JESUS ACCORDING TO THE FLESH- ROM.1:3,4…

In Rom.1:3-5 we read that according to the flesh Jesus was of the seed of David. But, that it was only the Son of God according to the Spirit and the power of the resurrection. We also see in Heb.2:14-16 that according to the flesh he took on him the seed of Abraham. And that He had the same flesh all men have. And in Heb.4:15 we are told that even though His was the same flesh that all men have, and He was tempted in every way just as all men are, He was yet without sin. This is what the apostle John referred to in 2John1:7-11 as "The doctrine of Christ". A doctrine that John said is so vital to our salvation that if we deny it we have not God.

The reason John determined that this doctrine is so vital to our salvation is that there were those in John's day, and even here today, that were and are still trying to pollute the gospel with the belief that the reason Jesus had to come is that it is because the flesh is evil that men are separated from God. And that He can't even look at us. And like the Gnostic Augustine whose doctrines the apostate church today has taken as her own, those during John's day were also persuaded by Gnostic heresies to reject the clear teaching in scripture. That men are not sinners by nature, but by choice.

By doing so they denied free will and the part it plays in our salvation. Making salvation a monergism that makes man's experience with God robotic, instead of dynamic and personal. When the Bible says it is synergistic making for the kind of loving personal relationship the Bible says we must have with God for men to have eternal life.

This is why so many miss this and instead believe and teach that Jesus' flesh was the same as Adam's before Adam ate the fruit. Believing that Adam's flesh changed or was corrupted after he sinned to fit this with their Gnostic thinking. Instead of simply believing what the Bible plainly says. Saying that Jesus' flesh could not have been the same as all men's flesh. Doing so to align the Biblical narrative with the Gnostic heresies of their teachers.

This is why so many believe and teach that all men have inherited this corrupted or sin nature from Adam. A nature that governs men's choices so completely that it has become their belief that it is impossible for man not to sin? But, how can they possibly believe this when these scriptures plainly say that Jesus' flesh was indeed the same as every man's, and yet without sin?

Because they do not believe the Bible, that's why. They give deference to what their Gnostic teachers have told them instead of what the Bible plainly says. They expend great amounts of energy and verbiage in an attempt to force their false doctrines into the scriptures in rejection of the plain teaching that is there for all who will humble themselves before God to see.

In doing so they make David's lament in Ps.51 over his sin with Bathsheba where he was exploding with grief over what he had done saying, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me", into a doctrinal treatise on a condition they say all mankind have inherited from Adam. All from this one verse taken completely out of context to make it fit with their Gnostic beliefs.

And twisting every doctrine that Paul taught until it is unrecognizable. Saying that Paul admitted he sinned by violating the law when he was persecuting the church to prove he too had a sin nature. When Paul plainly says to us in Phil.3:6 that "according to the righteousness that comes through the law I was blameless". Something God also said was true of Zachariah and Elizabeth in Luke1:5,6.

Then trying to pervert Paul's statement in 1Tim.1:15 where he says that among all sinners "I am chief". But, reading the context Paul clearly explained his statement showing that it had nothing to do with law breaking that made him chief among sinners at all. But, had only to do with the fact that he did not know Jesus as Messiah. He wrote, "Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting."

A statement which agrees with Jesus' teaching to the disciples in John16 where He told them what the Holy Spirit would do when He came to them and would be in them. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would reprove the world of "sin, righteousness, and judgment." Defining the sin of the world, which is why Paul understood it as such, as "they believe not on me."

So we see that Paul proclaimed himself chief among sinners not because he violated the law. To the contrary, Paul claims for himself the righteousness that comes through blamelessly keeping it as we have seen in Phil.3:6. Even though he forsook all of it counting it as "dung" and "loss" in exchange for knowing Jesus.

But, Paul said he was chief among sinners because he was the first, not because he was the worst, to receive the mercy of God that shows forth God's longsuffering for a pattern to them which should afterward believe on Jesus to life everlasting.

Does this mean that Jesus' flesh was not the same as Adam's when he was made? Of course not. Paul expertly details in 1Cor.15:45-49 the fact that there was nothing especially different about Adam's flesh when he was made than ours is now that kept Jesus' flesh from being the same as all men including Adam when he was made. Because Adam was natural, only flesh, when he was made. He was not spiritual.

And while the Bible says Jesus was not only natural flesh as John says in John1:1,14 just like Adam was when he was made. Paul also clearly states that unlike Adam when he was made Jesus was also spiritual. And John's statement that Jesus was God in the flesh also clearly illustrates that.

So the Bible makes it abundantly clear that Jesus' flesh was indeed the same flesh all men have since Adam was made. And that the flesh has remained the same as it has always been since God first made Adam. And that it is vitally important that we acknowledge that fact. Because if we do not then we deny the doctrine of Christ and have not God as John says in 2John1:7-11.

The flesh is not now nor has it ever been evil as the gnostics believe it is, who John said are of the spirit of antichrist, and who now have a strangle hold on so many through the false doctrine of original sin and sin nature. These deny that they know the Christ of the Bible just as certainly as Peter did when he denied knowing Jesus every time they acknowledge their belief in the doctrine of original sin and sin nature.