Jesus’ Mortal Body
By Arthur J Licursi
Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
In the course of my writing a recent study called “Understanding The Four Biblical Laws & The Three Biblical Lives Operating In The Life Of Every Christian - A Study”, sent out in early January, 2004, I only briefly touched upon a critical understanding. I mentioned that Jesus had a body of sin, like we, with Sin as a nature in it, … yet Jesus did not actually ever sin. In this way it can be said that He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). This certainly makes Jesus of Nazareth like us in this aspect of Sin indwelling the flesh; since we know we too live in bodies of sin; thereby, mortal bodies of flesh (1Cor 15:56).
Apparently the thought that Jesus had a “body of sin” is a problem for some readers. I therefore felt that I needed to make a try at a greater explanation. In this paper I will begin by including a 3-page section taken from “Understanding The Four Biblical Laws & The Three Biblical Lives Operating In The Life Of Every Christian - A Study” as being introductory to the subject. I then also incorporate and follow with an expanded explanation of this important truth in answer some of the criticisms.
I realize that my calling is not to convince anyone of anything, but simply to be a bearer of what I see as truth, as has been revealed to me. I also realize that it is the Father who controls revelation, not I. I pray that He might offer revelation in the knowledge of Him, to each reader in the course of his or her study.
I certainly welcome such constructive comments, as steel sharpens steel. I find that if I’m wrong, then I gain to know that; and if I’m correct, then it has forced me to seek the Lord to find a greater depth of understanding the truth that I endeavor to present. I only ask that, as sincere seekers, we each open our hearts to receive what the Sprit has for us.
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As introduction the following 3 pages are taken from: “Understanding The Four Biblical Laws & The Three Biblical Lives Operating In The Life Of Every Christian - A Study - by Arthur J Licursi
Who Died With Christ On The Cross?
In Rom 6:6a the Apostle Paul confirms that it is our old man, our Adamic man, who “is crucified” with Christ. It was not Satan that was crucified with Christ, and nor sin as some other entity either that was crucified. Note that our Old Man “is” crucified, not “was” or “will be”, but “is crucified”. We do not have to make our Old Man dead; it was done already in Christ’s dying as us, and that death as us continues to be in effect. We, as our old independent self, were baptized (whelmed or immersed) into the death of Christ (not in water), together with Him, Romans 6:3.
Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (Gk. kartargeo, meaning, “made of no effect”), that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Romans 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
There is a major mistransliteration of Roman’s 6:6 that appears in the KJV, which leads people to a critical misunderstanding. Read closely here; the word “destroyed”, in Roman’s 6:6, leads some to say, “See, our body of sin was destroyed”. We know from many, many scriptures that Satan is not yet destroyed and will not be until he is cast into the lake of fire of Revelation. We know our body is not destroyed if we are yet walking around. So, neither is it we who were destroyed physically. We are still here physically with Christ’s life in us. The key is seeing the correct transliteration of the Greek word “kartargeo”, which the KJV translated “destroyed”. Note the very first words italicized definition for the Greek word for “destroyed” used in Rom 6:6, as seen below, taken from the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.
“Destroyed” - The Greek word in Rom. 6:6 is “katargeo”, Greek 2673, Strong’s, kat-arg-eh'-o; from Greek 2596 (kata) and Greek 691 (argeo); to be (render) entirely idle (useless), literal or figurative :- abolish, cease, cumber, deliver, destroy, do away, become (make) of no (none, without) effect, fail, loose, bring (come) to nought, put away (down), vanish away, make void. (Bold added by writer)
Our “old man” of Roman’s 6:6 is “crucified with him. We see here that our death as the “old man” is “by the body of Christ”(Rom 7:4); we were in Christ on the cross. His death became our death in reality, as soon as we received Christ and were baptized by the Holy Sprit into His one body.
In Romans 6:6 that the “body of sin” is not destroyed but more correctly transliterated, ”made of no effect”. Here we see that the correct definition is not “destroy” as in abolish, but rather to “(render) entirely idle (useless)”. This is the same Greek word “kartargeo”, is correctly translated in Gal. 5:4, “made of none effect”. Several Bible translations offer side margin notes here saying, “annulled”, “unemployed”, “made of none effect” and such. Yes, it refers to Satan’s sin nature being “made of none effect” because, we, as our old man, are dead! Satan cannot raise a dead person to sin.
