Tuesday, May 13 | Life in the Flesh

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He is Dr. Abbadan Shah, a PhD in New Testament Textual Criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's show. I just got to tell you, my friend, I'm happy to see you. It's a good day today. Thank you. Thank you. And happy to see you guys as well. Absolutely. It's gonna be a great conversation.

Oh yeah. Today's going to be a good day. Dr. Shah, I want to check in with some of our listeners, checking in with Randall J from Seattle. What do you think that J might stand for? Randall? You know, I'm going to go, I'm going to go Dr. Seuss here and be in Randall.

Randall Jandel says, Hey, Dr. Shah and team. Just wanted to check in and tell you how much I've been enjoying the recent episodes. My church has also been going through Romans as well. So it's been cool to see how everything really hits home for me, especially the part about God's judgment being foundational.

It makes me stop and think how I often overlook the seriousness of sin in my own life and how churches do the same. Keep doing what you're doing. Your teaching is helping me grow in my walk with Christ, listening all the way from sunny Seattle, Randall J. Wow. That's awesome.

We're so glad you're joining in all the way on the West coast. Yeah. Yeah.

That's right. We've, we got some metric, you know, we had a meeting with our people over at pray.com and a lot of people are over on that side of the world. A lot of West coast, a lot of Texas, mostly Texas.

The top two, I believe are Dallas and Houston. Yeah. That's amazing. Which means more than half. Yeah. I think, I think about more than half are, are, are in Texas, but big, but big, big things happening over on the West coast. God is moving. That's exciting. And they need it.

That's right. The West coast, the West coast is one of those, uh, one of those hot button areas where, you know, the gospel I think is really, is really making a difference. Your series on Romans. I mean, Randall talks about this in his write-in, but your series on Romans as we're headed into end times prophecy has been so helpful, not just an understanding end times prophecy, but an understanding the nature of God and understanding more about the Bible, more about our faith.

I mean, you're talking about foundational principles like righteousness, like sin, like God's wrath. It's so helpful and answering a lot of questions. I think that people have, but they don't quite know how to articulate. So one thing I wanted to ask, and I think we've talked about this on the show, but for anyone who's new and listening, that's the good thing about praise. You get like thousands of new listeners every day.

First time listeners. Did you choose Romans for end times prophecy because Romans sets up doctrine very well, or because the book of Romans specifically lends itself to end times prophecy apart from like those doctrinal truths? So there are two things that come from the book of Romans when you study end times. The first is the role of Israel in the end of times. Romans nine through 11, those, those three chapters are indispensable when it comes to studying end times prophecy, because here you find out here, you learn that Israel is not finished, that ethnic Jewish people or the people of Israel in the end times, somehow God's going to bring back even the lost tribes because we find them in the book of revelation, the 144,000. So here in Romans nine through 11, you learn the theology behind why Israel still matters, why the church has not replaced Israel. This is where you find out more than any other part of the Bible. Of course, old Testament talks about it. Jesus talked about it. Paul talks about it in Galatians and Peter, of course, talks about the dispersed ones, but book of Romans nine through 11 is very, very important in understanding the role of Israel in end times prophecy.

Secondly, more and more research is being done to explain how the, the theme of eschatology, end times prophecy is found just interwoven in the book of Romans. In fact, somebody did a dissertation, I would say maybe, maybe four or five years ago, maybe less where they did exactly what I've been trying to do for the past four months. And I came across that book and I think it's in the library. And I was like, there you go.

That's what I've been trying to do. Has it helped in your research with this series? It requires sitting down, just working through it. But I found that just my cursory examination of that book, I was very much in the same line, same direction. So I did not spend time reading each chapter because dissertations are not easy read. Right. Yeah.

It's not, it's not like a little bathroom book you'd put in, just kind of peruse at your leisure. Right. You have to really spend time reading and understanding the language, the references, the foot. I mean, you have to spend time working through it. So I was like, for week by week, preaching on Romans, I don't think that's going to be practical. That's true. That's a good point.

By the time I'm done reading that chapter, it's already Saturday. Yeah. I got a sermon to write. Yeah. Besides other things that I do, whether in church or community or academics, like, okay, I have it. And it's a good confirmation that someone else is exploring the very thing I was thinking about all this time. About, for example, for those of you who are still unconvinced, what I'm talking about, or kind of confused, Paul talks about the whole creation groans with labor pains, waiting for the revealing of revealing of the son of the children of God. Right.

