The order of governance as God gave it at creation

Man is constituted of spirit, soul, and body.

The spirit consists chiefly of the will and faith. These are entirely interdependent in their ability to rule the soul and body yet can function independently within the spirit. In other words, in order for the will to able to rule the soul or body, it must have the full support of faith, without it the will is powerless. But the will can govern faith where or what to trust. More later…

The soul consists chiefly of the mind, reason and conscience. The mind I will liken (computer language) to memory while reason to the processor and conscience to ECC (error correction control). Naturally in the mind you have programs and data; otherwise known as: knowledge, principles, purposes, values, and validity factors (every bit of data is given a value and validity factor). Reason on the other hand is logic or processing center. While we are all well aware of the activities of reason, we do not always realize that it is entirely dependent on what is fed to it. Unto reason, data is fed from both the mind as well as the body. All activity (except that of the spirit) must pass through reason. Conscience monitors whether all has been done with integrity.

The body consists of two general aspects: the semi-physical and the physical. The semi-physical I will liken (computer language) to drivers, while the physical to hardware. I do not think I need to discuss the physical, but the semi-physical is what people struggle with. These would be feeling, emotion, smell, touch, taste, sight, and hearing.

God’s order of governance is that spirit should rule the soul which is to rule the body. So how does that transpire?

Before the will is established on the throne, it must determine faith’s position. Faith is the “door” through which “all” must enter in or out. There is nothing that can enter our person without passing through “the door of faith”. All that passes through gets tagged with a “validity factor” issued by faith (this is unbreachable). It is continually monitored; and all can be re-validated in one swoop. Once the will has determined the position of faith, it can govern the mind and body only according to faith’s position. The will cannot govern the mind or body outside of faith’s position. It will be entirely impotent, no matter how much “willpower” is exerted. For the will to govern the mind or body differently it must reposition faith to suit. So wherever faith is directed, such becomes the source or otherwise authority of the spirit. Whatever is the source is the authority. This source was God in the beginning.

The interaction between the mind, reason, and body; both the mind and the body feed data to and are fed data by reason; (as in computers, where the processor reads and writes data for every process.) In Regards to the body we are dealing chiefly with the semi-physical that is: feeling, emotion, smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing. These are programmable. Thus we are able to appreciate and experience all the various aspects of life in our realm.

Impact of sin.

Through sin man’s governance was rearranged. By doubt and fear faith was broken with God. Through subtlety faith was directed to use man’s reason for the source authority. So man became subject to his own judgment. His reason being continually communicated to by the mind and body did not have the spiritual directive which it had before, so the physical became more real than the spiritual. Through the door of faith this carnal source was fed to the mind which reinforced further the carnal. Faith was weakened by doubt and became vacillating. Thus the will became subject to every whim.

Once faith was removed from God, it had only the five senses as sources. These naturally took over the place which belonged to God. Thus the spirit became subject to the flesh which it was supposed to have governed. Doubt worked havoc with feelings and emotions. The mind now began to receive ‘evil knowledge’ temporal values, breakdown in principles. Conscience bearing witness to loss of integrity of reason, further compounded the condemnation and fear. Self justification followed in effort to reestablish integrity, only to be found lacking.

Then the Lord steps in to this equation.

I'll have to look at the answer to this question later, but here it was. Was Christ tempted as we are tempted? Through the flesh? Were His temptations through the flesh as difficult as ours?

That's actually three questions, if anyone is counting. It seems to me the answers must be yes, yes and yes. Otherwise we can have no victory. We cannot have victory over any temptation which Christ Himself has not vanquished. This seems very clear to me.

Regarding Christ's governing of the flesh, that's not in dispute. Christ never gave into temptation, but He suffered being tempted, and suffered more than anyone else. This is because He took our flesh and took our sin. So He had more tendencies to evil than any of us, by far, although none of these temptations were due to His having comitted sin in any way. They were His by incarnation and imputation, but just as real to Him as they are to us.

John, the answer to the question that serves as title for this thread is, as I understand the truth - It remains to tempt us until the day Jesus returns and replaces it with holy flesh, a flesh that does not generate unholy thoughts and feelings that we must, by the grace of God, resist unto the glory of God.

It is apparent to me that you do not share the same conclusion. It seems to me that you believe sinful flesh nature ceases to exist when we are born again, ceases to produce unholy thoughts and feelings. You also believe, or so it appears to me, Jesus never posssessed the carnal mind of sinful flesh nature, that He was never tempted from within, that He never inherited our internal foes, never experienced the promptings of sin from within.

From what I can gather from the things you have posted, you believe sinful flesh nature is merely a conditional state, a byproduct, the result of the higher powers of the mind serving the lower powers of the body, that once this order of things is reversed sinful flesh nature ceases to exist. Did I get it right?

I do not believe the carnal mind of our sinful flesh nature is a lower or higher power. It is a separate and independent power. Originally, when Adam and Eve were created, our flesh nature was in harmony with God. But not so now. The lusts and affections generated by our fallen flesh nature are a distortion and perversion.

The fact the mind and voice of our fallen flesh nature survives the death and burial of our old man mind, when we are born again, is evidence it was part of the original creation. As you know, we do not receive new faculties when we are born again.

The post-conversion survival of our fallen flesh nature tells me we are not held accountable or guilty for its existence and presence. Nor are we guilty of the unholy thoughts and feelings it generates and communicates to our conscious new man mind. If we resist them in the same way Jesus did we are blameless.

John, do you agree with these observations? If not, what do you believe? What happens to our internal foes when we are born again? Does the voice of our fallen flesh nature cease to tempt us with unholy thoughts and feelings after we are born again?

MM, is "that part of us" a physical aspect of the body, or is it of the spiritual (thinking/governing)aspect?

This is a great deal of discussion on a flawed premise. We still have the same nature we were created with. Nature, by definition, does not change. There is no such thing as a sinful flesh nature; there is only human nature. Our actions are determined by the object of our allegiance. I wish theologians had never come up with this error.