It is plain to see that it is the dead body of Jesus Christ as our old man’s death, effectually brings an end to the power of (not destruction of) our body of sin and its tyrannical rulership over us as the “Old Man”. Thus, it is the fact of our Old Man being dead, that has made the “body of sin” powerless over us. Sin is then “unemployed”, which is the word used in some translations that transliterate the word used for “destroy” in the KJV. The critical issue is to see how our body of sin was affected by our co-death with our Lord - it was “made of no effect”.
Notice in Rom 6:6, above, the word “that”, which follows the words “crucified with him”. “…our old man is crucified with him, that”, that what? For what reason was our “old man crucified with Him”? The word “that” is the announcing of the purpose of our being crucified with him - “that the body of sin might be made of no effect”. Jesus shed His blood for the remission of our sins (acts of sin), but the primary purpose of Christ’s death was not simply to pay of acts of the sin nature, called “sins”, but rather to make the sin nature “of no effect”, powerless over we who are dead. We must realize that it was your and my death that the Father had interest in when He sent His Son to the cross, not only to die for us, but principally, to “die as us”, as our “old man”.
The Result of Our Death With Christ
We have another “that” to help us note the expected outcome of our co-death with Christ described in Romans 6:6b - “that henceforth we should not (voluntarily) serve sin”. Rom 6:7 says proclaims, “He that is dead is freed from sin”. We, as our new man, are free from the dominating power of sin. We need not to volunteer to serve the prompting of sin.
This freedom from sin’s dominion now makes perfect sense, since a dead man cannot sin; dead men cannot serve anything - good or evil. I’ve often made example of this by describing a dead man lying on the floor; when a luscious chocolate cake passes by his nose he is no longer tempted. A dead man has no sense of smell.
The regenerated child of God died with Christ, and thus is free now to live by Christ’s indwelling life, in a relationship, described by Paul, as being married to Christ. We do not serve God (Gal 4:7); rather we are to submit to Christ and trust Christ in us as the Christian us. Thus He is permitted to live through us as He spontaneously wills by the natural operation of the Law of the Spirit of His life (Rom 8:2).
It is Christ within the believer who knows to, and wills to perfectly submit to, and serve the Father, just as He did when He walked this earth 2,000 years ago. Recall that Jesus only spoke, did and judged matters as He heard, saw, and obeyed the Father. Jesus knows how to be the perfect Son. God has provided Christ to be the Christian in us, to live His life out through us. As we simply cling to Christ in us, yielding to Him within, we will enjoy the benefit and power of His life. By being obedient to the prompting, or restraining, that we may sense in our spirit by Christ in our spirit, we may come to enjoy the rest that is ours in Christ. All the while the Father’s will is being served through the outworking of Christ’s life flowing through us.
So the fact is that the Devil has been rendered entirely powerless over we who are dead in Christ. Satan is now in fact “unemployed” since we, who were once his subjects over whom he had dominion, are now dead. Satan now has no fallen, independent, self-person in us over which he may assert himself as Sin.
Yet, Satan’s Sin nature, still indwelling our flesh, can “lie” to us, and we are still free to receive his lies, tempting us from our place of liberty and rest in Christ. The only remaining power of Satan is to try and deceive us - appealing to us through the “motions of sin” (Rom 7:5) in our flesh body, or by the fiery darts of the imaginations that are cast into our fleshly mind (2Cor 10:5). We are tempted to either gross sin, or to simply live a self-serving life apart from dependence upon Christ, which is the root of all sin.
Sin, “IN” The Flesh Of The Mortal Body
Romans 8:3 what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned (sentenced) sin in the flesh:
Romans 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey (as a soul) it in the lusts (desires) thereof (of the body). (Parenthesis added)
Satan by his Sin nature is located in the flesh of man’s body. Sin is not destroyed; but we, as our “old man”, are now dead. How then does Satan as Sin in man’s body have any power over the Christian, who is dead to sin, in Christ? Here we need to first note where the Satan nature as “Sin” is located. In Romans 6:12 we see that sin is located in the flesh, the mortal body of man; where “sin reigns” by manifesting it’s “it’s lusts”, meaning, strong desires, and we see in 8:3 that in fact “sin is condemned in the flesh”. Do not confuse strong desire as always being sexual, no: Sin as Satan’s nature, is expressed at its core as the “desires of Self” for self. We each have a perception by sin’s impulses, pushing and prompting us to serve self according to the desires of the flesh. Nevertheless, Sin is based, or makes its home in the mortal body of man.
