Body/Soul ≠ Flesh/Spirit

The Gospel of the End of the World, and defining your own existence...

Bryan Wolfmueller

Nov 09, 2022

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1/ Your Redemption is what is coming on the Last Day (Luke 21:28)

Now when these things begin to take place,
straighten up
and raise your heads,
because your redemption is drawing near.

This is my very favorite thing Jesus says about the end of the world.

2/ Luther on Law and Gospel

These things cannot be adequately stated and inculcated. Yet there is an easy distinction between the commandment and the promise. The Word, which justifies the believer without my love and my righteousness, is one thing. It is something else when I take hold of the commandments of God, so that I do not steal, do not commit adultery, etc. (Luther on Genesis 28:12, LW V:215)

We’ll study this in the Worldwide Bible Class TODAY (10a central. Join us! www.wolfmueller.co/bible)

3/ Body/Soul ≠ Flesh/Spirit

Some definitions and theses. (I’ll have to make a video fleshing this out.)

Flesh = sinful nature.
We are born unbelievers, which means that our body AND soul are all flesh. (Our worst sins are accomplished in our souls, unbelief, etc.)
When we are born again, the spirit (or new man, new nature) works in our body AND soul. (For example, Baptism is a spiritual gift given to our bodies.)
In the resurrection we will have a perfect and purified body AND soul, but there will be no flesh, only spirit.
Gnosticism dangerously equates the body/soul distinction with the flesh/spirit distinction.
Transgenderism might be the clearest example of this, but there are others. Here the flesh/spirit battle is brought to the body/soul distinction.
Death is the unnatural separation of body and soul.
Gnosticism, insofar as it sets the soul against the body, brings a kind of internal death to the person.
That’s bad.

4/ Trained to Recognize Confession

Pr Camp, teaching Bible Study last week, said, “We need to train the laity to recognize confession when they hear it.”

He’s right. In you conversations at home and work and in your neighborhood, keep your ears open for confession, for mentions of guilt or regret or shame. You know what to bring: the comfort of Jesus’ love, his blood-bought forgiveness.

5/ On Defining One’s Own Existence

I think last Wedesday’s edition of The Briefing was important, especially in regards to the culture’s now legal definition of defining one’s own existence.

You can listen here: https://albertmohler.com/2022/11/02/briefing-11-2-22

Here is the key excerpt from the transcript:

Anyone watching the court understands why Anthony Kennedy would have been the writer of this majority opinion. Justice Kennedy offered, way back in 1992, what he saw as the argument for the individual's right to define his or her own self existence. He wrote in 1992, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Justice Kennedy would later, in 2003, write the majority opinion in the case known as Lawrence v. Texas that struck down all state so-called anti-sodomy laws. And Justice Kennedy would repeat himself. In the exact words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, he referred to this as the famed sweet mystery of life passage that, in Justice Scalia's words, "ate the rule of law." Now this is fundamentally important, because Justice Scalia says, look, if there are rights, those rights have to be grounded in reality.
They also, by the way, would have to be grounded in terms of American public life in the text of the United States Constitution. But of course, the Constitution of the United States doesn't even come close to granting or recognizing, on the part of every single individual American, a right to define existence in our own terms. And there's another reason for that. It is not only constitutionally implausible, it is, just to state the very least, in truth and in time, in space, and history, impossible. The cosmos does not come to terms with our own self-understanding. We've got to come to terms with the cosmos. But we do understand why all of a sudden we are at this intersection, because the entire ideology of the transgender movement is about the cosmos having to come to terms with me, rather than about me having to come to terms with the cosmos.

Part of the great gift of redemption is that we are also defined by God. “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto is, that we should be called the children of God.”

6/Ol’ Bri and I were answering Bible Questions on Issues yesterday.

You can listen to that here.

7/ For all the Saints

Here’s the All Saints Drive Home.

(or listen on the What-Not Podcast)

Remember to go to your pastor's Bible Class this week and, read old theology books. (If you don't have a pastor or congregation, click here. If you don't have old theology books, click here.)

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Thank you, again, for your time and attention, and for your prayers. Please keep in touch.

Lord's Blessings, Pastor Wolfmueller

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

www.wolfmueller.co