Greetings!
When God created humans, He created them with a soul. The soul, in
my view, is the human mind, will, and emotions. In the beginning, the human soul was innocent. neither good nor bad. Adam and Eve had a sinless version of the soul before the Fall. Jesus, the last Adam, when He “became flesh,” had a sinless version of the soul.
“The flesh,” in general,
refers to the operation of the human personality through the human body. Our flesh is sinful and unable to submit to God’s law. We have a corrupted, polluted soul, carrying the sin gene.
“The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Romans 8:8).
When the first Adam sinned
, I believe he allowed the functions of his soul (thinking, willing, and desiring) to take supremacy over the functions of his spirit (to worship and obey God; to allow God to be his supreme source). Not only did sin put mankind in conflict with God, but it also put mankind in conflict with himself. Now his spirit, soul, and body were out of sync. Rather than working in tandem, as one integrated whole — in the image of Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit — body, soul, and spirit began to operate in opposition to each other. Paul describes the sin condition in Romans 7.
“I do not understand what I do
. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do,I agree that the law is good. . . .
“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. . . .
“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a
prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members”
(Romans 7:15–16, 18–19, 21–23)
Paul concludes this passage with these words
: “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). He has just described what it is like to live in a death- container. He has just described the state of living death from which Jesus, the life, will rescue us. Adam corrupted the soul and put it in bondage to sin and death. Since the fall, every descendant of Adam has been born with a corrupted soul. Each of us is born with a sin gene in our spiritual DNA, which makes it certain that each of us will sin.
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned . . . the many died by the trespass of the one man . . . as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners” (Romans 5:12, 15, 19).
Just as Adam corrupted the soul
and put it in bondage to sin and death, Jesus perfected the soul and freed it from sin and death.
“Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24–25).
“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).
Jesus Perfected the Soul
Jesus had flesh (a physical body and a human personality), but His flesh
was sinless. It was not corrupted or polluted. Through the process of His
earthly life, Jesus was moving toward the moment when He would be “the
source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:9).
Jesus progressively matured,
just as all humans do. He experienced all the developmental stages. “And the child grew and became strong; he was
filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40). The Greek word translated “grew” indicates a progressive growth. It is the same
word used to describe the growth of plants. It is in the imperfect tense, which indicates continuous action in the past. The phrase “was filled” allows for continuous or repeated action. Jesus went through a process of maturing. He grew, stage by stage, becoming progressively stronger. He was continuously being filled with wisdom.
At each stage, He matured in His obedience. “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:8–9).
Each new step of maturity brought
with it a new level of obedience. He continued to learn by experience how to obey until He was ready to face the ultimate obedience. He became “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8 NASB).
His hand-to-hand combat against sin intensified at each stage until its climax at the cross. At each step of the way, He was under the mastery of His spirit — the opposite of Adam’s action. Remember that He was overcoming sin on our behalf. Why? He was creating in His life the antibodies against sin so that He could transfuse us with His overcoming life.
Looking again at the earthly picture
— the creation of antibodies in the blood — we see the spiritual truth. Recently I watched a program that detailed how scientists in South America develop the antidotes to counteract the venom of the many deadly, poisonous snakes that live in their regions. To create the antidote, they first milk the venom from the snake. Then they inject a diluted form of that venom into a horse. Each day they inject an increased concentration of the venom until they are injecting the horse with undiluted venom. The horse’s bloodstream is progressively developing antibodies against the venom. Once the horse’s bloodstream has created immunity to the full-strength dose of venom, they draw that blood and use the horse’s antibodies to create the antidote.
Do you see what the horse was doing?
It was becoming the source of salvation for anyone who would be injected with its antibodies.
Dr. Paul Brand tells this story in his book In
His Image
.
Jennifer Kennedy Dean
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Jennifer Kennedy Dean 2019
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