Adult Sunday School - Pauline Psychology Part3

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Okay, so here is the reason why we went through this brief study in Pauline psychology.

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Now remember, Pauline is not a name. Pauline is a feminine name. Pauline meaning describing

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Paul. Paul -ish would be another way to think of it. Pauline is the technical way of saying we're just studying

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Paul's view on a particular subject. And remember I told you, I think I've mentioned it every time, don't worry about the word psychology.

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We're not turning into psychologists. We're not opening up secular books. It just means the study of how we think.

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A biblical study of how we think, Paul's view. So today is really kind of what

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I was trying to come to. This was the trajectory. We studied the

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Hebraic view of man, where they saw man as a unified whole. And he would be seen from different aspects, from body, from heart, from spirit, depending on the context, depending on the message that Scripture was trying to get across.

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That was Hebraic. And we studied briefly how during the heavily Hellenized period between Malachi and John the

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Baptist was called the 400 so -called silent years. But there was an excellent Sunday school done here about the 400 so -called silent years where it was shown very convincingly,

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I believe, that they weren't silent at all. We didn't have a designated prophet during those years, but God was certainly working.

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And if you see what developed in those years to bring forth the world that Jesus was born into,

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God was not silent at all. But that's just the term that's used for that time between Malachi and John the

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Baptist. So we studied that, and we saw how through Alexander the Great's influence, the

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Greek, the Hellenized way of thinking permeated the known world at the time. So when we talk about the world, it was really that Mediterranean basin, the known world at the time.

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So that was important because Paul was familiar with that, and Paul knew the difference between the

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Old Testament view of man and the Hellenized, the Greek view of man. And the important thing there is not only his thought process, but also a lot of the conflicts he had.

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Different churches were believing different things, and they had different things coming into them. And if you understand the

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Hellenized, the Hellenistic way of thinking, that's a lot of what Paul was up against.

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He understood those things very well. We saw how soul and spirit began to be differentiated from the physical self, and how soul and spirit were at times seen as separate, distinct aspects of our composition, and then more determinately as different ways of viewing that same spiritual side of us, that same non -physical side.

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And we're going to get to there today to try and sort that out a little bit. So we're going to answer three questions today to finish up, because we've gone through the background,

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Paul's background, the Hellenistic view. That was the first week. Last week, remember, we went through all the terms that are used, flesh and heart and members and soul and spirit and body and all those different terms, and how

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Paul uses those. It wasn't exhaustive, but we went through them. Today, I want to answer three questions.

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And the first two I'm going to fly through, okay? And we're going to get to the third one. That's really where I want to spend the time, because I think that's more of a practical thing.

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But the other ones are fairly important. And, Lord willing, you'll see that it's worth understanding, especially the first one.

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The first one is traducianism versus creationism. I don't know if I mentioned what those mean.

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Does anybody know what those terms mean in that context just when I use them together, traducianism and creationism?

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What am I talking about? We're talking about the generation of the soul.

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Where does the soul come from? In traducianism, the soul is made as part of the physical composite, the physical creation, if you will, of the human within the womb.

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So when that biological function happens and you have life, when it becomes human life, the soul is also created by the procreation of the mother and father, okay?

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That's traducianism. I'm just giving you the question. We'll tell you where it comes from when we get more to it.

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Or creationism, the other side of that is God, independent of the man and the woman, creates and gives the child a soul when life begins.

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So that's traducianism, creationism. The second question is die versus trichotomy.

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So are we made up of die, two aspects, a physical and a nonphysical part, or tri, three aspects?

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Now the two questions there, if you're trichotomy, if we are made up of three, we're body, soul, and spirit.

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And those are three different components of our makeup as human beings. Body, soul, spirit.

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They're distinct. If you're bi or di, it's bipartite and dichotomy.

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Bipartite, dichotomy, those mean the same thing, okay? If you're di or bi, then we're body.

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Everybody agree with that? We have a physical aspect to ourselves. But then soul and spirit in that vein, in that belief system, are the same.

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They mean the same aspect of us. And when soul is used or spirit is used, it's to make a different point from Scripture.

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It's a different view of mankind because of the context of Scripture. So traducianism versus creationism, die versus trichotomy, and third and finally the one

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I want to get to, and that's why if we have a lot of questions and arguments about any of the first two, we're going to just pass them by and I'm not going to care, because what

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I really want to get to is the third one. Why do we still sin? And God willing, that'll be a little bit eye -opening for some of you, hopefully convicting.