In the Old Testament the Scripture gives us a real experience of the children of Israel that also is allegorical. It confirms this spiritual reality in principal. Recall the situation of the children of Israel in the wilderness, when serpents were biting them and injecting their deadly venom into them - causing them to die. The children of Israel asked Moses to ask God to “take away the serpents”. We should note that God did not do as they requested. The serpents and their poison were not “destroyed”, but rather the serpents and their poison apparently remained, yet it was “made of none effect” when the poisoned victim looked to the brazen serpent lifted up on Moses staff.
No doubt, referring to this instance, in John 3:14 (below) Jesus Himself spoke of His own self as that “brazen serpent”, by his physical body on the cross. Brass is always symbolic of judgment in the scripture. Thus in Jesus on the cross Sin was judged. Sin in the flesh of mankind was thus judged and there condemn in mankind’s flesh (Rom 8:3). Jesus’ mortal body was offered to be our death and the death of every Adamic person. As the Israelites of old, we are to look away, to trust Christ makes Sin in our sinful flesh bodies “of not effect”.
John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
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Begin A Further Explanation:
Jesus Had A Body Like Ours
We must come to acknowledge that Jesus had a body of sin (Rom 6:6), just as we do, if we are to appreciate and appropriate the fullness of the benefits of His life given as us on the cross. His body was incarnated, made mortal flesh, “made (Gk., ginomai, caused to come into being) of (of, Gk, ek, out from) a woman (Mary) made under (subject to) the law” (Gal 4:4). We see here that Jesus of Nazareth’s body came into being “of” or “out from” the woman, Mary, just as we each came into being out from our physical mothers. However, this body of ours that we gain from our mothers is not all that we are. The seed of the life of our human fathers, who also had a sin nature, provoked our actual physical life. Our human being consists of spirit, soul, and body. Our entire being, in all its parts, is animated by the life we gained through our human fathers. That human life was from God’s breath that was initially breathed into Adam’s body of clay, thus Adam gained a human spirit.
We have life in our human spirit by our conception in the line of Adam, through our human fathers and human body given to us by our human mothers. We have our body of sin in the line of Adam of whom Mary was born. Jesus’ life was spirit and from His Father, God who is spirit (John 4:24). Mary gave Jesus all she could, some genetic material for a human body that was handed down to her, from Adam, with Sin in it, but Jesus life was of His Spirit by His Father - God.
This “Mary-body” qualified Jesus, as the perfect sinless lamb, to be tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin (Heb 4:15, 2Cor 5:21). Being testing by Satan and His perfect obedience to the Father proved Him to be sinless. He was then qualified to take on the sins of the world upon Him to pay for them. So yes, as the perfect Lamb of God, He would die for us; … but also His overcoming the test of the Devil qualified Him, as the federal head of all humanity, to die as us, to die our death, breaking the power of Sin over we who believe.
Though Jesus’ body had the poisonous fallen Adamic Serpentine Sin nature in it, He Himself still was “yet without sin” (without acts of sin). Though His body may have been a body of sin, He was not. This is because Jesus was not a body person. His very person, as God incarnate, was and is Spirit (John 4:24), not carnal. Jesus lived in a mortal, human, dirty shell, as we, yet He Himself was pristine, within.
Answering The Critique:
Considering all the foregoing, we must ultimately be as the good Bereans, who studied what Paul said, “whether those things be so” (Acts 17:11). We should not go by what we’ve always traditionally believed, or what does not “feel” right to us. We must see what the Scripture has to say, “studying to show thy self approved” (Tim 2:15). We need to prayerfully consider some serious questions in the light of Scripture?
I now would like to answer those who say they cannot accept the concept that Jesus had a body of sin like we have.
Some have said that they cannot bear the thought that Jesus had a sin infected body, such as all humans. Let’s put aside our preconceived thoughts, notions, and beliefs for a moment, and consider the matter of conception. First let us consider Mary’s egg, by which she conceived Jesus of Nazareth. It was into that egg that she received the God-seed (Gal 3:16), by the work of the Holy Spirit.
I have a two-part question to be considered.
1) Was it that God the Father’s Seed, and the very human egg of Mary, that made Jesus both God & man, conceive Jesus of Nazareth?
Or was it, as some believe, according to another alternative;
2) Mary merely was a surrogate to bear in Her womb … that both the God the Father’s Seed and … an egg also from God; thus making God both Father and Mother of Jesus of Nazareth?
