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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 3:17-18; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23; Rom. 8:6; 1 Cor. 2:14-16; 2 Cor. 4:16
In this chapter we want to continue our fellowship concerning the Lord’s transformation work within us. Let us read several verses that speak of the transformation of the soul.
The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:17-18)
Do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect. (Rom. 12:2)
That you be renewed in the spirit of your mind. (Eph. 4:23)
The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. (Rom. 8:6)
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. But the spiritual man discerns all things, but he himself is discerned by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord and will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:14-16)
In these verses we should take notice of three terms. The first term is the soulish man. A soulish man is a man of the soul. Such a man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. The second term is the spiritual man. Hence, there are two kinds of men: the soulish and the spiritual. The third term is the mind of Christ.
We do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. (2 Cor. 4:16)
In this verse the word rendered “decaying” can be translated also as “being consumed.”
In the previous chapter we saw that as God-created human beings we have three parts: a physical body, a soul, and a spirit (1 Thes. 5:23). The spirit is the innermost part of our entire created being, and the body is the outermost. Between the spirit and the body is the soul, which consists of the mind, the emotion, and the will. With the mind we think, with the emotion we sense joy and sorrow as well as other feelings, and with the will we make decisions. Moreover, we also saw the function of each of the parts of our being — with the physical body we contact the physical world, with the soul we contact the psychological world, and with the spirit we contact the spiritual world. In order to touch any of these three worlds, we must use the corresponding organ. Because God is Spirit, if we want to worship God, we must worship Him with, in, and by our human spirit (John 4:24).
When the Lord Jesus came into us, He came into our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and as the Spirit He came into our human spirit. Now we are joined to the Lord and have become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). The divine Spirit and the human spirit are mingled and blended together to form one spirit. We are one with the Lord not in the body or in the mind; we are one with the Lord in our spirit. When the Lord came into our spirit, a reaction took place in our being. That reaction was our regeneration. Regeneration is the transformation of the spirit. At the moment that we believed, our spirit was transformed by Christ as the divine life.
Because we have been regenerated, our spirit is fully transformed. Now we must undergo the continual transformation of the rest of our being, particularly of our soul (2 Cor. 3:17-18; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23). The soul is a very important part of our being. For our soul to be transformed means that our mind, emotion, and will are transformed. If we are transformed in our spirit but not in our soul, that means that although we have Christ as life in our spirit, we do not have much of Christ in our soul. Our need is for Christ to increase within us all the time, that is, to spread from our spirit into the three parts of our soul. When the Lord spreads fully into our mind, emotion, and will, we will be transformed into His image. When we are transformed into His image, we will think, feel, and decide just as Christ thinks, feels, and decides. When we consider matters, we will consider them as the Lord does; when we love or hate, we will love or hate as Christ does; and when we choose, we will choose as the Lord does and give up and reject what the Lord gives up and rejects. When our entire soul has been transformed into the image of Christ, we human beings will have the image of Christ in our daily life.
Regrettably, the typical Christian is transformed in his spirit but remains untransformed in his soul. In a great many believers, there are scarcely any signs that Christ has entered into their mind, emotion, and will. For example, there may be a brother who, having been saved by the Lord, is regenerated. This means that his spirit is transformed. But this brother may have a soul that is very slow in everything. Even though the Lord may want to do something quickly, that brother can only do things slowly. Although the Lord is in this brother’s spirit, he remains slow because the Lord has not yet spread into his soul. It may be that even when the Lord inspires him in his spirit, he remains very slow in his soul and does not respond to the Lord’s inward inspiration. While some persons are very slow, others are very quick in everything that they do. They are fast in their thinking, feeling, and action. They suffer the same problem as the slow brother but in reverse. Such ones’ situation indicates that although they may be transformed in their spirit, in their soul they remain quite natural.
When I was young, I frequently went to listen to an elderly preacher who was very slow in his soul. In one message he said, “Brothers, look at the Scriptures. There is not one instance of God ever doing something quickly. The Lord is always slow.” This brother thought that because he was slow, God was also slow. Not long after hearing this brother speak, I met a young minister who was very quick. He told me, “There is at least one time that the Lord acted so quickly that He had to run to do it.” He then referred to Luke 15:20, where the father ran to meet the prodigal son. This young preacher used this verse to prove that the Lord is quick. These two preachers were two different kinds of persons: one slow in nature and one fast in nature. The preacher who was slow in nature insisted that the Lord was slow, and the one who was fast in nature insisted that the Lord was fast. By this we can see that regardless of our individual characteristics, our soul is natural and must be transformed. We should never remain in our natural thought. Our natural mind, emotion, and will must be transformed so that we will be able to have the image of Christ.
