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Scripture Reading: Matt. 16:24-26; Luke 9:23-25; Lev. 11:43-44; 1 Cor. 2:14; Rom. 8:6; 1 Cor. 2:11; 2 Cor. 7:13b; Acts 19:21
Thus far, we have seen that the spirit and the soul are two distinct parts of man’s being (1 Thes. 5:23; Heb. 4:12; Luke 1:46-47). The body is man’s outermost part, and his spirit is his innermost part (John 7:38). Between these two parts is the soul as a medium. A human being is tripartite, of three parts — spirit, soul, and body. The Bible also reveals that the soul is something quite contrary to the spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 2:14 we are told that “a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually.” The soul cannot understand the things of God. It is the spirit that knows, that discerns the things of God. These two parts within us are absolutely different. We cannot understand the things of God merely by the soul, because the soul by itself has the ability to know psychological things, not spiritual things. The soul is not able to know the things of God, but it is the spirit that knows the things of God. Many Christians do not know the difference between the spirit and the soul. Some Christians even insist on saying that the spirit and soul are synonymous, but in the Scriptures we are told that the spirit and soul are two absolutely different and distinct entities.
Matthew 16:24-26 shows us that the soul is something we have to reject, to deny. “Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (v. 24). The self has to be denied, renounced, rejected. “For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it” (v. 25). If you gain the whole world and lose your soul, what is the profit?
Luke 9:23-25 says, “He said to them all, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake, this one shall save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world but loses or forfeits himself?” In Matthew it says, “Forfeits his soul-life” (16:26). In Luke it says, “Forfeits himself” (9:25). This proves the soul is the self.
The Old Testament also clearly tells us that the soul is the self. Leviticus 11:43 says, “You shall not make your souls abominable with any swarming thing that swarms, nor shall you make yourselves unclean with them, and so become defiled by them” (lit.). Then Leviticus 11:44b says, “And you shall not defile yourselves with any of the swarming things that move upon the earth.” “Yourselves” in verse 44 is “your souls” in verse 43. The Lord told us clearly that we have to deny the soul. The soulish man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, so we have to give up, reject, and deny the soul.
The soul is comprised of three parts — the mind, the emotion, and the will (see The Economy of God, ch. 6). If you deny your mind, your emotion, and your will, there is nothing left but the spirit. The self is gone. To give up your mind, emotion, and will simply means to give up yourself. To deny yourself is to deny your own thought, your opinion, your idea, your concept, your love, your wish, your will, your decision, and your choice. To deny all this means to deny the self.
A man of the mind is a man of the soul. A man of the emotion is a man of the soul. A man of the will is a man of the soul. How do you classify yourself? Are you a man of emotion, mind, or will? Brother Watchman Nee once told us, as an example, that if a person were to walk directly into a wall, the first part of his body to hit the wall would be his nose, the prominent part. If you are a man of emotion, in any matter your emotion will “hit the wall first.” If you are a man of the mind, your mind comes first. If you are a man of the will, your will comes first. Nearly all the sisters are so prominent in the emotion, and most of the brothers are so prominent in the mind. Some of us are so prominent in the will. We have to admit that much of the time we are soulish people because we are so emotional, thoughtful, and willful. We have to learn the lesson to deny the self, the soul, with its emotion, mind, and will. To deny the self is to deny the emotion, mind, and will. After we deny the self, we have the spirit. If we deny the emotion, mind, and will, we give the opportunity, the ground, to the spirit.
If you denied your natural thought, the spirit within you would rise up. Because we are so much in the soul — in the mind, emotion, and will — our human spirit does not have the chance, the ground, to do anything. We must practice continually to deny our mind, our emotion, and our will. When I love a brother so much, that may be natural love. If I give up that love, my spirit will have a chance to express something of the Lord. If I give up something in my soul, then my spirit will express something of the Lord. This is why the Lord tells us that we have to deny ourselves. We have to deny our soul, to lose our soul, because we regenerated persons have another part, an inmost part, which is the quickened, regenerated spirit with the Holy Spirit of God indwelling it. We have such a wonderful part of our being, a spiritual part, a living part, a quickened part, yet we do not know it and do not give it the chance or the ground to do anything.
