{"id":66267,"date":"2024-02-01T14:02:01","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T20:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=66267"},"modified":"2024-02-01T14:02:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T20:02:01","slug":"spiritual-versus-earthly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/spiritual-versus-earthly\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual versus Earthly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<p>by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n<p>Have you noticed that everything in Christ is spiritual or heavenly as opposed to earthly?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The old system had an earthly place for Israel (land of Canaan), now we have &#8220;<em>the heavenly places in Christ<\/em>&#8221; (Ephesians 1:3; 2:6).<\/li>\n<li>Moses was at an earthly mountain (Sinai) receiving the stone tablets, but we have come to a &#8220;<em>mountain that cannot be touched,<\/em>&#8221; to heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:18,22).<\/li>\n<li>We have His law written in our hearts (II Corinthians 3).<\/li>\n<li>They had an earthly temple; we have a spiritual house or temple (Ephesians 2:19-22).<\/li>\n<li>They had animal and other earthly sacrifices. We have Christ and our following Him as &#8220;<em>an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma<\/em>&#8221; (Ephesians 5:2).<\/li>\n<li>They had the earthly altar, and we have a spiritual altar in Christ (Hebrews 13:10).<\/li>\n<li>They had the Levitical priesthood, which included singers and instrument players; we have a spiritual priesthood, and all are singers and players of the heartstrings (I Peter 2:5; Ephesians 5:18- 19).<\/li>\n<li>They had earthly incense; we have spiritual incense (Revelation 5:8).<\/li>\n<li>They had an earthly army to protect the country and citizens; we have a spiritual army, and the weapons are not carnal or earthly (Ephesians 6:10-18; II Corinthians 10:5).<\/li>\n<li>They had the earthly sabbath (seventh day of physical rest), and we have spiritual rest in Christ (Matthew 11:28; Hebrews 4; Colossians 2:13-16).<\/li>\n<li>Their priests had physical garments designed for symbolism; we wear the righteousness of Christ.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The early church truly shows us that the &#8220;time of reformation&#8221; from earthly to spiritual had arrived (Hebrews 9:10). We are under Christ&#8217;s greater spiritual system. Christ is now the king over His spiritual kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>They entered their nation through birth, but we enter Christ&#8217;s spiritual kingdom through a spiritual rebirth (John 3:1-6). Have you entered His kingdom?<\/p>\n<p>Are you enjoying all the spiritual blessings in Christ?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Terry Wane Benton Have you noticed that everything in Christ is spiritual or heavenly as opposed to earthly? The old system had an earthly place for Israel (land of Canaan), now we have &#8220;the heavenly places in Christ&#8221; (Ephesians 1:3; 2:6). Moses was at an earthly mountain (Sinai) receiving the stone tablets, but we&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[1148,1671],"class_list":["post-66267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-spiritual-realm","tag-temporal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":67781,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-time-of-reformation\/","url_meta":{"origin":66267,"position":0},"title":"The Time of Reformation","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 25, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton The Book of Hebrews makes the argument that we had, in the past, been using carnal, earthly things in service to God (Hebrews 9:1-11) but would, from the Old Testament perspective, see a \"time of reformation\" (Hebrews 9:10) in which we would put down the carnal,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88790,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/worship-in-spirit-and-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":66267,"position":1},"title":"Worship in Spirit and Truth","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 19, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton While it is true that worship must be in spirit (sincere and involving our hearts) and in truth (truly yielding to what God's word says, not following the commandments of men), the text in John 4:20-24 seems to point to something more. The discussion with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49802,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/first-the-natural-then-the-spiritual\/","url_meta":{"origin":66267,"position":2},"title":"First the Natural, Then the Spiritual","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry W. Benton I Corinthians 15:46 speaks of the natural body being first, and then at the resurrection, the spiritual body takes over. But, that change follows the already established principle found in the nature of the Old Testament versus the New Testament. We see a pattern form that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92731,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/make-melody-in-your-heart\/","url_meta":{"origin":66267,"position":3},"title":"Make Melody in Your Heart","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Text: Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16 These two familiar scriptures on singing spiritual songs are set in a context of a \"time of reformation,\" in which the carnal and earthly temple and instruments are given their spiritual fulfillment in Christ. In contrast to the Old Testament or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67961,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-red-heifer\/","url_meta":{"origin":66267,"position":4},"title":"The Red Heifer","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 7, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton The Muslims have occupied the place of the Jewish temple with the Dome of the Rock for centuries. There are Jews who want very badly to remove the Muslims and the Dome of the Rock so that the Jews can rebuild a temple in that place.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68008,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/heavenly-places-in-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":66267,"position":5},"title":"Heavenly Places in Christ","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 10, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton I pointed out that Christians are presently \"in the heavenly places in Christ\" (Ephesians 1:3,7), and one preacher, in disbelief, asked, \"What is it like in heaven?\" He thought he had me stumped for claiming we are presently in \"the heavenly places.\" His question reveals a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}