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My premise in that third part is that a new heart has been given to each believer.

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And we'll go to some of the Scripture for that, but it's been put there by God the Father's predestined will on the basis of Jesus' atoning sacrifice by the

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Holy Spirit's application of the truth of the Gospel to the heart. So if we have a new heart, which if you believe in Jesus, you do, if you have a new heart, it's a triune action that took place in you where God the

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Father predestined you, God the Son died for you, God the Spirit applied that to you, meaning opened your eyes to it, gave you faith to repent and believe, however you want to put that.

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The heart, my premise is, the heart that was given you, Ezekiel 36, 25 -27, where he says,

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I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, that heart is all flesh.

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That heart does not have any remaining stone. God didn't fulfill this promise, and you will go through some of the

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Scripture, Titus 3, 5, Romans 5, 5. He didn't pull out that heart of stone, make you up a heart of flesh and say, hmm, they still need some stone.

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I'll give this one 25 % stone, you get 15 % stone, or .09 % stone.

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You got a heart of flesh. We're going to continue to sin as long as we are here in these bodies, but I'm going to propose to you that sin is not necessary to us as believers.

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I'm not going to preach perfectionism, I do not believe perfectionism. I do not believe that there's sinless possibility in this life.

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I don't believe that. You ever get what I just said? I don't believe that.

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What I'm saying, and I think this is important as we look at our sins, we think of how we acknowledge our sin and repent of our sin and the depth of that repentance.

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What I'm saying is, if we are recreated by God, and we'll go through some of the Scriptures, there's no excuse for it.

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There's no more need for sin, which means we reach out our hand like Psalm 27, lest the righteous should reach out their hand to iniquity.

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As the Psalm says, that's what we do. Now, we know that we're responsible for our individual sins, don't we?

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Even as Christians, we know that. I want to increase the depth of how much we repent of that.

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And again, my premise being, we're responsible for sin because God has made us able not to.

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So the choice to sin is all the more culpable for us. So let's jump in.

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The first question, Truducianism vs. Creationism. Truducianism from the Latin means transmit to posterity.

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Advocates contend that the entire person, material and immaterial, is brought into existence at conception.

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It's the procreative act, once successful, that brings the soul into being. So the parents bring the soul into being.

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A soul is ultimately from God.

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God gave Adam a soul. And the Truducianists would then say, the soul is physically passed on from Adam to his children, from those children, and on, and on, and on.

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So it starts with Adam. God created a soul, God gave the soul, but then in the physical procreation, souls are passed on, unique souls, not the same soul

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Adam had, obviously. A man named W .G.

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Phillips points out that four of the common supports to Truducianism are really objections to alternate views.

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They're not postulates, they're a premise in and of themselves. They're objections, which is a different way of arguing things, and I think it's a little bit of a weak way to argue things, which kind of gives away which side

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I'm going to land on, and hopefully you. Pre -existence is a Platonic, not a biblical view.

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So if it's Truducianism, there is a pre -existence of the soul, because we're going to pass it on.

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There's a pre -existence of the physical, and there's a pre -existence of that non -physical, if it's going to be passed on through the physical act of the parent in creating a child.

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They say reincarnation is unbiblical, and I had to struggle with that one a little bit. This is W .G. Phillips. He says reincarnation is unbiblical, and I think what he's getting at there is if you and I can create a soul, then we can bring the same soul back into being.

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I think that's what he's getting at. And we talked a little bit about Platonic views and how that might have led to Buddhism and the whole idea of reincarnation.

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Third, God is no longer active in creating souls ex nihilo. That's what they say, that God created a soul for Adam, and we don't see him creating a soul after that.

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And they say, now this is a toughie, but they say creationism makes God the author of sinful souls.

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But those are their four objections. These are four of the main premises that they have, and they're objections to the other view, not supports for their view in and of themselves, objections to the other view.

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They also have four that are thought to best fit biblical data. For example, pick up Hebrews 9 -10.

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I'm sorry, Hebrews 7, 9 -10. Would you get Romans 5, 12 -21 for me?

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One of their supports for traducianism is that Levi paid tithes in Abraham.

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Hebrews 7, 9, and 10. Ready to be made a soul, ready for a soul to be attached to the child when he finally gets born, something like that.

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Thank you. Thank you.

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So the idea there, the traducianist would say that this supports the solidarity that we have in Adam.