Us. That's end times. That's a good point. That's talking about the end of times. And he says that in Romans.

Absolutely. And then there are other things he talks about in Romans chapter one and chapter two, chapter three, all these things are related to what Daniel or Matthew 24 or Revelation is all about. And so you would say he's not just mentioning the end times in passing, what he's saying to his audience in the book of Romans is dependent on their understanding of end times. Right. I think I, in, in one of the first couple of messages I talked about that, the diagram that, or there's this structure that I think Ernest Caseman suggests about, you know, like tying your shoelaces.

And I'll explain to you what that, explain to the audience what that, what that means. And as you cannot understand Pauline theology without understanding eschatology. Good point.

And Romans is eschatological through and through. Yes. Right. And you know, if you're listening to this, you may be realizing, you know, I'm only listening to the Clearview Today show, which means I'm only listening to these guys talk about Dr. Shaw's messages, but maybe I actually want to listen to the messages themselves rather than just hearing us talk about them. You can do that. You know, Dr. Shaw's messages are another show that we produce, you know, messages, either sermons by Dr. Abbadon Shaw, as always is linked in every single episode that we do.

Yeah. And depending on where you're listening, I mean, that's available on Apple podcasts. It's also available on pray.com. Make sure that you subscribe to that feed as well as the Clearview Today show.

That's right. If you don't want to give Apple any more of your hard earned money, although I think the podcasts are free if I'm not mistaken, but you can always listen on pray.com. Speaking of preaching, I do got to say, guys, it's time for one of my newly discovered favorite segments, and that is Pick It Up and Preach. Pick It Up and Preach. Dr. Shaw, you are a big fan of Pick It Up and Preach. You are a big, you're a big, what do you call it? A titan of Pick It Up and Preach. And this week, I'm pleased to say I'm not going up against Dr. Shaw.

It's Ryan on his Dr. Live. Pick the item. Ryan, do you want to explain the rules of Pick It Up and Preach?

I sure can. So Pick It Up and Preach is where you get a random item. You don't get to select the item. You get a random item provided to you, and you have a short amount of time to come up with an object lesson or an illustration based on that item that will help enhance your walk with God or your understanding of the Bible. So you have to use that item in coming up with your object lesson.

That's Pick It Up and Preach. So this is a video show. This is a video production, but if you're only listening audio, I have given Ryan a small potted plant, maybe a $3 potted plant that you can get from Walmart. It's fake.

It's not a live. And then I've given Dr. Shaw an exquisite statue of a cowboy riding a horse. Where did you get that, Dr. Shaw? Somebody gave it to me. It's been a while back.

I would say I got this somewhere about 2006 or 7. Nice. So cowboy riding a horse, little potted plant. Ryan, would you like to go first? I can.

Okay, let's hear it. Okay, so this potted plant, like we've already said, is fake, which means that it's not going to wilt. It's not going to die. It's not going to, you don't have to water it.

You don't have to provide anything for it. It's just going to constantly stay alive or in bloom. But the Bible talks about another way that we can stay in bloom. And that's found in Psalms chapter one. It says, bless is the man who's planted by streams of water, who bears fruit in and out of season. He's like a tree planted by water. He walks in the way of righteousness. So if you want to bear fruit in and out of season, and not wither as the circumstances of life come your way, make sure that you are planted by streams of righteousness.

And you do that through relationship with Jesus Christ. Wow. I got to give it to him. I got to give it to you.

Do I even need to go? Cause I think that's, that's phenomenal. That was pretty good. That was pretty good.

But Dr. Shaw, I have seen you take it home before. I really want to hear yours because I was, I saw the items and I'm excited that you got the cowboy. I really want to hear yours. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. So the cowboy life.

Okay. This is a, this is a very special life where you're out there taking care of your animals and taking care of the cows and all of that. And if you ever seen, um, uh, city slickers, what happens when that one little calf gets sucked into the river, right?

It's raining really hard. And Billy crystal has to jump in and say, this is, uh, this is, this is very, very important because a cowboy life represents a life of sacrifice. That's right. This is not just I'm out in the, out in the open and, and under the clear views, blue sky, living the rugged life. It's a life of sacrifice. That's right. And so also are a good shepherd.

He may, you know, for us Americans are good cowboy. He's also, uh, he also comes after us when we are lost. I got to give it to you, man. I got to give it to you.

My sound effects aren't working, but just imagine, there it is. Awesome. Just thinking about Jesus as our good cowboy.

