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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/4/2009 12:01 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
Let me say it this way. The eschatological is not subject to death. That’s Paul’s point in 1Cor 15. The “spiritual” body cannot die. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Do you disagree?

So to inherit the Kingdom (in its unabashed eschatological fulness) IS to conquer death in one’s body. Hence, Jesus’ body at the transfiguration (however shiny) is not the same glorified body as his raised body. The previous was (however shiny) still a mortal body subject to death. The latter raised body was not. Whatever shining you enjoy in this life, I congratulate you, but it remains the case that you're mortal. Someday that body will die. But your resurrected body will not be (as was your briefly shinning body in this world) subject to death. There are dimensions of experiencing the kingdom not open to us THIS SIDE OF the grave. That's what I'm saying.

Explain Elijah at the Transfiguration. Did he have a "spiritual" body?

I'm dead serious. I don't think Elijah "resurrected" at any time, but was just taken to heaven. Sp. what's up?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler

One Love
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Posted 5/4/2009 12:03 PM (GMT -6)

Whole thread.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/4/2009 12:40 PM (GMT -6)

D: Explain Elijah at the Transfiguration. Did he have a "spiritual" body? I'm dead serious.

T; Dead serious? ;o) Ha.

D: I don't think Elijah "resurrected" at any time, but was just taken to heaven.What's up?

T: Right. Well, one doesn't have to DIE AND BE RESURRECTED in order to cross the mortality/immortality line obviously. Elijah is an example of a short cut! The same will be true apparently for those who are still alive at the Lord's return (1Cor 15 and 2Thess), right? They'll be taken up and glorified. But they'll cross that line no doubt. Their bodies will be transformed from 'earthly' (i.e., mortal) to 'heavenly' (i.e., immortal) and glorified bodies. So I wouldn't say the only way to cross the line is to die. Obviously both being raptured away or carried off in a flaming chariot are alternatives. But they effect the same transformation nevertheless (if indeed Moses and Elijah are exceptions and already have glorified bodies--I'm open, but either way the point is the same).

I'm just saying that your body isn't 'heavenly' and 'glorified' SO LONG AS IT IS SUBJECT TO DEATH, and Jesus' body on the mount (as well as every Greek mystic whose body ever 'shone') was subject to death (i.e., was a mortal body, though it shone). Hence, Jesus' body was not suffused with immortality on the mount. He died later.

I honestly don't know how you can disagree. ;o) However greatly our mortal bodies are penetrated by the presence of the Spirit in this life, so long as they are MORTAL and subject to death they are NOT as penetrated as God intends they be. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with eschatology?

T

[PS On a totally different note, I'm surprised you take the Elijah story literally but not the Ark story. The Elijah story seems pretty elaborate (flaming chariots?). I take it literally (as I do SOME sort of catastrophic flood). But I know you don't take the Ark story literally. Help me see the hermeneutics that guides your choice of figurative in one instance and literal in another.]

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/4/2009 12:54:02 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 5/4/2009 12:57 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
Well, one doesn't have to DIE to cross the mortality/immortality line obviously. The same will be true apparently for those who are still alive at the Lord's return (1Cor 15 and 2Thess), right? They'll be taken up and glorified. But they'll cross that line no doubt. Their bodies will be transformed from 'earthly' (i.e., mortal) to 'heavenly' (i.e., immortal) and glorified bodies. So I wouldn't say the only way to cross the line is to die. Obviously both being raptured away or carried off in a flaming chariot are alternatives. But they effect the same transformation nevertheless.

Seems to me that this same Holy-Spirit powered transformation of "earthly" into "heavenly" would be the SAME POWER as what is seen in the EPICLESIS of the elements into the "Heavenly Man". If Elijah's mortal body can be transformed into immortality WITHOUT DEATH, then what does this say for the potentiality of epicletic living? Ever think of that?

We SOOOOOO underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit!

--------------------------------------

Tom:
However greatly our mortal bodies are penetrated by the presence of the Spirit in this life, so long as they are MORTAL and subject to death they are NOT as penetrated as God intends they be. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with eschatology?