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This would then support sin being passed on in that way through Adam, through procreation. So, our souls are corrupted, our bodies are corrupted, everything is sin -corrupted.

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And this gives us that solidarity and traces us right back to Adam and makes us truly his sons at birth.

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They also note that Adam's son, I think the first one was not Seth, Cain and Abel, Adam's son was made, quote, in his own image and likeness.

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And they would argue that couldn't only happen if they gave him a soul. And finally, it most easily explains the spread of original sin to the human race.

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Because if I'm a corrupted, sinful man and my great -grandfather

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Adam, his sinners ruined me, I'm going to pass that along, that sin -cursed soul as well as body.

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Okay? So the objections here, to force

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Hebrews 7, 9, where Levi paid, and you heard that read, to force that to address the origin of the soul overloads the text with something it doesn't actually say.

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It's not what the author is even talking about. I'll give you something for free.

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The author, who wrote Hebrews? Luke! Luke!

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I have a biblical study, it's a book written from a man's dissertation. And he shows pretty convincingly, it might very well have been

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Luke. He says the early church fathers, when they read Luke and Acts and Hebrews, et cetera, et cetera, there wasn't even a controversy to them.

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They said, duh, it's Luke. That's for free. But it overloads that text.

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It invites a material understanding of what is indisputably immaterial. That you and I can create something immaterial is incredible.

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We would leave that only to God. The perpetuation of souls is not so tightly bound to the spread of sin as biblically presented.

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Interesting, the Bible really only says that sin spread to all men, but it doesn't tell us how. So the fact, and we're not going to dispute this, we all believe this, we know this, sin spread to all men.

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Adam's sin was passed on. But the precise mechanism by which it's passed on is never really addressed in the

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Bible. So for the traducianist to say that that's how it happened, because we make the soul, we being those who procreate, it's reading in something that the

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Bible really never even addresses for us. The fact that it's spread, that sin spread, we don't dispute.

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How it's spread, what that mechanism is, interesting to think, we don't really know. We don't know what that is, but we know it is.

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God's current creative activity in humanity could well include the individual souls.

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There's nothing that says it's not. They do a lot of reading in in my estimation and in W .G.

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Phillips' estimation as well. So an interesting observation about procreation and souls and abortion.

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If you put abortion, the question we have with that today, and you think of that in terms of the traducianist view of the soul, which is what makes us distinctly human.

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Conception covers, and this is very technical, and I'm getting out of my expertise very quickly here, so if anybody can help me jump in.

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But it covers a roughly 24 -hour period. Once the procreative act has occurred, there's about a 24 -hour period that is that period of conception.

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Human life, I'm going to quote this, human life begins at fertilization, but the individual human person does not begin until syngamy.

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S -Y -N -G -A -M -Y. Anybody heard that term before? Good, because I hadn't heard it before I read his

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W .G. Phillips arguments about this. Syngamy is a technical term. It's a medical or biological term.

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It's the fusion of two cells in reproduction. So individual humanity does not exist until syngamy happens, and that's by genetic or scientific definition.

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So we would then ask the traducingist, we being largely creationists, and if you're not, you will be at the end of this, and if you hadn't ever heard of this, again, you will be.

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But we would ask them, at what point then is there a soul that makes abortion murder?

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If you're a traducingist, you have to sort that out because of what we know today about biology, which wasn't known centuries ago, of course.

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But knowing what we know now, we would then say, okay, well, when is it wrong to abort a child?

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If God gave the soul, that's a pretty big question. If we gave the soul, that's one way to answer it, and also if that soul, if that thing, if that reproductive act doesn't have humanity until syngamy takes place, which is maybe a day later, do you see what the question is there?

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If you're a traducingist, you may have something that is not in need of that protection that we would say it does, because it doesn't have a soul yet.

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Yeah, that's what it says. Syngamy, the Indian... Yeah, I don't, that's why I said...

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Okay, that helps. Okay. Uh -huh.

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Uh -huh. Thank you,

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James. That helps. So having exhausted my biological expertise, we're just going to push on.

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And I was quoting there. I was quoting what I read, just to put it out to you. Traducianism was held by Tertullian, by Gregory of Nyssa, the

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Eastern Church by Luther, and American Reformed scholars from the 19th century,

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Shedd and Strong. A modern, well -reasoned advocate of traducianism is

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Robert Raymond. Now, creationism says that God creates a new soul for each person and sends that soul sometime between conception and birth.

