You are missing the point Bruce, or looking right past it. You cannot be one with Christ as you are saying and continue in any form of sexual sin. You cannot be one with Christ and drink/eat to excess to cope with the world, you cannot be one with Christ and drug yourself into bliss, you cannot be one with Christ and continue to gossip spread strife and discord and continue manifesting works of the flesh.
Grace does not give one a pass to continue sinning and an excuse for not bearing fruit. Grace should empower you to stop these things and renew your mind to the word. This foolishness that fruit bearing is not really what the Bible says it is, is an excuse for people too lazy to do the things required to be one with Christ.
Grace does not give one a pass to continue sinning and an excuse for not bearing fruit. Grace should empower you to stop these things and renew your mind to the word. This foolishness that fruit bearing is not really what the Bible says it is, is an excuse for people too lazy to do the things required to be one with Christ.
Can a Christian act fleshly and still be in Christ? of course - Paul said it himself. The one who is in jealousy and causes strife and divisions amongst each other are in the same lists in the works of the flesh as immorality.
Being one with Christ is God's doing - not ours. That is a distortion of the gospel.
This is NOT condoning such behavior as only the proper preaching of Christ 's work on the cross and resurrection will supply the nutrients for babes in Christ to grow up in Him.
The true grace of God teaches how to live godly in this present world - not a behavior modification program which nullifies the very grace needed for the Christian to walk out who they truly are in the new creation - created in righteousness and holiness. Eph. 4:24
I believe that the Holy Spirit knew what He was doing when He had Paul write 1 Corinthians.
Some of them were going to temple prostitutes for sex, they were taking each other to court, they were in divisions and strife, they were not treating the poor amongst them right...etc.
Paul was saying that those in Corinth were acting like mere men and men of flesh - in other words not being spiritually minded.
1 Corinthians 3:1-4 (NASB)
[SUP]1 [/SUP] And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.
[SUP]2 [/SUP] I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,
[SUP]3 [/SUP] for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?
[SUP]4 [/SUP] For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos,"are you not mere men?
I noticed that in verse 1 Paul says that they are "babes in Christ".
- not that the Corinthians are going to hell because you are sinning. Or that because they were sinning - that they are not born of God.
Some people's religion has our loving Father sending "babes in Christ " to hell because they are "fleshly" ( verse 3 above ). What a horrid false doctrine from the very pit of hell.