Dear Mike,

Praise God and thank you for your informative answer. Now I’m clear in my mind about slain in the spirit. As of now, I’m reading your paper in your site. Actually I’ve finished Strong Delusion and starting the one about Moses’ Law.

By the way, I have another question to clear – Do you believe that man has “Latent Soul Power” which God has given since the beginning. I have read one book of Mr. Watchman Nee entitled “The Latent Power of the Soul.” Please advise and explain.

God Bless you and your work with Christ.

M____

Hi again M____,

I have not read Watchman Nee’s Book, so I can’t comment on its contents. I can tell you that the “flesh wars against the spirit.” Contrary to what Babylon teaches, the ‘soul’, while being more than a mere body, is not a spirit and is not immortal. The ‘soul’ is a body with life in it. But “the soul that sinneth shall die.”

Eze 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Eze 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

One of the most pervasive and effective lies ever told was the very first lie that was told:

Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Implicit in this lie is the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It is a lie. The truth is that ‘in the day that you eat thereof dying [ a process already in motion from the time Adam took his first breath in his corruptible flesh] you shall surely die.’

Gen 2:17 and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it– dying thou dost die.’ (Young’s Literal Translation).

We do not die because Adam sinned, we die “for that all have sinned.” Adam was simply the channel through which this “body of death” was begun. But this dying process did not begin when Adam ate of the fruit, it began when Adam was made naked flesh. Flesh and blood has never been capable of entering the kingdom of God. Not even before Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here is all that eating of that tree accomplished:

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Adam had never had immortality. Otherwise God would not have said ‘lest he take also of the tree of life.’ Anything appealing about this tree in the already carnal eyes of Adam and Eve is conspicuously absent. But to this day, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil still appeals to the carnal mind. A friend once told me “God uses the Law to prove to man that he is a sinner and man uses the Law to try to prove to God that he can be righteous.” What need was there for either tree, if Adam had immorality inherent in his creation? The only way to life is to eat of the Tree of Life. That tree symbolizes Christ. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes ‘the law.’ The truth of the scriptures is that God had determined before He ever formed Adam in his nakedness, of corruptible dust, that Adam would eat first of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is to say that he would first be brought under the law and that the law would bring him to Christ. Only then, after first being formed of naked dust after first eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, only then would man be allowed to be drawn (drug) to Christ. Only then, after passing through the fiery sword of God’s word which “keeps the way of the Tree of Life,” after he has been drug to Christ, after Adam has died to the flesh, after Christ has lived His life in Adam; only then would he inherit the promise’

Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for [ because] that all have sinned: [ not because Adam sinned].

And here is the scriptural reason for why Adam sinned. It is also the answer as to what the “latent power” of the physical soul is:

Rom 8:20 For the creature was made [ right from the Creator’s hand] subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him [ God ] who hath subjected the same in hope,

That is “the latent power” of this weak, corruptible, unconverted soul. Here is the final word on this subject:

Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is [ by nature] enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh [ Adam was “in the flesh] cannot please God.

I hope this helps you to see the depths of the Adversary’s very first lie. The Adversary wants and has the whole world believing that we are a spirit having a physical experience. The Truth of God’s Word is that we are a physical soul being conformed to the spiritual image of the son of God.

This is the Truth about man until the resurrection:

Gen 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Both the Hebrew and the Greek verbs are in the aorist, or indefinite tense. That is to say that God is MAK ING man in His image. It is an ongoing process in His elect that continues until death. And it will eventually be accomplished in all men. Without a resurrection from the dead “those who are asleep in Christ are perished”

1Co 15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 1Co 15:18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

There again is “the latent power of the soul.”

Mike