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That's Grudem in his Systematic Theology, page 44, if you ever want that reference. The possible, possible delay between conception and birth is a fairly modern idea.

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The early advocates of creationism, like Augustine in the 5th century, 4th century, had

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God creating a soul at the moment of conception and vesting the new child with that soul in the womb.

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So in the creationist view, and again, looking at a modern controversy, which is abortion, we would say, no, at fertilization, soul.

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God creates. We don't do it. We don't make it. We make the physical child. God gives a soul.

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So Grudem supports creationism, and I'm just going to fly through these and I'm not going to ask you to read them, with Psalm 127, verse 3.

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Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. So this idea of everything happening in the womb at God's command.

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Psalm 139, 13. You formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. Isaiah 42, 5.

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Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it.

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So it's God who does it, not we in our procreative act. It's God who does it. Hebrews 12, 9.

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Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the

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Father of spirits and live? So if Phillips, W .G.

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Phillips is correct in the medical argument, that syngamy and the things we're trying to discuss here, then creationism,

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I would argue, gets the high ground in the moral argument about abortion, among other things.

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Now, Pastor Conley and myself, with most Baptist scholars, with most Reformed theology, our confession also, are creationists.

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We distinctly, we are committed to the idea that God creates a soul and God is the one who vests at conception, invests the life with the soul.

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I don't think men, you and me, can create something that's incorporeal.

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It's not physical. And I also, this is my own thought, but the traducianists might have a harder time explaining than the creationists would something like what we have towards the end of Israel's reign before Babylon took them in Chronicles, where you have something like Ahaz, that wicked king, and somehow that wicked king passed on a good soul to Hezekiah, his son, who was the greatest of all the kings.

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There was no one like him since David. And somehow he was unable to pass on a good soul to Manasseh, who was the worst of the kings, who passed on a good soul then to Josiah.

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And you see how this goes, and the logic behind it becomes very strained. If we're passing on ourselves, if we're the maker of the soul,

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I believe creationism also relieves us of the moral quagmire of when life actually begins.

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I've heard it said by intelligent people who are friends, and I like them. We've gotten along for a long time.

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And they say that, I forget what it was, it's like, life within the womb is not distinctly human for six weeks or something.

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It's not human for... Have you ever heard that? Okay. I was so flabbergasted

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I almost couldn't answer it. What's it going to be, a zebra? What are you talking about? I know it's more of an argument that, but as a creationist, we don't have that problem.

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And I'm not saying that we become creationists so that we don't have the problem, but because we see in the Scripture creationism being the correct viewpoint, it relieves us of the problem.

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Okay. Tri -versus -dichotomy. Yeah, we're going to fly because I've got to get to number three.

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We're not dividing man into parts. Both views maintain the unity of man. Not parts, but definable aspects is what's happening here.

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In both frameworks, there's the physical body, the soma, the sarx, the flesh, the mellus, the members, the cardia, the heart, all those things that we went through last week.

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And there's the non -physical. There's the psyche, which is soul. There's panuma, which is spirit. There's synodesis, which is conscience, and so forth.

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The question is, are we body, soul, and spirit, the tripartite view, or are soul and spirit the same thing?

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I'm talking about our non -physical aspect of existence. Raymond points out in Systematic on page 618, and I'm giving that, because I want to give credit where it's due because it's a fairly long quote that I have here.

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He says that Reformation creeds all adopt the dichotomous view of mankind. And here's his quote, and like I said, it's a little bit lengthy, where Luke 10, verse 27 reads that we should love

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God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind. Matthew 22, 37 reads that we should love

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God with all our heart and soul and mind and omits the strength. While Mark reports in 12, verse 30 that we should love

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God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and he reverses there the order of the last two

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Lukan words. And in chapter 12, verse 33 that we should love God with all our heart and understanding and strength, using another word for mind, and omitting soul altogether.

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In all, five different words are employed without even mentioning the body. And again, this is a quote from Raymond, Surely, no one would insist on the basis of these series of words connected by and, that each of these words refers to an immaterial, ontologically distinct entity, and that therefore

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Luke was a Quintonomist, Matthew was a Quadcotomist, and Mark was a

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Sexcotomist. What he's saying there is that Jesus is quoting how we're to love

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God, Deuteronomy 6, 4, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

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And when Jesus quotes it, when he's like that's what's the great command, all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. So all these different ways when you have these distinct ones and you add them all up, are we

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Sexcotomy? Are we made up of six parts? And his argument is that the structure in the original language is the same.