Only GOD knows the line between mortality and immortality within the human being that is permeated with God's Spirit. Only God.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/4/2009 1:08:06 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 5/4/2009 12:59 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
On a totally different note, I'm surprised you take the Elijah story literally but not the Ark story. The Elijah story seems pretty elaborate (flaming chariots?). I take it literally (as I do SOME sort of catastrophic flood). But I know you don't take the Ark story literally. Help me see the hermeneutics that guides your choice of figurative in one instance and literal in another

Um...how can I not take the Elijah story literally...if I choose to take the Transfiguration literally? Can you even do that? Can you affirm Elijah's literal presence on Mt. Tabor with Jesus while DENYING Elijah's life and asscension to be with God in the OT? How do we explain ELISHA's experience?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/4/2009 1:06:47 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 5/4/2009 1:04 PM (GMT -6)

Here's a question for you, Tom? How can YOU believe in the spiritual transformation of LIVING believers from mortality to immortality by the Spirit's power, like you've mentioned...but DISBELIEVE in the epicletic/eucharistic transformation of ordinary matter (including our very bodies! ) to the Real Presence of Christ?

Don't make a lick bit of sense to me. Can you explain it?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/4/2009 1:08:39 PM (GMT-5)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 5/4/2009 1:09 PM (GMT -6)

like if you accept the incarnation from Mary, then the bread that stays bread is also the very body of Christ -- as are we too.

One Love said...
Here's a question for you, Tom? How can YOU believe in the spiritual transformation of LIVING believers from mortality to immortality by the Spirit's power, like you've mentioned...but DISBELIEVE in the epicletic/eucharistic transformation of ordinary matter (including our very bodies! ) to the Real Presence of Christ?

Don't make a lick bit of sense to me...

(o)

Tom
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Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/4/2009 1:10 PM (GMT -6)

D: Seems to me that this same Holy-Spirit powered transformation of "earthly" into "heavenly" would be the SAME POWER as what is seen in the EPICLESIS of the elements into the "Heavenly Man".

T: I don't doubt it's the same POWER. Paul even says: If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in your, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you." So SURE, the same power that now lives in us (purifying us, guiding us, etc.) is the power that will one day make us immortal.

All I'm saying is that so long as you're mortal...you're still in process and your body isn't all God intends it to be.

Are you or are you not disagreeing with this?

D: If Elijah's mortal body can be transformed into immortality WITHOUT DEATH, then what does this say for the potentiality of epicletic living?

T: All it says is that the same thing is POSSIBLE for us. Dude, all we SHALL be is potentially at work in us NOW. Of course it is. Where have I denied that? What I'm saying is that SO LONG AS YOU ARE MORTAL you haven't crossed the line NO MATTER HOW BRIGHTLY YOUR BODY SHINES.

Do you deny that Jesus was mortal on the mount? Did he or did he not die subsequent to the Transformation on the mount? Well?

D: Only GOD knows the line between mortality and immortality within the human being that is permeated with God's Spirit. Only God.

T: But we know the DEFINITION OF EACH. And we can easily know that if somebody DIES, they were mortal, not immortal. And we can easily know that if somebody is NOT SUBJECT TO DEATH, i.e, they can't die, that they're immortal. What's so difficult about that?

I honestly don't know what point your arguing FOR here, D? Of course only God knows all the true potentialities of embodied human existence which is ALSO MORTAL. And only God knows the line between mortal and immortal, though it's easy enough to demonstrate I suppose. Nail somebody to a cross. If they DIE, that means they were mortal. Jesus got nailed to a cross and died AFTER the Transfiguration.

So: Do you agree or disagree that SO LONG AS ONE IS SUBJECT TO DEATH one's body is not yet all God intends it to be? Again, I don't know what bothers you about agreeing to this. You cannot disagreeing in fact.

T

One Love
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Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/4/2009 1:12 PM (GMT -6)

Bruce:
like if you accept the incarnation from Mary, then the bread that stays bread is also the very body of Christ -- as are we too.

Yessir.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Tom
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Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/4/2009 1:17 PM (GMT -6)

D: D: Only GOD knows the line between mortality and immortality within the human being that is permeated with God's Spirit. Only God.

T: Obviously false. Just nail the person to a cross (or put a bullet in their brain) and see what happens. Mortality and immortality are EASILY demonstrable attributes.

T

One Love
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Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/4/2009 1:19 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
Do you agree or disagree that SO LONG AS ONE IS SUBJECT TO DEATH one's body is not yet all God intends it to be?

Agree. Once one has been freed from death by the Spirit, that one need be concerned with death no longer.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/4/2009 1:25:59 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 5/4/2009 1:34 PM (GMT -6)

I tell you what. If we can get Christians shining with God's Spirit while immutably expressing the Fruit of the Spirit...we'll be doing pretty good. Let's get THAT far at least, I suppose. I'm sure the immortality would be revealed within that context.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/4/2009 1:36 PM (GMT -6)

D: Here's a question for you, Tom? How can YOU believe in the spiritual transformation of LIVING believers from mortality to immortality by the Spirit's power, like you've mentioned...but DISBELIEVE in the epicletic/eucharistic transformation of ordinary matter (including our very bodies! ) to the Real Presence of Christ?