Yes. I'm going to hold onto that. There you go. That's fantastic. He's our good cowboy. I love it.

Well, Dr. Shaw, fantastic. Congrats on when I would say both of you guys are winners. If I had to give it to Ryan, that was a harder one.

And he'd been far away. The cowboy is good. The cowboy is good, man. I would give it to both of you guys.

It's a fun game. Hey, listen, verse of the day is coming to us from Romans seven and chapter 18. You want to read it? I would love to verse 18. I should say chapter seven, verse 18 of Romans says, for I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells. Amen.

For the will is present with me, but how to perform what is good. I do not find kind of a bleak reality that Paul is laying out here for us. And I think it's, it's one of the things that we understand as Christians, but maybe sometimes we take too far because Dr. Shaw, if anything is of the flesh, it's automatically bad, right? Or at least that's what a lot of Christians think.

Right. But that word flesh, sarx in Greek has several different meanings. It's a complex word. It is found just to give you some, some information.

Hopefully they'll help you understand this. That word sarx is found about 147 times in the new Testament. It's also used by Paul 91 times, 26 of them just in the book of Romans.

Wow. So he really talks about the flesh. He talks about flesh a lot to truly understand the meaning of flesh or sarx. We have to go to the Hebrew counterpart, but for time's sake, we're not going to do that because if we begin to look at everywhere, I think the word is baser.

If we look at every one of them, it'll, it'll be a while. So I want to stick to just Paul's letter to the Romans. I don't even want to go to all Paul's letters or every 147 of them in the new Testament, just Romans. And if you just examine Romans, you find four different uses of that word flesh or sarx.

The first use is simply human existence. Just being human. Right. I am flesh and blood.

So are you. That's all it means. One example of that use is found in Romans chapter one verses one through four. This is Paul's opener to this letter.

Listen to what he says. He says, Paul, a bond servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy scriptures. Now here's where the word sarx is going to appear for the very first time in the book of Romans concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh. So nothing, nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

There's nothing negative in that use of sarx. It just means like according to how humans are born. Right. Human nature, human nature. He is flesh and blood. He is flesh and blood.

There's nothing, nothing evil about that. So, and to know that this is because there has been a controversy here for those of you who are interested in going deeper over the years, over the centuries, you can even say there has been a controversy, a question over whether in Romans chapter one, three, and four, is Paul talking about two natures or is he talking about two stages concerning his son, Jesus Christ, who was bored of the seed of David and declared to be the son of God with power. So I guess the controversy is, is he separating the two? Well, because later on in Romans chapter seven and eight, we're dealing with the whole issue of the old nature versus a new nature. Are we talking about a believer going through this agony, this struggle within himself, herself over sin, or is it a lost person who is struggling under the bondage and the weight of sin?

Or is it just a law crying out? There has been a lot of debates over this. Who is speaking in Romans chapter seven, when it says right here in Romans chapter seven and verse 18, the verse Johnny just read, for I know that in me, for I know that in me. Who, who is he referring to?

Who is the I? Because he just went from third person to first person. Paul you're talking about? Paul, yeah. In the book of Romans for the first five, six chapters, he's talking in the third person.

Okay. He's talking about, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness for what may be known of God is man. I mean, so it's all third person.

Right, right. Other than the first couple of verses where he introduces himself, but then starting in verse chapter seven, he switches to first person. Is there any reason to assume that he's not just switching topics and now talking about himself? Well, that's where the debate comes in. Gotcha. So one view is that this is autobiographical.

Right. Autobiographical means Paul is simply describing his internal struggle. He's talking about himself. Second perspective is that Paul is sort of rhetorically talking about every person or every man. So I guess the, like, my question is the first one seems like the obvious assumption. And the second one, is there any evidence that he does that in other letters? We don't find it quite to this extent anywhere else.

Where do you land? Do you think? So, so let me give you a couple more of that, that are also options or players contenders, I should say, in, in who is Paul referring to when he takes on this first person language. One is of course, autobiographical means he is, Paul is just venting, talking about himself. Some people believe that he is rhetorically talking about every person who struggles with sin.

Now we're not even talking about whether this person is pre-Christian or Christian. Right. I hope you understand.

There are several things happening here side by side. Just a person. Right. What we're saying here right now are two different things.

One is, who is this person and which part of their Christian life journey are we talking about? Right. Those are two different issues. So that view that says that Paul is speaking for all people would just be a hypothetical voice.

