What did Paul mean when he said we are tobe temples of God?

[dio9]

How close to Jesus does that make us?
Is it the same divine spirit in us, perhaps to a lesser degree but still the same ,
Is the spirit any different because we are created?


Question for discussion : Do you think Jesus had to choose to be filled as we choose to do so?

Matthew's Gospel writes Jesus had to overcome 3 temptations wealth power and felicity represented in stones to bread , kingdoms of the world, his very faith in God.

In other words, in the Christian context , can we ever be fully free of our fallen nature?

[brianbbs67]

We are not close in deed to Christ.

The Holy Spirit is God's Spirit, so, the same.

I believe Christ agreed and chose his mission. Temptations will always be. Even for heavenly beings.

I can't seem to locate the verse from the JPS about your body being a temple. It did make it clear what the meaning was though.

I will paraphrase it here: Make your body an acceptable place for the Lord to dwell.

[marco]

Question for discussion : Do you think Jesus had to choose to be filled as we choose to do so?

Matthew's Gospel writes Jesus had to overcome 3 temptations wealth power and felicity represented in stones to bread , kingdoms of the world, his very faith in God.

In other words, in the Christian context , can we ever be fully free of our fallen nature?

In a human context we don't have a "fallen nature". We have various abilities and some of us show saintliness.

The 3 temptations were unwitnessed, so are perhaps metaphors of how Christ struggled with his human nature. He would have to have been terribly naïve if his first contact with temptation found him as a man of thirty.

We can free ourselves from the consideration we are "fallen" by ignoring ancient writers and their early viewpoints on gods and men and accepting the trials, tribulations, joys and successes that life on Earth gives us.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 1 by dio9]

Temples of the Holy Spirit. To be controlled and empowered by the Spirit. Is it possible that Jesus too was "simply" a man filled with the Holy Spirit? And to such a degree that the image of God shone brighter in him than in any other human? That he was like us in kind, but differed only in the degree to which he was conformed to the will of God?

And that Jesus being so completely filled with the Spirit, so completely conformed to the will of God that he became a veritable reflection of God Himself?* We're all made in the image of God, but Jesus cultivated that heritage more and better than any of us.

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* If that is meant by the assertion that "Jesus is God" then that is something that even I could accept. But I don't think that is what orthodoxy teaches us.

[dio9]

The point I'm aiming for is the Christian's understanding of themselves before God.
In eastern religious thought (as I understand it) the holy spirit of God is the same holy spirit of Man. There is no duality, the spirit of God and Man is one the same spirit. Without Christ there is no divinity in humanity.
Is this what Jesus taught? Or that the divine spirit God is already in us to be uncovered like the treasure buried in the field?

[Checkpoint]

[Replying to post 1 by dio9]

In other words, in the Christian context , can we ever be fully free of our fallen nature?

Not while we are in this life, in this body.

Full freedom comes at our resurrection.

[Wootah]

How close to Jesus does that make us?
Is it the same divine spirit in us, perhaps to a lesser degree but still the same ,
Is the spirit any different because we are created?


Question for discussion : Do you think Jesus had to choose to be filled as we choose to do so?

Matthew's Gospel writes Jesus had to overcome 3 temptations wealth power and felicity represented in stones to bread , kingdoms of the world, his very faith in God.

In other words, in the Christian context , can we ever be fully free of our fallen nature?

After/because of Jesus's resurrection the broken relationship between man and God was repaired. As such God could dwell in man as God dwelled in the temple. If Jesus is your Lord and Saviour the Holy Spirit is in you. God is in you.

We wont be free of our fallen nature on Earth because our bodies still have their lusts, because the world is still cursed and because God is still distant.

[marco]

We won't be free of our fallen nature on Earth because our bodies still have their lusts, because the world is still cursed and because God is still distant.

Sadly this flies in the face of the millions of humans who ARE good. It is wrong to assign a fallen nature to everyone.
Like all animals we have an instinct for procreation. It only becomes lust on the lips of Paul.

The world has its tectonic faults - nothing to do with Adam - its droughts, volcanoes, hurricanes and tsunamis. These happen because of the way the Earth has been formed. They are curses, in a sense, to those who suffer from them, but it is a superstition to suppose that when someone is struck by lightning, the misfortune is somehow God-linked.

God is still absent because he chooses to be -or so it seems. Jewish children called out to him in concentration camps, and he was apparently asleep. God's distance is no fault of man.

[dio9]

[Replying to Checkpoint]

That's what I'm talking about , while in eastern religious thought the goal is oneness with God in this lifetime. (They may call God Buddha but that's a rose by another name)
Christians believe it is not possible in this lifetime .

Why can't the Christian goal be in this lifetime?

[dio9]

[Replying to post 7 by Wootah]

Still in the Christian view God appears to be something outside of ourselves, beyond touch , beyond our mind and heart. How does one go about preparing oneself to be a temple of God ?
My criticism here is Paul and Christianity doesn't say how to do it, he just says do it.