From Flesh to Spirit

Bro. James Farrar

The Bible is about God's purpose to call us fallen, corruptible flesh-and-blood beings to be transformed to glorious, incorruptible spirit beings in eternal fellowship with Him.

The Christadelphian understanding of this atonement plan differs from the model as it is taught by orthodox Christianity. In their model, a pre-existent spirit being became a temporary flesh being to bear away our sins and submitted to a death that was not the cessation of conscious existence.

Beginning with Bible definitions of the terms flesh and spirit, we will examine the Bible doctrine of the transformation from flesh to spirit. This transformation depends on the pivotal role of our Saviour, the Word made flesh.

A vital consideration arising from this subject is its implication for human behavior. To what extent does God require our imperfect human effort to transform the mind of the flesh, while we are still burdened with the flesh now, to the mind of the Spirit, as a condition for acceptance with Him?

The purpose of the class is (i) to strengthen our conviction in the understanding of the atonement which we hold according to the Scriptures, (ii) to encourage us to declare it to a perishing world, and (iii) to internalize its meaning as a transforming influence in our own lives for the glory of God and His Son.

Hosea, Gomer, Ephraim and Us

Bro. Alan Ghent

It was a golden age when Hosea made his voice heard in Ephraim in the reign of Jeroboam II, but all was not well. As the seeds of Jeroboam I's apostasy continued to take root, Israel's faithlessness grew. A backdrop to this spiritual struggle was Hosea's own domestic situation. We see the prophet's grief arising from his relationship with his adulterous wife, Gomer. Hosea, having tasted first hand the pain that this infidelity can cause brings an anguished power to his prophecy. Hosea and Gomer's relationship provides a living parable of God's relationship with Ephraim. It is a story of unfaithfulness and forgiveness; of marriage breakdown and reconciliation; of judgment and punishment, but also of mercy and restoration. Though the nation at large would be lost, a remnant would be preserved and one day, together with faithful spiritual Israel, 'all Israel will be saved'. As these things were written for our instruction, the class will focus on practical applications of Hosea's message for our lives today.

The Gospels: From Oral to Written

Bro. Ken Wubbles

The class will trace the development of the first century testimony regarding Jesus from oral to written form. Issues to be considered include:

1. How was the Gospel communicated in the early church?
2. Why are there multiple Gospels?
3. In what ways are they the same, and yet different? What are the implications with regard to reliability?
4. Why and when were they put in written form?

Christ Through a Microscope and Telescope

Bro. Donnie Dice

Taking a look at Christ through a microscope at the past and telescope into the future.

The Picture of a Godly Man

Bro. Joe Fordham

The man that God created in the beginning was formed in the likeness of his being. We were made in the very image of God. Yet even in the perfect surroundings of the Garden of Eden, the intent of what was created quickly morphed into something completely different. With the change of now knowing as God did the "Knowledge of Good and Evil" the very nature of man changes, because it was knowledge mixed with the flesh that became corrupted. Man's fall from the Garden of Eden, and the banishment from , has proved a continuous quest to return to God that was only accomplished through one man, a perfect man of God in Christ himself, who subjected his will in every way to please the father. Since creation, there have only been two visions for man, to follow the vision, path and tract to the Lord, or to follow the aspirations of the world and be praised by men. The flesh and the spirit never agree, nor can they cohabitat peaceably.

This study is intended to showcase three things, one, what is the picture of a Godly man, how should he think, behave, believe and live. The second, what is it that the world or the flesh venerates in man, how does he think, behave, believe and live. Thirdly, I want to show the destinies for both, and that they are so divergent a path, that one can never be confused with the other, nor can you commingle attributes of one vision and fit it inside another.

In our present age, not only have we completely missed the mark in what God is looking for in the men in his household of faith, we have borrowed or graphed in the worldly concepts such as: humanism, capitalism, political correctness and new age thinking and put it above God's law. Not only have we placed these worldly ideologies above God's vision for man, we have negated his vision for whom men should strive aspire then relegate His vision to obscurity. By raising and mentoring young men into worldly men we can do irreparable damage to the next generation of spiritual men, by only masking them as such.

 

 

For our spiritual households, family and children to survive another generation this duality and duplicity of mixing visions of what the world demands of men, and what God demands must be separated. That is what caused the fall in the garden in the first place, the mixture of a lie with the truth. If we do that to males from their youth and paint both pictures as the men the must be, then we are asking them to master both being all you can be in the flesh and aspiring to God's vision on some level. It is an impossible task and is filled with frustration and internal and external war.

We live in the age that mirrors both the times of Noah and the times of Lot. The old world destroyed by a flood was violent and every imagination of their hearts were only evil continually. Sodom and Gomorrah proved greedy, highly immoral and perverse. Ours is the perfect amalgamation of those two worlds. The worst part for believing brothers today is that the mantra of the world is creeping in through subtlety into the household of faith, where evil is now good and good is now evil, where everyone does what is right in their own eyes, just as they did in the time of the judges and much of the time during the times of the kings. Proverbs tells us, there is a way that seems right to a man yet the end thereof is death. Isaiah takes it further in chapter 5, to where it speaks to the fact that men were living luxuriantly, pursuing strong drink, music, and entertainment and had abandoned God's word and were in fact starving for it. They were haughty, did not peruse justice, holiness or righteousness, and so Sheol opened wide its mouth for them.