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So if the structure means, therefore, like from 2 Thessalonians, and we'll get to that in a moment, that body, soul, spirit are distinct, then that same structure is used when there's those different terms used for how we're to love

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God. Heart, soul, mind, strength, heart, soul, understanding, etc. He argues that because the structure is the same, if the tripartite view is correct, then that has to be applied to these other statements of our makeup.

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And he then shows how the three main passages used to support the tripartite view do so by conclusions not supported by the text.

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So first is 1 Corinthians 15 .44 The body is sown a natural body.

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It is raised a spiritual body. If there's a natural body, there's also a spiritual body.

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Now the implied subject of both verbs, which is sown and raised, is one and the same subject, which is the body.

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And that same word for body, which is soma, is in both instances, is used in both instances suggesting that it is the same body that's sown and raised.

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Are you with me? The same body is sown and raised in 1 Corinthians 15 .44

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If the two words really intended totally distinct ontological entities, then the body that is raised is not the same body that is sown.

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Paul doubtless intended simply to say that the soul -ish body, that is the body whose attributes fit it for life in this natural world during this age, will be so transformed that as the spiritual body, it will fit the life which the person who is associated with that body with the risen

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Christ will live in the supernatural new earth situation. He's simply saying that it's the same body appropriate for life on earth, and when raised made appropriate for life with Christ in the new heaven and earth.

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1 Thessalonians 5 .23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you holy, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless in the coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Now here the trichotomist insists that the conjunction between the conjunction and, which is between spirit and soul intends that we be viewed as separate entities, but again this is

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Robert Raymond, I quote, but it is no less precarious to argue that spirit and soul here refer to separate immaterial entities on the basis of the and between them than it is to argue that heart and soul and strength and mind in Luke 10 .27

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refer to separate immaterial entities because of the repeated and in that passage.

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He goes on, says the adverb holy and the adjective whole in the verse strongly suggests that the emphasis of the verse is on the

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Christian man viewed here in his entirety as quote, the whole man. Yeah, we got time.

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Hebrews 4 .12 is another one of the strong supports for trichotomy where the word of God is sharper than any two -edged sword and it penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit and is the judge of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

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So soul and spirit can be divided, so they're two different things. The trichotomist insists that since they can be divided that's evidence that they're two separate distinct ontological which just means existence form of existence, ontological entities.

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But this is to ignore the fact that soul and spirit are both what we call genitives and they're both governed by the participle dividing.

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Soul and spirit dividing. Dividing is going to modify those. The verse is saying that the word of God divides the soul even the spirit.

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Not soul and spirit soul even the spirit. But it does not say that the word of God divides soul and spirit or divides the soul from the spirit.

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The verse no more intends this than it intends when it goes on to say that the word is the judge of the thoughts and of the intents of the hearts.

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That the thoughts and intents are ontologically distinct things. What are my thoughts? My thoughts are my intentions.

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What are my intentions? They're things that I thought or things that I think. Intents are simply one kind of thought.

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What the verse is actually saying is that the word of God is able to penetrate into the deepest recesses of a man's spirit and judge his very thoughts even the secret intentions of his heart.

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So the Greek word chi, is it even or is it and? It's very important for how we translate or how we understand those kind of verses.

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And again if you want these references I can get them for you. But Grudem for his part in his systematic theology has five pages, 473 to 477 where he demonstrates convincingly that soul and spirit are interchangeable.

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Depending on the context, depending on what Paul, usually Paul, is trying to get through, the points he's trying to make, the corrections he's trying to bring to whatever church or person, soul, spirit can be used interchangeably.

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Okay? I did leave enough time. Any questions? Any discussion about those other ones?

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Other than saying I'm wrong? You cannot say I'm wrong. I'm not saying that that is the traducingist view that we've created the soul.

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That's the question. The traducingist would say the former is part of the process. The creationist would say

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God gives the soul. That's really what the question is. But that's the traducingist view.

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I believe the former, that we are responsible for it. And, see,

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God creates life, and so when life begins, we give all praise to God.

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Rightly so. Okay? That's not to platitude. Rightly so. And yet, the procreation of physical life is something that God has, as it were, delegated to mankind.

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The creationist says, but not the soul. God gives a soul because God created

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Adam and then gave him a soul. Okay? So the soul is a distinct aspect of humanity that's infused or given by God.