He's just kind of speaking on our behalf. Right. Okay. Yeah. I mean, and then the second question comes up, is that a hypothetical sinner or is it a hypothetical Christian? Right.

Who is struggling with sin. Right. Got it.

So two different, two different, you know, issues that we have to sort of unravel. Gotcha. Okay. And then the third option that is usually brought in here is this could be Adam.

Paul is speaking or writing. As if it's Adam crying out. Gotcha. Okay. From Adam's POV. Right.

Gotcha. Okay. Adam is struggling with sin.

Adam is now faced with a monster, a spirit, a power called sin. Okay. And then he has to deal with the law coming in.

The law is not there, but now later on the law comes in. So we don't know for sure. Okay.

That's another option. And there are scholars and there have been people throughout church history who have taken one of the other view, either autobiographical. This is just Paul being Paul or it's every person. Paul is rhetorically putting himself as the voice of every person, or it could be Adam, but it's not over.

There's another view that says it could be Israel. Okay. So same, same thing as the third one, but with Israel instead of Adam. Right. Same thing as the second, third, fourth one, because they're all in a sense rhetorical.

Okay. Paul is rhetorically talking about these things as if he is talking. And the fourth one, of course, is Israel. But this could be very well Israel's struggle because they're talking about the law coming in. It means who got the law? Israel got the law, right? In the wilderness, Moses brought them the law. He brought them the 10 commandments, sort of this embryonic law of God, which had all the principles. And later on, it is explained in its fullness with ceremonial and civil and sacrificial things as well. But at its core, in the embryonic form, it is the 10 commandments. And I would assume at some point down the road, logically, theologically speaking, it does matter which one of these views you ascribe to. Oh, absolutely. It's going to affect your doctrine.

Yeah. You have to first decide who is the voice, Paul or Paul speaking for every man or Paul speaking for Adam or Paul speaking for Israel. You have to decide. And then the next question that you have to decide is, is this pre-conversion or post-conversion? If it's a post-conversion, then you have to decide, is it post-conversion as an immature Christian or post-conversion as an immature Christian or post-conversion as in a Christian who is still sort of devoted to the law. So if Paul is talking on behalf of a Christian who is struggling with sin, how long have they been a Christian? How mature are they? Right.

Or are they still immature, but not necessarily under the burden of the law, or are they immature because of the law? Because whether that person has walked with God for a month or walked with God for a decade is going to change. Absolutely. That's going to change your perception of it.

So these are some of the issues that some people say is like, ah, I don't care about that. I'm just going to take whatever I want to and just run with it. Or you can, but you may be wrong. And imagine applying the wrong instrument or a tool for a job.

Imagine using the wrong prescription for your sickness. That's true. One of the things that we talk about a lot on this show and that I've learned just through doing this show is that doctrine matters a lot more than you think it does. A lot of people, even a lot of Christians consider this just semantic time-wasting. This is just arguing over semantics. But eventually down the road, that's going to take you to a place where you're like, wait, wait, wait.

I don't believe that. And it's like, you have to believe that because of all these presuppositions that you've already agreed to. Right. Yeah. Wrong doctrine isn't just wrong in the moment.

It's costly long-term. Yeah. And I'm speaking kind of facetiously. Of course, you don't have to believe that down the road, but that's where this line of thought will take you. So I can see on the surface how a Christian could be like, well, I don't really care who Paul's talking to. But later on, and maybe it's the case that Christians are like, well, I don't plan on ever digging that deep. Well, that's a separate issue.

But if you do plan on following that logic, eventually it will catch up. And that's why I'm trying to think through like, who could he be talking to? Because to me, it's like, I would assume, I would just assume, oh, he's talking about himself.

Oh, wretched man that I am, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. Why would he be talking on, or is there any evidence that he is talking rhetorically on someone's behalf? Right.

Yes. Because, and I believe it's Paul talking about himself. Gotcha. Gotcha. But I don't want to quickly say that, but that's what I believe in as a mature Christian and dah, dah, dah, because then we don't really wrestle with the text.

We're just like, give me the answer so I can fill in the blanks and I can move on. But then you're not studying the Bible. And then, then you have other beliefs and other ideas that are completely contrary to what you believe or claim. And so now you have this jumbled up mishmash of Christianity, where you are like, I'm going to take a little bit of this and take a little bit of that.

It's contradictory. Oh, I don't care as long as it works. Yeah. But then you plant seeds of doubt in your own mind because yeah, because it doesn't work.

