“a great gulf fixed”(Luke 16:26, HNV)
With the conclusion of this subtheme in the previous teaching we wanted to look at a single Scripture and come to grips with whether it says the opposite of what we’ve been arguing thus far. The Scripture in question was Rom. 8:11: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” It however became a wider-encompassing discussion than initially anticipated, and we had to end the teaching with a cliff-hanger.
It is absolutely important that you quickly read through the previous teaching again before starting on this one, just to refresh your memory. For the sake of readers unable to do this, a very brief summary:
We wanted to make sure that what Scripture notes about whether it is at all on God’s agenda that there will dawn an era on earth where man no longer is subjected to mortality, and thus exist in a state of deathlessness. We concluded that a living, carnal human body is not a spiritual body, and has no way of becoming it. We examined the greater context of Rom. 8, and found that verse 11 can mean something completely different if taken out of context, and that the word choices in certain translations is part of what causes this confusion.
In this verse Paul’s focus is still only on those who walk according to the Spirit (thus, those in whom the Spirit of God lives). Through this Spirit we will be “delivered from that dead life” (MSG).
But we need to understand the mystery of how 1 Cor. 15:53 is practically possible for each of us stuck in the prison of human mortality: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” In this degenerative state we cannot be clothed with immortality, for it would eternally perpetuate the brokenness of man in the garden of Eden.
To properly understand this mystery, and how corruption must be clothed with incorruption, while WE ARE STILL IN THIS MORTAL BODY, and how mortality must be clothed with immortality, we need to forego the foundations and laws of natural life. In the biological sciences there is a law termed the law of biogenesis. This law demonstrates that all recorded life was generated through something else that was first alive. This mysterious law thus determines all gates of the living world. Based on this law death has no way of producing life or resurrection.
The teaching was concluded with a reference to what is referred to, in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, as “a great gulf fixed” (HNV).
- Selah: What could this gulf be?
- Read: 22-24
- Memorise: 22:26