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Okay? The traducingist view, which I don't agree with, but the traducingist view is that the soul is part of that physical generation by God's design, by something beyond biology.

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I don't know how you want to describe it, but it's our physical act of creating life, which

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God has delegated, all praise to God, but we do it. Okay? That the soul is a...

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I don't want to say natural. Give me a synonym. It's just a...

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What's it? Yeah. So the traducingist is just saying it's just part of the process, and it's the way

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God designed it, they would say, but when you make a baby, you've made the soul. It's all one and the same.

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You've made the baby, the child in the womb, physical and non -physical.

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You've made it human in that way. Adam is a living being when he was given the spirit or the soul.

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So I didn't mean to be pejorative against them, but just to lay out their case, again, with the confessions, with most reformed theology through the ages, would be creationists.

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That God doesn't... This is a distinct part. You're right, again, that all life is from God, it's a miracle of God, and yet that physical part of it,

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He has given to us to do. He says, go forth and multiply and fill the earth.

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Okay. Very quick now, because I've got...

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I want to get to question three. Now one thing...

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We've got to get on, because I want to get to my third question. I warned you, I'm not going to discuss these very long. But one thing about saying that they died spiritually, okay?

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It's sort of like the way some of those other verses I mentioned are in mine and Robert Raymond's opinion, overloaded.

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Now, did they die spiritually? We would all say yes. But I don't know where in the

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Scripture it really supports that. Because we know they did, we know that sin got passed on, we know that we need the

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Spirit of God to revive us, to make us alive, because we're dead in trespass, sin, etc. We know that.

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But when God says, you shall surely die, the spiritual death that we call it, that's being kicked out of the garden, and yet God still talked to man.

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Okay, so there's still that connection there. But then they died. He tells us how many years

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Adam lived, and then he died. So he did die. And so when we call it spiritual death, we are reading something in there that is theologically correct, but I'm not sure exactly where it comes from in that immediate context.

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They did die, and there was separation from God, and that is spiritual death, and we're born dead in our trespasses and sins which we once walked.

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I agree with all that. I'm not trying to throw anything under the bus. But, let me say, like, you're on the bus with a guy.

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I'm not going to throw him under if we're driving the bus together, like he said. And we say, well,

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Adam suffered spiritual death. We're all going to agree with that. If we were in a more academic environment, we could really debate it out.

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It doesn't really say that. It says, you will surely die, and they died. Now, was there spiritual death?

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Yeah, because they were kicked out of the garden. And so there's that disconnect with God. But, I don't want to...

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Okay. So, traducism versus creationism.

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Of course, we're all creationists. And now that I've convincingly showed you that the tripartite view is wrong, we're all bipartites, except for the heretic over there.

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We've been arguing about that for a long time. I want to get to, why do we still sin?

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When I started this Pauline Psychology, Paul's inspired view of how the human operates, how we think, what the different parts are, how he uses flesh.

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Remember what the important thing was about flesh? Sarks? I know I was pretty exhausted last week because I'd been up all night with that gout.

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My eyes were rolling on my head as I was driving here. I know I was a little disconnected. But, do you remember what flesh was about?

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That word sarks? Flesh is our physical part, but he uses it metaphorically as that which distinguishes us as different from God.

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Remember, when God made us physical, he gave us something he himself does not have. He does not have flesh and bones.

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He does not have sarks or soma or body. God is spirit. Now, in Christ, he became flesh and bones.

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So, we're talking about God himself in just that blank, or that single statement we have. For example, that one statement,

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God is spirit. John says that in 1 John. Jesus said that in John 4 to the

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Samaritan woman. So, as flesh and blood, we have something God doesn't because God gave it to us.

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So, we went through all that and we had penuma, which is spirit, psyche, which is soul, sarks, the flesh, soma, the body, mellow, the members, which is just the parts of us which we reach out.

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Why do we still sin? I started out and I gave you quickly my view on Ezekiel 36 that God took out the heart of stone and gave a heart of flesh that was an old covenant promise that was a prophecy fulfilled,

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I would argue, in Christ. And we're going to go through some of that, but I want to put this forth, and I said this earlier, we sin because we want to.

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We sin because we want to, whether it's what we call small sins, whether God does or not is a different subject, or we call them big sins.

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We do it because we want to. So, God made no mistakes, nor was the job only partially done when

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His Spirit brought us to faith and repentance, and just a few core texts for this.

