Main teaching topic: “Remembrance” in Scripture
Michael picks up a theme from his last teaching, distinguishing how remembrance functions across biblical eras:
- Old Testament: God gave physical, visual signs (Mount Sinai’s thunder and fire, tassels, circumcision, Sabbath, feasts, sacrifices) so Israel could see, remember, and obey the covenant. He traces this through historical Psalms (105, 106, 107, 111).
- Time of Christ: Christ was “the light of the world,” and people who saw His signs and miracles were called to think more deeply and recognize Him as Messiah — though many didn’t, at least not at first.
- New Testament epistles (main new insight): Beyond simply “remembering Jesus Christ,” Paul repeatedly points to himself and other apostles as living examples (“be imitators of me,” “remember my ways in Christ”). Since most Gentile believers never saw Christ in person, they needed to see Christlike character embodied in Paul and other post-Pentecost believers who had also inherited Adam’s spirit-less nature yet lived transformed lives through the gift of holy spirit—something Christ himself could not personally model.
He supports this with passages from Philippians, 1 Corinthians 4, Ephesians 5, Romans 12, and 2 Timothy 3, emphasizing that Paul’s authority came from the congruence between his teaching and his conduct (“truthing it”). He connects this to the idea that genuine godly living invites persecution, closing with a preview of 2 Corinthians 6:1–10 for the next session, which will explore how Paul endured suffering without self-pity or victimhood.
06 NT remembrance
I understand your logic about Christ’s nature but how could he be tempted in all things such as we are? Doesn’t that imply a choice between 2 natures?
[Site administrator posting for Michael.]
Great question, and here is my take on this, and I know all will not agree, but here we go.
The emphasis on this is the free-will aspect. In the spirit world, Lucifer was a created being and perfect. Ezekiel 28:12-19. God created him, and he was blameless UNTIL he, by free-will, despite all he had and was given by God, decided to sin and disobey. The emphasis is on free will choice, despite all the advantages he had. There was nothing in him to prompt the decision to disobey other than free will and the opportunity. He thought, he decided, he went his own way, not God’s.
OK, that is the spirit realm, next Adam and Eve. Adam was perfect, nothing in him to cause him to sin other than free-will and a choice. Adam did not have two natures, he had freedom of will. Despite all the advantages of being a created son of God, he still by free will chose to disobey. Christ, as the Last Adam, had to have the same advantage to be like Adam. Christ also was perfect, yet confronted with the same choices when tempted by evil. But, unlike the first Adam, he, by freedom of will, chose to obey.
Thus, from my perspective, since this is true both in the spirit realm and with humans, the emphasis is on free will. Being born-again is so huge since now with Christ in us, we also have the same advantage as Christ, as Adam, and can choose to obey, and that would require ‘reckon the old nature dead’ per Romans 6.
Lucifer had all the advantages of being a perfect created being, Adam had all the advantages, Christ had all the advantages of being the Son of God (Philippians 2), so the emphasis is on freedom of will.
None of those three cited above had two natures to choose from, but all had freedom of will. Two chose disobedience, one chose obedience. Now we have Christ in us, and all the advantages that accompany that. We get to choose to walk by the spirit, the new nature, the Christ in us, and obey.
Big topic, open for further discussion! Thanks for posting.