T: Um, because Scripture explicitly teaches the former and says ZERO about the latter. Maybe? Or maybe because the two are not one and the same THING (i.e., the glorification of my mortal body is not the transformation of my body in ‘the’ material body of Jesus). If these are not one and the same thing, why should it be so impossible to believe in one and not in the other?

All of this is beside the point, I think. But you haven’t told me just what the point is, and the point keeps shifting it seems.

My points are clear:

1) So long as you’re mortal, your body isn’t all God intends it to be. Can I get a disagree or agree with this from you?
2) Jesus’ body on the mount was a mortal body however much he shone. He died later. That means mortal. Can I get a disagree or agree with this from you?
3) I’m not claiming that one has to die and be resurrected to become immortal. God can send a flaming chariot for us if he wants to. But if does, we’ll know it. You won’t age, get sick, grow hungry, need to eat, etc. We’ll be able to run you over with our cars and toss you off sky scrapers and talk about it afterwards.
4) It SEEMS to me that you don’t want to admit that there are blessings for our bodies in the age to come that cannot be enjoyed in this age by MORTAL bodies. Is this your point? If so, it’s obviously false, since immortality itself IS a blessing of the age to come, and you can’t be both mortal and immortal. If that’s NOT you’re point, then what is your point?

I see you agree with (1). How about (2)?

T

Tom
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Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/4/2009 1:41 PM (GMT -6)

D: I'm sure the immortality would be revealed within that context.

T: How do you know immortality would be revealed within that context?

T

One Love
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Posted 5/4/2009 1:48 PM (GMT -6)

1) Agree

2) Agree. Jesus' human body bore the mortality passed onto him by his Mother (born of woman, born under the Law, etc) and did not cease having that mortality during the Transfiguration.

3) a) The resurrected Jesus ate some fish with his peeps, so scrap that "need to eat" thing.
b) Again, I just want it known: a human being does NOT have to die and be resurrected to experience immortality (God's Life) as a human being. That's ALL I want acknowledged. You've done that.

4) My original point is that the personal knowledge of God found in hesychia and epiclesis 1) renders chasing theodicies meaningless, where we don't need those maps anymore...and 2) takes away death's power over the believer through their direct experience of God (via God's energies).

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/4/2009 1:52:57 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/4/2009 1:50 PM (GMT -6)

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Corey
Five with a Four-wing

Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893

Posted 5/4/2009 2:57 PM (GMT -6)

T: So, would I be right in describing a "properly basic belief" as a pre-linguistic intuition or (even) capacity for God? In other words, the territory of divine being and the territory of human being are compatible and the latter is sustained by and destined for the former. This is ALL pre-linguistic.

C: Yes, yes, yes! You said it well. Our best knowledge of God is immediate.

T: Heck, I'm not wording it right. I don't get how just saying this means believing in God on the second-order level is properly basic. Does properly basic mean something like "fit to order"? Or does it mean "can't be defended in second-order terms"?

C: I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I followed the question here. Properly basic beliefs are those which one holds in immediacy, not produced indirectly through reflection. Second-order terms are inadequate for conveying the fullness of these sorts of beliefs.

One Love
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Posted 5/4/2009 6:57 PM (GMT -6)

Love is eternal. Whoever becomes Love...becomes eternal.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/4/2009 7:01 PM (GMT -6)

Corey:
T: So, would I be right in describing a "properly basic belief" as a pre-linguistic intuition or (even) capacity for God? In other words, the territory of divine being and the territory of human being are compatible and the latter is sustained by and destined for the former. This is ALL pre-linguistic.

C: Yes, yes, yes! You said it well. Our best knowledge of God is immediate.

We are SPIRIT. God is SPIRIT.

When our human mind is stilled, we can experience our spiritual nature in all its "nakedness" in Omnipresent Divine Presence, which an experience of immediacy. Kairos, baby.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/4/2009 7:06:16 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/5/2009 12:21 PM (GMT -6)

For any interested...

http://www.cutsinger.net/pdf/hesychia.pdf

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 5/5/2009 1:22 PM (GMT -6)

Hmmm...

Here's a thought.

What if Christians said the Name in hesychia, using "I Am" instead of "Jesus"? IMO, I don't see it being broblematic because Jesus IS the Great "I Am".

Imagine always associating the words "I Am" as they breathe...directly with our Creator. Sounds like a valid practice to me. "I" am ONLY in "I Am."

Thoughts?

"Before Abraham came to be,..."

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/5/2009 1:28:52 PM (GMT-5)

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