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Ezekiel 36, 25 to 27, pretty familiar. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be cleaned from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols

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I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

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And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

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That's prophecy given to old Israel, that's Israel when they were in exile in Babylon, because Ezekiel was an exilic prophet.

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This is very much like what Jesus says in John 15 and 16 about my

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Father and I will come to you and make our home within you. And He says a spirit will reside within you. It's this triune act of God in our salvation, where you have

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Father, Son, Spirit literally within you. Okay? That's fulfillment of Ezekiel 36.

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It's the triune God within us, that clean heart that He's given us. It doesn't leave room, as I was saying before, for some stone to have been left behind.

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Nor can we say other than this that if God has given us a new heart, which is to say if this prophecy is indeed fulfilled in Christ in the age of the

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Spirit then it's a new heart. Period. Okay? So that's one conclusion

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I get from this, that God has done this work in Christ, in the New Covenant. My second scripture will actually be a support of that.

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It has been fulfilled in us because of Christ by His Spirit. Titus 3 -5 -7

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But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy by the washing and regeneration and renewal of the

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Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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Now I would argue that this is fulfillment of Ezekiel 36 if not explicitly, implicitly that this is the

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Holy Spirit coming upon you, giving you faith to repent. We don't think you repent and get faith.

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You have faith to repent. God gives it as a gift according to His mercy the washing and regeneration and renewal of the

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Holy Spirit I would argue this is the new heart of Ezekiel 36 and other places just that one place that I've gone to.

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You with me so far? Pretty much? Okay. So saved and poured out in that Titus passage,

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He saved us and He poured out His Holy Spirit. Those both refer to completed acts done at a point in time.

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So it's our conversion. You're saved and the Holy Spirit is poured out upon you. Not being poured out or pouring out, poured.

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A definitive act. 2 Corinthians 5 17, when

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I give a lot of recourse so I go here often Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away behold the new has come.

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Again I would say very consistent with Ezekiel that the heart of stone has been taken out, the heart of flesh has been given and a new spirit put within you.

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Excuse me. So passed away is again like saved and poured in Titus.

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It refers to a completed action. Okay? He's a new creation. The old has passed away.

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It's gone. That's an act. That's something that occurred. The new has come is an action with a starting point which is your conversion and it's a continuous action which is newness, constant renewal.

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Okay? So the old boom, passed away. The new has come but that's constant.

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That's a continual action. Once it starts it's what we call the perfect verb so it has a starting point in time and the action of it continues.

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Okay? Third, in the new covenant as compared to the old covenant we have something very precious and something that the old covenant never had.

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I haven't I was going to ask if you could guess what I'm thinking of but I haven't given you enough hints so I'll just say it. The new covenant provides what it demands.

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Okay? The old covenant couldn't do that. The new covenant provides what it demands by giving us faith, by giving us the spirit.

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2 Peter chapter 1 starting in verse 3, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

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So the new heart, conversion by the spirit, the supply of all things again. Why do we sin?

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If God has given us a new heart if the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon you I could have gone to Hebrews 5 .5

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the Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts, the love of God has been poured into our hearts, many other places we could go but again we had

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Ezekiel, the new heart we had Titus, the washing and regeneration we have 2 Corinthians, if anyone's in Christ you're a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come 2

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Peter chapter 1 that he's given us everything that pertains to life and godliness so with all that, a little bit of time left, why do we still sin?

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How could we? I said at the beginning it's because we want to we decide to ignore all that anytime we sin, be it large, be it small, be it egregious, be it something we can hide, whatever it is doesn't matter, the reason behind it is we've made a choice we've chosen to do that and that's despite the spirit within us, despite the scripture he's given us, despite the communion of the saints, despite all things that pertain to godliness and holiness, we chose to do fill in the blank

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Galatians 5, 16 -22 really brings out this conflict now

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I've told people before in Romans 7, things I want to do I don't do, the things I don't want to do that I do who will save me from this body of death and all that it's talking about a different subject than the normative

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Christian life people get worried about me saying that because they say well

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I have this conflict with sin I'm always doing what I don't want to do I know the good to do but I can't do it you just took that away from me pastor no, in context that's not what

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Paul's talking about in Romans 7 but in that context, where is the conflict is exactly here in Romans 5, 16 this is what answers that question but I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh spirit is capital

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S it corresponds to the spirit that was given to us small s within us okay, we have a spirit and we have capital