These have said “Jesus was conceived in the womb (uterus) of Mary entirely by God (Seed and egg). Then, it was not as a normal conception in the fallopian tube by the egg of Mary, and the seed of God the Father. They apparently believe that God the Father by-passed Mary’s egg placing both a God egg and His seed into Mary’s womb, such that she simply nourished Jesus, as a surrogate. They believe Mary did not contribute any substance to Jesus of Nazareth at all. This thus precludes Jesus being born as a genuine man; He would be a super man.
The fallacy of this thought is that Jesus of Nazareth would be entirely “of God” and not “of” Mary at all, not human at all. Jesus would be a sort of superman - 100% God.
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Jesus then would lack true humanity.§
This would make Jesus purely God, not the “God-man”, that He actually is.§
He could not then be tempted in all points like as we are (Heb 4:15).§
He could not be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.§
Jesus would not appear in our New Testament text as the “Son of Man”.Jesus Himself emphasized His humanity when the Devil tempted Him and referred to Jesus by saying, “if thou be Son of God”, then Jesus carefully replied as a “man shall not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:4).
In Luke 3:23-24,32, 38 we see the lineage of Jesus by Mary goes back to fallen Adam, who was created by God.
“And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli, (father of Mary) 24Which was the son of Matthat … the son of Nathan, which was the son of David, …
32Which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, …the son of Jacob, which was the son of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor, …the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cainan,
38Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son (created son) of God. “
Mary is not directly listed in Jesus’ lineage, except by her human father, Heli, (Joseph’s father-in-law). That lineage of Jesus of Nazareth listed in Luke 3 is the “Mary line”, via her human father Heli, leading back to the federal, fallen, head of all of us who bear a human body, … to Adam, through whom “sin entered the world” of humanity (Rom 5:12).
There is no Scripture to confirm that Mary did not contribute her very human egg.
Rather, to the contrary, Galatians 4:4 “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made (came into being) of (Gk. ek, out from, as from the core of) a woman, made under (subservient to) the law”.
Jesus’ physical body “came out of” Mary’s physical life, in the lineage of Adam. This human incarnation was so that Jesus may be made truly human, in the outer physical sense, in the body of His humiliation, just as we are. His Father, who is fully divine, procreated Him by His spiritual seed of life impregnating Mary’s human egg. The Father is the “fountain of life” (Psalm 36:9). This is spirit life and not physical life. Thus Jesus’ life was in His Spirit of which He spoke and offered to man, to abide in man. His body was but an infected container for His spirit being on earth, to accomplish man’s 1) redemption, and 2) liberty from Sin’s tyrannical rule.
Hence, Jesus is fully God and fully man, truly the God-man.
Now let’s consider Luke 2:21 “And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Consider the Greek word “sullambano,” translated as “conceived” in Luke 2:21. It is the only reference we have in the Gospels referring to Jesus’ conception. “Sullambano” speaks of conception but is more properly transliterated to be “to clasp, seize or arrest”, as seen from Strongs Exhaustive Concordance.
Greek 4815, Strong’ sullambano, sool-lam-ban'-o; from Greek 4862 (sun) and Greek 2983 (lambano); to clasp, i.e. seize (arrest, capture); specially to conceive (literal or figurative); by implication to aid :- catch, conceive, help, take.
“womb” is koilia, Greek 2836, Strong’s, koy-lee'-ah; from koilos (“hollow”); a cavity, i.e. (special) the abdomen; by implication the matrix; figurative the heart :
This definition of the word “sullambano” is fitting since we know a baby is actually conceived in the fallopian tube of the mother by the father’s “seed” penetrating and fertilizing the female’s egg; it is then “clasped, seized or arrested” by attaching to the mother’s uterus wall.
We can postulate that Mary was such a mother, contributing her egg, to which God’s Holy Spirit supplied the seed of the Father’s Son - Jesus. That fertilized egg then traveled down the fallopian tube to ultimately become “clasped, seized or arrested” (sullambano, NOT “conceived”) in the womb (uterus) of Mary, where it was then attached to Mary’s uterus wall, to be nourished to grow as the physical human being of Jesus of Nazareth. Such was the conception of Jesus of Nazareth.
Though a mother contributes some of the physical characteristics of the mother via the genetics of her egg, the seed is endowed with the invisible life and nature of the father, bearing the lineage of the father. The provocation of life is in the seed of the father, not the egg. God’s “seed” is spirit, just as He is spirit (John 4:24). In this way Jesus’ mortal body was of Adam’s lineage, via Mary, but at the same time His innermost life in His Spirit was of the Spirit of God the Father.
