Hello everyone!
Just returned from a couple weeks of dramatizing the messages of the Apostle Paul in Hong Kong. Very fascinating place!
Here are some thoughts to consider:
"What is born of the flesh (normal birth) is flesh. What is born of the Spirit (God's Spirit) is spirit. Don't be surprised when I say that you must be born again". - Jesus
I see our body and soul as imperfect and prone to sin. But I see the part of us that has been born of God as being PERFECT - born of the Father and created in the image of our big brother Jesus, the "beginning of a new (spiritual) creation".
Our newly reborn spirit needs to grow, be fed the pure spiritual milk of the Word, and is protected by the Spirit of Christ Himself living inside of us - "Christ in you, the hope of Glory";
So our bodies and souls need to be offered as living sacrifices. They need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, etc.
But spiritually those who are born again are a new creation, born of our heavenly Father God; and spiritually we start out as a newborn and ideally keep growing into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ-- but at whatever stage we are at, we are perfect, in the image of His Son, so that Jesus might be the firstborn in a whole new family of brothers and sisters.
So I personally don't see the electricity analogy as being accurate, since we are each unique spiritually born children of God the Father.
I agree with all those here who have been convinced from their own study of Scripture that we are asleep in the grave until the resurrection, rather than going immediately to be with Jesus as the church traditionally teaches.
If we take the position that our body and soul sleep in the grave but that our spirit is just some kind of vague electrical force that "goes back to God" upon our death, it seems like that is a kind of strange compromise hybrid between what the church has been traditionally teaching (i.e. going to be with the Lord immediately upon death) and the position that "the Lord is going to descend from heaven with a shout; and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we who remain until His return will then be caught up with him in the air; and thus we shall always be with the Lord." If we accept that our spirit is just some vague "force", then what is the big deal about being spiritually reborn?
If we accept that we are a unique spiritual creation (child) of God the Father created in the likeness and image of Jesus, and thus have consciousness and awareness AND we also maintain that we spiritually go to be with God immediately upon death, then we have that age old problem of what we are doing between now and the resurrection - living some kind of disembodied spirit life, waiting for and greeting newly arrived loved ones, watching what's going on on the earth on heavenly giant screen tvs, strumming harps, relaxing on the clouds, etc..
There is a Far Side cartoon that shows a number of people just relaxing around on clouds in heaven looking bored, and one guy is sitting there thinking "Wish I'd brought a magazine..."
I think it makes sense that our spirit sleeps just as does our soul; and that all the time that takes place between when you die and when you are resurrected passes as a moment, whether that is for 5 years or 5,000 years, it will seem the same.
Warmly, Rob
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Topic: Spirit after death (Read 8717 times)