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S spirit within us not gratify the desires of the flesh remember what

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I said about flesh before sarx, now this is one of the ways that Paul uses that flesh is a physical thing so it's attached to our bones but here he's using it as that thing that distinguishes us as different from God and here is that part of us that wants to reach out and sin he goes on and says for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do this is the question too many people answer from Romans 7

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Romans 7 is not answering that question, that's not what Paul is answering but here it is in exact context okay

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Galatians 5 .17 Galatians what I was saying about Romans is that people people use

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Romans 7 to answer the question that's actually being asked or actually being answered in Galatians 5 but if you're led by the spirit you're not under the law, now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy fits of anger, rivalries dissensions, divisions envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like this

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I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God okay so the spirit is against the flesh why is your spirit against the flesh?

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because the spirit you have is a new spirit if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation you're different you have something you didn't have before which is the spirit of God within the old has passed away, behold the new has come how does flesh then sarks make us sin?

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he doesn't tell us exactly, he says the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, the desires of the spirit are against the flesh sarks in this case as I've been saying last week and more today is that aspect of our physical being that aspect of our life with God that distinguishes us from him now does flesh actually sin?

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it's me, the inner person who chose to sin but flesh is that part of us that reaches out and desires for it and the way

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I describe that is it's like muscle memory okay your flesh is that which remembers those momentary pleasures of sin it's your flesh that wants to reach out and do it to overcome what

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God has given within that's the way Paul uses it so I think of it as muscle memory

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I would say that's correct it's not let go, let God it's all done of God it's all to God's glory and we couldn't want to be like Christ without all the conversion that we've talked about earlier so it's all of God and yet the responsibility to grow in holiness and sanctification is given to us the commands that Paul gives are to you, to me the individual

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Christian now, before he does that before he gives that imperative he's already said that this is what

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God has done in you so we're not saying that we can do it but he then says because God's made you able now go be what

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God has made you to be something like that different ways it is phrased the question, why do we sin?

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it's because that flesh is against the spirit well what's flesh, does he mean that this stuff here is against it no, this is just stuff he's talking about this aspect of ourselves that distinguishes us from God and in this context and again if you have a better way to make a metaphor out of this

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I'm open to that but I think of it as muscle memory that the flesh just remembers what it's like it's always drawing you back it's like the alcoholic who hasn't drank for 5, 6, 7 years and he smells a little bit of whiskey draws him back

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I remember that was like, oh that was good no it wasn't good, it was lousy it was terrible but that flesh goes, ah,

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I remember I remember that's the best way I can describe it I don't know if that works for you but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness, self -control against such things there is no law and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with their passions and desires if we live by the spirit let us also walk by the spirit let us not become conceited, provoking one another envying one another

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Romans 8, those who are in the flesh cannot please God so is that saying that if we're physical beings we can't please

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God, no flesh as opposed to God is the way he uses it there um notice he doesn't say those who sin can never please

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God because we're always going to sin we please God when we go to 1 John 1 we repent of our sins, we confess them we have his forgiveness for them um we sin because the good heart and new spirit

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God gave us is encased in our mortal bodies which with we have a sort of muscle memory which desires to sin we sin then because we want to if we didn't we'd avail ourselves of all things that pertain to life and godliness, 2

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Peter 1 what we do is willingly and copably give into the flesh like I said in Romans 8, those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God, those who live by the flesh not saying if you're a physical being those who live according to the old desires of the flesh cannot please

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God, so that momentary relapse where we give into a sinful desire is displeasing to God not condemnatory because Christ was condemned in our place, he was condemned in my place, condemned he stood, hallelujah what a savior, that great hymn even so sin is never pleasing to God if we think of it this way then

01:01:06

I would argue our responsibility for sin is deepened, our repentance for sin is made more full and our growth in sanctification is going to accelerate, never completed in this life but if we look at all that God has given us from the new heart in Ezekiel the washing and regeneration of the spirit new creation in Christ all things that pertain to godliness and holiness what excuse do we have none,

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I think God has made us able not to even knowing that we always will that's the whole series that's

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Pauline psychology, any last thoughts or comments ok next

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Sunday get back to the regular routine Conley will be here and he's going to have the morning preaching and the

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Sunday school I'll be in the afternoon and just so you know after that which would be September 8th,

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Tim is going to be preaching in the morning and Conley in the afternoon and I'll be kind of in the pews for a while Heavenly Father give you thanks again for the day that you've given us