So you, you are sort of this, you have this agnostic mindset or attitude because it doesn't work. It's like, I'm trying to fix a plumbing issue, but I'm using, I don't know what I can, I'm using a hammer when I, when I should be using a pair of pliers. Right. And yeah, it sort of works, but how much hammering those pipes together are going to, are going to close them enough to no longer have a leak. Right. Eventually you, you might could fix it with a hammer, but it will break.

Yeah. Once that water starts gushing through that, those two joints in time, that water is going to come out and water damage. We had to deal with that recently with our water tank. Water damage is very costly.

Imagine, imagine spiritual water damage. Wow. Is far costlier. That's right. That's right. So, but, but we can sort of left the whole Sarx thing aside.

So I'm going to give this, these options here, and then I hope we can cover this over the next couple of weeks, couple of days. So Sarx flesh can mean four things. When you say the book of Romans, number one is human existence. So you find here concerning his son, going back to Romans chapter one, verse three, concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh, that's simple human existence, human nature. And you know that because in the very next verse it says, and declare to be the son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead here, we're talking about the divine nature. So you have the human and the divine coming side by side in Jesus, which in some ways Paul is setting in putting in place.

So that later when we talk about our human nature, old nature and the new nature, it will make sense. But there's also just talking about positive human nature in second Corinthians 12, if I could momentarily step away from Romans in second Corinthians 12, verse seven, we come across a very familiar verse, which is, and lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh. There's nothing negative in the flesh.

It's just your human nature, your human being. There was a thorn put in Paul. So that's one meaning of flesh. Second meaning, it's not a competing meaning, it's a second different meaning. Just unlike the whole autobiographical or every man or Adam or Israel, this is not or, this is simply, these are also. So also there's a limited human existence. In Romans 3 20, it says, therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.

Means you are not capable of justifying yourself by doing the things of the law. Yeah, that makes sense. Like the first one where it's human existence is like, hey, you're human.

This one is you are only human. Yeah. That's a good way to say that.

I like that. Only human. It's not like you're a sinful human, just only human. Right. You're not divine.

Yeah, you have limitations. Then we come across the third one, which we are more familiar with when we think about the word flesh, or we've heard preachings on it, which is that it is a negative human existence. One example is Romans 7 5. For when we were in the flesh, in the sarx, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at work and our members to bear fruit to death.

Now, that's pretty obvious. This is not just you being a human or you being a finite human. Here, flesh implies sinful passions. It's a tendency to sin because of your humanity. Yeah, this is what we often think about when we refer to the flesh in regards to scripture, how it talks about flesh.

That's right. Now, just so I can shed light on this, I will momentarily again step away from the book of Romans and go to 1 Corinthians 3 3 where it says, for you are still carnal. The word actually is fleshly. For you are still fleshly for where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you. Are you not same word fleshly? Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, other English translations do use the word flesh other than NKJV.

Okay. So that's the third meaning. And the fourth one, which hopefully we can unpack later on is that flesh also is a cosmic power. It's a good point because just yesterday we talked about sin being a cosmic power. Right. The flesh also is another cosmic power. Along with death.

Along with death. And I want to unpack these. Unfortunately, we are out of time, but I think this is really, really good. I'm really interested. So a couple of conversational avenues that we can explore in the upcoming days. I really want to also unpack what we were talking about, about who is exactly is Paul talking to. We're going to talk about these different powers, these different meanings of the flesh, especially that fourth one, flesh is a cosmic power. And then the counter, you know, the Holy Spirit, because I think a lot of that, and a lot of what you preached on this message, Dr. Shaw, has to revolve around the Holy Spirit's work in our lives.

That's right. What do we do to fight? How does that, how does that play out in our lives? Amen. Guys, join us tomorrow. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today show. Make sure if you haven't done so already to follow us on iTunes, so you can share that Spotify, you can share that podcast with your friends.

That's right. And I'll make thank you to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And you can always support us financially at ClearviewTodayShow.com. John, why do you want to plug us?

We closed today. Very quickly want to plug Dr. Shaw's new series, Discerning Doctrine. That is exclusive, but it is live on Pray.com.

Make sure you download the app right now. You can also give to the ministry. Thank you to everyone who is giving. We're seeing more and more and more members of Pray.com giving monthly to the ministries here at Clearview. I can't tell you how much that means to me, to Ryan, to Dr. Shaw, all of us here at Clearview.

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