The letter kills, but the spirit gives life

I'm still working through all of this "knowledge" that I'm compiling, striving to better understand the nature of what was taken from us at the Tree, and what was returned to us at the Cross.

I apologize if all of this research and fumbling about the scriptures has become a burden to you (reader), especially if you have come here to learn more about the homeless and how to help. But I am not a single minded person, who does not strive to become fuller in life and in the Lord. So, again, I've tagged these particular notations and entries as "The Lawless Christian", giving to you the ability to find all of these, or ignore them as a group.

These areas, as I read the bodies of work they are from, helped a great deal in bringing to mind what I is I am after. While still ethereal in my mind, the idea of the "Lawless Christian" manifests a number thoughts which require deeper research. Not just for the writings I would like to do on this subject (I definitely prefer to have a good foundation in my understanding of the scriptures before delivering commentary), but also for my own enjoyment of the scriptures themselves.

There are still many good works to cover. Questions and Focal-Points such as the ones I have, are by no means original thoughts. I have always found that these questions and topics have been well covered since the times of antiquity, and rarely can I even suggest the claim of original perspective.


3. The fatal consequences came with a rush. There is a gulf between being tempted and sinning, but the results of the sin are closely knit to it. They come automatically, as surely as a stream from a fountain. The promise of knowing good and evil was indeed kept, but instead of its making the sinners 'like gods,' it showed them that they were like beasts, and brought the first sense of shame. To know evil was, no doubt, a forward step intellectually; but to know it by experience, and as part of themselves, necessarily changed their ignorant innocence into bitter knowledge, and conscience awoke to rebuke them. The first thing that their opened eyes saw was themselves, and the immediate result of the sight was the first blush of shame. Before, they had walked in innocent unconsciousness, like angels or infants; now they had knowledge of good and evil, because their sin had made evil a part of themselves, and the knowledge was bitter.
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/7gens10.txt

--Expositions of Holy Scripture, by Alexander Maclaren : (1826-1910) "was a Baptist minister. Born in Glasgow to Baptist parents, he was baptized in 1840 and trained at Stepney ,College.
http://www.puritansermons.com/bio/biomacla.htm

"The letter kills, but the spirit gives life," 2 Corinthians 3:6 which merely prescribes that we should not take in the literal sense any figurative phrase which in the proper meaning of its words would produce only nonsense, but should consider what else it signifies, nourishing the inner man by our spiritual intelligence, since"being carnally-minded is death, while to be spiritually-minded is life and peace." Romans 8:6 If, for instance, a man were to take in a literal and carnal sense much that is written in the Song of Solomon, he would minister not to the fruit of a luminous charity, but to the feeling of a libidinous desire. Therefore, the apostle is not to be confined to the limited application just mentioned, when he says, "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life;" 2 Corinthians 3:6 but this is also (and indeed especially) equivalent to what he says elsewhere in the plainest words: "I had not known lust, except the law had said, You shall not covet;" Romans 7:7 and again, immediately after: "Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." Romans 7:11 Now from this you may see what is meant by "the letter that kills." There is, of course, nothing said figuratively which is not to be accepted in its plain sense, when it is said, "You shall not covet;" but this is a very plain and salutary precept, and any man who shall fulfill it will have no sin at all. The apostle, indeed, purposely selected this general precept, in which he embraced everything, as if this were the voice of the law, prohibiting us from all sin, when he says, "You shall not covet;" for there is no sin committed except by evil concupiscence; so that the law which prohibits this is a good and praiseworthy law. But, when the Holy Ghost withholds His help, which inspires us with a good desire instead of this evil desire (in other words, diffuses love in our hearts), that law, however good in itself, only augments the evil desire by forbidding it.