Hence, to this day we hear reference to the name of the father whose baby is being born by a mother. That baby takes the father’s sir name. Some may ask, “Whose baby is she carrying?” One may reply “it’s so & so’s child” (of a man). Scripture also always refers to the male, the father, as givers of life by their seed (Jesus as the seed of Abraham and David in the human lineage, etc. Gal 3:16, Rom 1:3-4).
Jesus Became the Seed of The Father
Toward we who have been regenerated, the scripture refers to Jesus Christ as the God’s “seed” (“seed ”Gk. “sperma”, Gal 3:16, 1Pet 1:23, 1Jn 3:9). The resurrected Christ is the head of a new, eternal, race of people by being the Father’s seed (2Cor. 5:17). He is thus called the “last Adam”, bearer of the “final” race of humans. In 1Cor 15:45, we see that Jesus became the life-giving Spirit, as the bearer of life to a new race of humans (2Cor 5:17). Jesus Christ, as the Seed of God, bears the life and nature that is of God the Father (1Cor 15:45). That Christ seed is for the “birthing” or “begetting” of a new creation race of people (1 Cor. 4:15; 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 4:9; 5:1; 5:4; 5:18).
Jesus Was Without Blemish
Some site the following verse, thinking that it indicates that Jesus could not have had a body of sin, as did his mother Mary, and as all humans.
1 Peter 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
Blemishes and spots speak of something seen upon, not within something. We need to look also into the word “blemish” from the Greek. As seen below, it refers to being without blame, faultless, unblameable, with regard to “disgrace”. Since Jesus never actually sinned, He was without blame, with a spotless record, without disgrace. It does not mean He did not have a sinful, mortal, body.
Blemish: Greek 299, Strong’s amomos, am'-o-mos; from Greek 1 (a) (as a negative particle) and Greek 3470 (momos); unblemished (literal or figurative) :- without blame (blemish, fault, spot), faultless, unblameable.
“Amomos” consist of two Greek words, “a” as a prefix meaning “without” or “apart from” and “momos” meaning” flaw, blemish, flaw or blot, as to disgrace”
Greek 3470, Strong’s momos, mo'-mos; perhaps from Greek 3201 (memphomai); a flaw or blot, i.e. (figurative) disgraceful person :- blemish.
As you can see from the above, “blemish” is written in the context of one being disgraceful or not being disgraceful. Jesus was without blemish, without disgrace.
Jesus was and is the man of the Spirit, just as our new person is now one with Christ’s Spirit in our spirit as our new man (Ephes. 4:24; Col. 3:10). As a man with a fallen body from His mother Mary, Jesus truly was tempted in all ways like as we are (Heb 4:15). Jesus took on a body of sin, with Sin so near to Him, and yet He did not sin.
Jesus took that body given to Him by Mary, with Sin in it, to the cross, as the representative body of fallen humanity. In this way His body with sin in it was as a mousetrap; whereby He “He condemned Sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3). The death of Jesus’ body was the death of our old man, thus breaking the power of Sin for everyone who would believe and receive Christ’s work on their behalf.
This is most significant for we who would not only believe in, but also continuously trust Christ in His death as our death, and His life as our new and overcoming, righteous life. For all believers, Satan as Sin is already condemned, sentenced, judged, and damned to the very flesh in which we walk in our every day earthly life, … because we also were crucified with Jesus. Sin no longer has power over us; it can only tempt us with lying words and impulses of the flesh.
Where once we were dominated and ruled by Sin we have the power of choice. We now, as Spirit beings, have liberty (2Cor 3:17b), free to “walk in the spirit”(Gal 5:16, 25), owing nothing to the flesh.
Jesus’ being like us means, He had the Father’s life in Him as we have Christ’s (and the Father’s) Spirit in us. Jesus also at the same time had a body of sin, as we do. So why don’t we live as He lived overcomingly? Jesus also had a mindset upon the Father and obeyed Him alone; Paul says our need is to have that same mindset (Philip 2:5, Rom 8:5-6).
Philip. 2:5 let this mind (Gk phroneo, mindset) be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Romans 8:5-6 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Now we should be able to see why it is that Jesus on the cross could say, “it is finished”. All is finished; all we need to do now is look to Him on the cross as us, to “believe” in His death as our death, and His life as our new life.
Thus just as the Israelites dealt with the Serpent’s poison in their bodies by looking to the brazen Serpent on the pole, we now look to Jesus, bearing Sin in His flesh body, as the defeated Serpent on the cross (John 3:14), on our behalf. <END>