This is true by and large...but the question is the depth of it.
We are not to judge anything before it's time...and that means that we must endure to the end to be saved.
Most modern believers have a very superficial binary grasp on things biblical...very far from the actual training of Christ. Most have no experience whatsoever with the Holy Spirit.
So we can grasp the gospel with the religious mind...but who walks in the power that raised Jesus from the dead? THAT is what Paul is talking about. And people have been induced into thinking they have a similar walk to Paul...which is not the case.
Paul said...it is no longer I who live...and this is taken to be a philosophical religious statement that has no real meaning by they who seek to claim the same experiences as Paul but without any reality or truth getting involved.
There is a great temptation to exaggerate one's walk and presume much. But with God's help we can escape these kinds of temptations in order to remain humble and available for real grace.
Yesterday someone wrote this
"the world stands against us in active vengeance, even though our flesh be broken, and corrupt, and vile"
"I am dead to sin, alive unto God."
It indicates two different beliefs.
1. Our flesh is broken, corrupt and vile
2. We are born dead to sin and alive to God
Both of these beliefs I cannot agree with, whether the individual actually holds them as I describe them or not, I am using them as an example.
Jesus had our human body, flesh in all its aspects, yet Jesus was pure, holy and perfect. It cannot be our flesh is corrupt, broken, and vile.
This is a gnostic view, spirituality is pure and perfect, our bodies fallen and corrupted. Some go back to Augustine for the start of this theological trend, but it has always been part of the question about our humanity and our acceptance before the Lord.
How we are born in Christ is a repentant contrite spirit, which desires to follow God and resist evil.
To be dead to sin is a choice, something that discipleship hones and disciplines, a choice that even Jesus faced in the temptation.
The point is we have no automatic response, the knowledge of good and evil is founded on our choice, the ability to judge and follow.
Equally Pauls warning to sow to the Spirit and reap eternal life, by its nature, though our walk is the eternal walk, it does not guarantee the end, it only guarantees the reality of the walk and the fellowship we find there.
So important is this fellowship, our innocence and worthiness of grace is our ignorance of our sin and lostness in unbelief, but once revealed, innocence is lost, and turning away has much deeper and profound implications, which are very worrying to say the least. But this is about the positive aspect of glory and praise in the Spirit with God comes at a price, it is not a nice holiday, a euphoria which passes into the gloom of reality and depression, when worldly passions close in and self indulgence and greed speak to the heart with worries and cares related to this world and its respect over the Kingdom and the ways of eternity and the King of Kings.
What some do not see, which has taken me time to grasp, Israel, on the brink of entering into the promised land, called by God to go up and conquer come back in unbelief, claim the people are too big and strong, that they will be crushed, that God is not big enough. This unbelief is too much, the generation are judged, cast out, sent to the wilderness until they are all dead, before the people are allowed to return.
This God does not joke. His terms and reality stand today, face to face. To know and turn away does not get forgiven and forgotten. My experience is some are already past this point, and will never return, but to those who want to listen to Jesus, stand strong and walk on.
Praise the Lord, God bless you.