Christ.

So what of a person who is born again, yet not walking in christ for a period of time ( a few minutes, a few hours or a few days?

 

[Peterlag]

Those who have not been illumined into the higher walk, do not understand this point. It is, that man can fall from that lofty position on occasion (not a daily habit) and hopefully be restored as we see in the examples quoted by you apart from your own understanding of Romans 7 which incidently was unknown until Augustine came along with his Greek philosophy and brought it in to the church aka Calvinism.

I believe God gave us a new nature when we are born again and that this is what the apostle Paul taught. Then where did this idea come from that we are still sinners by nature, and that the spirit of Christ makes our flesh spiritual, but still alive to sin whereby we must with much effort, frustration, and failure be in a battle with our sin nature the rest of our lives? Who taught us that it's not the spirit that has become our new nature, but that after we received Christ within, we still have the old sin nature left as we live the rest of our lives trying to restrain it? If the apostle Paul taught that we do experience a death to our old sin nature once we are baptized into Christ, and that it’s dead and gone and therefore we are dead to sin? Then where did this idea come from that we are still alive to sin? Could it have come from these guys...

The concept of the original sin was first alluded to in the second century by Irenaeus, (Bishop of Lyon) who was working for the Catholics and not for the apostle Paul. Some two hundred years later another church father who went by the name of Augustine, (Bishop of Hippo) whose writings shaped and developed the doctrine of sin as he considered that humanity shared in Adam's sin. Augustine's formulation of the original sin after the year of 412 was popular among protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who equated the original sin with a hurtful desire meaning that it persisted even after baptism and therefore completely destroyed the freedom to do good. At first Augustine, said that free will was weakened, but not destroyed by the original sin. But after the year of 412 this concept changed to a loss of free will except to sin, and it's this Augustine's concept that influenced the development of the western church and western philosophy and indirectly all of western Christianity.

 

[Hepzibah]

@Hepzibah and @Episkopos In order to understand what a sinner is, You must understand what sin is.

Can either of you define sin?

I think the biggest problem in the church is it does nto teach what actual sin is.. so we have people who think they are ok who are blinded to the fact they are sinning all the time.

Sin is the state of not being full of the Spirit of God whatever they do in that state is not acceptable to God no matter how hard they try to live up to godliness.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

*There is no pride in a man who has been brought down to the very depths of himself and saw how God saw him.

Amen, have you seen that? Do you see that?

*It was while he was a believer but had not yet learned how to walk in the Spirit and the crisis came at he end of the chapter and into Romans 8.

Does it not bother you that your interpretation was not held by the disciples of the Apostles?

lol.

does it bother you that Paul spoke of walking in the flesh and spirit And that there was a battle..

which was IMPOSSIBLE before he was saved?

does reality not trump fantasy?

 

[Peterlag]

Nonetheless, we do in fact have 2 natures.
...and it is a battle.
The nature you feed is the one that wins.
The battle is for what dominates you.
Otherwise we are robots.

We undergo a miraculous exchange at the center of our being once we have the spirit of Christ. Who we were in Adam is no longer there. We become a new person because we are now a child of God who is in Christ. The key event causing this exchange is a death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. This miraculous exchange is not figurative or symbolic, but literal and actual.

The spiritual part of every Christian has literally and actually been crucified, buried, and raised with Christ. The fact that this occurs spiritually and not physically doesn’t make it any less real. So what happens to the old self that was in Adam? The old self is entirely obliterated once the spirit of Christ enters the Christian. I know this comes as a complete shock to many of you who have been indoctrinated in the-old-nature-versus-the-new-nature theology. Most Christians have been taught to believe that after salvation, they are still the same at their core, and they live the rest of their lives trying to restrain this old nature. They believe they have two natures.

 

[Episkopos]

A note on Romans 7...

Paul is talking to those who are into or know the law. And then the context of the whole chapter is how we can see it's all about human's and how they toy with their flesh.

What Paul talks about in the seventh chapter of Romans is what occurs to the believer who still thinks the Law applies to them.

What laws? We are always subject to the laws of God....as in the 10 commandments. Judaism laws are not for the believer in Christ...kosher eating, circumcision etc...

They end up spiritually dying by the commandment and realize that the commandment does not produce life. The war is with their flesh because they are still believing the Law has power over them.

This is not about what you believe to be true about yourself. This is about power from heaven to walk as Jesus walked...above sin. You find the bible easy because you have allowed the truth of it to evaporate in order to embrace a simplistic notion invented by Pauline (Paul's evil twin sister). Since only Paul can be twisted in this way, those who follow Pauline ignore the words of Christ and all the other apostles...since their words can't be likewise twisted to make the gospel go easy on the flesh.

You don't understand Paul.

In the eighth chapter of Romans is where it explains how we overcome this whole issue by living in the spirit and being dead to the Law. We cannot live by faith in what Christ has done for us and still think our obedience to written laws are necessary.

The opposite is true. The Romans 8 walk fulfills the law.

4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

To do so takes away from the perfect work of Christ and places salvation and righteousness back in our own hands. Romans 8 states "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin..."

Free from sin is not the same as sin no longer having any meaning. You are following another gospel...Pauline's gospel...not Paul's.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Sin is the state of not being full of the Spirit of God whatever they do in that state is not acceptable to God no matter how hard they try to live up to godliness.

Full of the spirit. Can you define this. This is too Vague

I think Jesus gave is the answer.. I am hoping to hear it from someone

 

[Episkopos]

Sin is the state of not being full of the Spirit of God whatever they do in that state is not acceptable to God no matter how hard they try to live up to godliness.

This is good except God does accept people in the weakness of their flesh....He's just not PLEASED with them. Without faith (real faith) it is impossible to PLEASE God.

Otherwise how could He justify the ungodly? He gives grace to the humble.

 

[Hepzibah]

Who taught us that it's not the spirit that has become our new nature, but that after we received Christ within, we still have the old sin nature left as we live the rest of our lives trying to restrain it?

The problem is that many think they have 'received' Christ when they have just had an encounter with Him and do not have the fullness of the Spirit within.

The concept of the original sin was first alluded to in the second century by Irenaeus, (Bishop of Lyon) who was working for the Catholics and not for the apostle Paul.

Wrong. Please quote him. He was not part of the RCC as it did not exist.

Some two hundred years later another church father who went by the name of Augustine, (Bishop of Hippo) whose writings shaped and developed the doctrine of sin as he considered that humanity shared in Adam's sin. Augustine's formulation of the original sin after the year of 412 was popular among protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who equated the original sin with a hurtful desire meaning that it persisted even after baptism and therefore completely destroyed the freedom to do good. At first Augustine, said that free will was weakened, but not destroyed by the original sin. But after the year of 412 this concept changed to a loss of free will except to sin, and it's this Augustine's concept that influenced the development of the western church and western philosophy and indirectly all of western Christianity.

Agreed.