If you are not happy with a certain brother, it is simply because you are in the self. If you deny yourself, you will love that brother very much. At other times, however, you love certain brothers so much simply because you are in the emotion, in the soul. If you would deny your emotion, deny your self, your love toward that brother would be transformed from the soul into the spirit. The lesson for us to learn today as Christians in order to experience life is to learn how to deny the soul. The soul is the self, and the self consists of three things — the mind, emotion, and will. To deny the soul simply means to deny your mind, emotion, and will.
We should live in the spirit. Galatians 2:20 says, “It is no longer I.” “I” is the self; the self is the soul, and the soul consists of three parts. “No longer I” means no longer the mind, emotion, and will but “Christ who lives in me” (v. 20). Christ lives in me, in my spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). We have to learn how to deny the “I,” the self, the soul, and live by Christ in the spirit.
Some might think that if we deny the soul, we will not be able to live. But we must realize that there is a difference between the life of the soul and the faculties of the soul. The life of the soul is one thing, and the faculties of the soul are another thing. An illustration might help us to see this difference. I knew a married couple in China. The brother was so spiritual, and the sister, as a wife, was so submissive. Whenever you went to their home or met with them, you had the sense that the husband was the life to the wife. The wife had her own life, but she gave up her own life and took her husband as the life. She never said anything on her own. She always said something according to what her husband said. If you asked her, “Sister, do you like this piano?” she would say, “My husband likes it.” Perhaps you would ask, “Do you like this meeting hall?” She would respond, “My husband says it is wonderful.” With her, it was always “my husband, my husband,” yet she spoke. She gave up her life and took her husband as the life, yet she still used the faculties of her soul.
We brothers always thought the sister was wonderful because she always took her husband as her life. She just lost her own life. She gave up her own life, but she still used her faculties. She still used her mind, emotion, and will, but she gave up her own life and took another life as her life.
The natural life, the life of the soul, has been crucified on the cross (Gal. 2:20). Now we have to take the Lord as our life. We must give up the natural life, the life of the soul, and take the Lord in the spirit as our life. This does not mean, however, that we must give up the faculties of our soul but the life of the soul. All the faculties of our soul still remain as the organs to be used by the Lord in the spirit.
The more you are one with the Lord in the spirit, that is, the more spiritual you are, the more keen you will be in your mind. Before you take the Lord as life, you are quite dull in your thinking, but if you deny yourself and take the Lord as your life, you will be very keen in your thinking. In China quite a number of older sisters never had any kind of education, yet they loved the Lord to the uttermost and knew how to give up themselves, taking the Lord as life. After two or three years they became very keen in their mind, in their understanding, especially in the things of the Lord. They became experts. But with those who have little love for the Lord, even if they have a Ph.D., there is little comprehension of spiritual things. When you talk with them about the things of the Lord, they say, “What is this? I cannot figure it out.”
It is the same thing with the emotion. Do not think that the Lord demands that you give up the organ, the faculty, of your emotion. The Lord demands that you give up the life of the emotion, but you have to exercise the emotion more and more. If you do love the Lord and are really filled with the Lord’s Spirit, you will be very emotional. A man who is not emotional can never be spiritual. A spiritual person is a very emotional person. If you never know how to love, if you never know how to weep, if you never know how to be happy, and if you never know how to be sorry, I am afraid that you are not a proper Christian.
The most spiritual person is the most emotional, yet his emotion is under the control of the spirit. The apostle Paul was very emotional. He tells us that at times he wept with tears (Phil. 3:18; Acts 20:19, 31). He was quite tender in feeling, in love, in mercy, and in compassion. He was tender, but he was not naturally emotional. His emotion was a spiritual emotion under the control of the spirit.
A spiritual person is, on the one hand, so keen in the mind and emotion and, on the other hand, so strong in the will. Not one spiritual person is like a jellyfish, without any backbone. Naturally emotional people are like jellyfish. All the spiritually emotional persons are so tender in their emotions and strong in the will. The more you are in the spirit, the stronger you will be in the will.
A spiritual person is one who is so keen in the understanding of the mind, so emotional in his love and affection, and so strong in his will. The faculties of the soul are organs used by the Spirit to express the Lord. The Lord is so wise and full of thought (Psa. 139:17-18a). A spiritual person is not a thoughtless person. The more spiritual you are, the more thoughtful you are in the spirit. I can testify that the more I am in the spirit, the richer I am in thought. But whenever I am so much in my self, I am poor in thought.
We must realize, therefore, that it is not the mind, emotion, and will that have to be destroyed. It is the life of the soul that we must give up. This natural life, the soul-life, has been put to death on the cross already (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 6:6). Now you have to take Christ, your Husband (2 Cor. 11:2), as your life. You must take the divine life as your life, but the faculties of the soul still remain as organs to be used by your spirit to express the Lord Himself.
Two brothers may be very thoughtful. One, however, is thoughtful naturally, but the other is thoughtful spiritually. With the first brother, you do not sense anything of the Lord. But with the other brother, whenever he speaks, you sense something out of the spirit, something of the Lord. Suppose these two brothers are ministering. With one brother you do not sense anything of the Lord, but the other brother is so rich in his thought, yet so strong, so fresh, in his spirit. While he is uttering something through his thought, you realize the richness and freshness of the Lord. The one brother is a person so much merely in the mind, but the other is in the spirit through the mind. With the first one, the source is the mind. With the second one, the source is not the mind but the Lord in the spirit. Something comes out of the Lord in the spirit through the mind.
Romans 8:6 says, “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” Your mind is a part of the soul. It could be with the flesh and become a mind of the flesh, or with the spirit and become the mind of the spirit. This means that your mind will be used by the spirit, be under the control of the spirit, and be directed by the spirit. This is the mind of the spirit. The mind is not the life of the soul but one of the faculties of the soul to be used, controlled, and directed by the spirit.
We must learn the lesson to deny the natural mind, emotion, and will and to put them under the control of the spirit. We deny the life of the soul and take the Lord as our life in the spirit to control and direct all the parts of the soul in order that they might be used to express the Lord Himself.
First Corinthians 2:11 says, “Who among men knows the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him?” The spirit of man knows through the mind. The mind is an organ to be used by the spirit to know something. Then 2 Corinthians 7:13 says, “We rejoiced more abundantly over the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by all of you.” The spirit of Titus was refreshed with joy. This shows that the spirit joys or rejoices through the emotions. The spirit knows something through the mind and rejoices through the emotion. Then Acts 19:21 says, “When these things were fulfilled, Paul purposed in his spirit to...go to Jerusalem.” This means Paul exercised his will in the spirit. He made a decision in the spirit to take a trip. This does not mean that he was a man of the will but a spiritual man exercising his will. Paul was a man so much in the spirit with the uplifted faculties of the soul. His thoughts, emotions, and decisions were all in the spirit.
As Christians, we have to reject our mind, emotion, and will. We must reject ourselves and take the Lord Jesus as our life. This is done by returning to our spirit and sensing what is there in our spirit. Suppose a brother comes to talk with you. While you are listening, you must reject yourself. You must reject your natural thinking, your emotion, and your will. You have to take the Lord Jesus as your life in this particular matter by returning to your spirit, your innermost part, to sense what is there. This is the right way for us to act as a Christian, but most of us do not act in this way. Whenever a brother comes to talk with us, we exercise our mind independent of the spirit. We sometimes forget about the Lord Jesus and forget that we have a spirit. The way for a normal Christian to act, however, is to always deny the natural mind, will, and emotion and to take the Lord Jesus as his life. In everything we should return to the innermost part of our being to sense what is there.
If you do this, your spirit, in which the Holy Spirit dwells, will rise up to impress you with something. Then you will have a clear understanding. You will understand this brother thoroughly. Your spirit will rise up and spring up, and some living water will flow out to others. We must continually learn to take care of the inner anointing, the inner registration, the inner sense, the inner feeling, the inner consciousness. If we go along with this anointing, we will be a person walking in the spirit. Then all the faculties of our soul will be renewed, transformed, revived, strengthened, and improved. The life of the soul will be crucified and renounced, but the faculties of the soul will be ennobled.
When you come to a church meeting, do not exercise your mind, but exercise your spirit to sense the inner life. When you are going to choose a hymn or pray, do not consider but sense with the spirit. When you stand up to speak, do not consider what you are going to say or what you have to say, but sense what the Lord’s mind is that you have to say. There are two ways to meet: one way is in the soul, and the other way is in the spirit.
When you come to the meeting, sometimes you are really happy, but maybe tomorrow you will come with sorrow. You have to leave all these emotional feelings outside the door. When you come to the meeting, you must exercise your spirit to sense something within your spirit. Then you should utter something from your spirit despite your feeling. We must learn the lesson to serve the Lord not by exercising the mind, emotion, or will but by exercising the spirit to sense something of the Lord. This is the right and normal way for us to walk and to serve in the Lord and for the Lord.