Genesis 1:26 tells us that God created man in His own image and according to His own likeness. An illustration of this is a glove being made in the image of a hand. A glove is made in the image of a hand for the purpose of containing a hand. In like manner, man was made in the image of God for the purpose of containing God. Just as a hand fits into a glove, the Lord’s intention was to put Himself into man. A glove has five fingers because our hand has five fingers. In the same way, since the Lord has a mind, emotion, and will, He created us with a mind, emotion, and will (Phil. 2:5; Rom. 9:13; Rev. 4:11). It is because we were created in God’s image that we have a soul with a mind, emotion, and will.
On the day that we received Christ as our life, He came into us. First, He came into our spirit. This is like a hand coming into the part of the glove that is fashioned after the palm of the hand. When the Lord came into us initially, He was limited to our spirit. Now, day by day the Lord wants to spread gradually from our spirit into all the parts of our being. He wants to spread from our spirit into our mind, from our spirit into our emotion, and from our spirit into our will. The Lord’s spreading into the different parts of our soul can be likened to the fingers of a hand entering into the fingers of a glove. After this gradual spreading of Christ within our being has taken place, we will be able to say that we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). Although we can all say with assurance that at present we have the Spirit of Christ in our spirit, not many of us can say that we have the mind of Christ in our mind, the emotion of Christ in our emotion, and the will of Christ in our will. One day, however, we will be able to say this with assurance. Our mind, emotion, and will were made so that the mind, emotion, and will of Christ could enter into them.
The reason most of us cannot say that we have the mind, emotion, and will of Christ is that these parts of our being remain in their fallen condition and have not yet been transformed. The Lord desires to spread Himself from our spirit into all the parts of our soul. The Lord spreads into these parts by our growing up into Christ in all things (Eph. 4:15). This growth is not the accumulation of knowledge about doctrines and teachings. For a Christian, to grow up means that Christ continually expands from his spirit into his mind, emotion, and will.
Once, a sister’s husband died. The sister was quite mature and had grown up into Christ in many things. Not only did she have the Lord in her spirit; she also had Him in her mind, emotion, and will. Usually when people experience such loss, they become very sorrowful and inconsolable. Yet this sister was able to thank and praise the Lord. When the saints were with her at that time, they could sense that the Lord was not only in her spirit but also in her soul, particularly in her emotion. In contrast to this sister, there was another sister who lost her husband. She was rather young in the Lord and was not very mature in Him. After her husband’s death, although we went to fellowship with her, she could not listen to us and could only weep bitterly. It did not matter how much we talked with her; she simply could not listen. In her we saw a person who, no doubt, had the Lord in her spirit but at that time did not have the Lord in her emotion even to a small degree. In these two sisters, both of whom had lost her husband, we see a great contrast. Whereas the mature sister had undergone much transformation of her soul, it was clear that the younger sister’s emotion had not yet been transformed. This shows that although the Lord entered into our spirit at the time we were saved, we still need to experience the transformation of our soul.
The Scriptures tell us that the soulish man, the man of the soul, cannot receive anything spiritual (1 Cor. 2:14). It is impossible for such a man to receive the things of the Spirit of God. Hence, the soulish man, with his natural mind, emotion, and will, must be transformed by being put to death and resurrected (John 12:24-26; Matt. 16:24-25). This is transformation by the renewing of the mind (Eph. 4:23). Only through death and resurrection can our mind with the rest of our soul be renewed. It is not enough to be regenerated and transformed in our spirit; we must be transformed in our soul. Not being transformed in our soul is our great problem.
The way that we can be delivered from the soulish man and transformed in our soul is to always look to the Lord to strengthen us to do one thing — to stop. Whenever we are about to think, to love, or to make a decision, we must stop. Oh, brothers and sisters, I want to give you this one little word: Stop! We must stop! When we are going to love something, we must say, “Stop!” When we are going to think about something, we must say, “Stop!” To stop is to put ourselves to death.
Sometimes it may be that immediately after praying in the morning, you recall what a brother said to you the day before. As you think about it, you may become offended. When this sort of thought comes to you, do you go along with it? If you go along with this thought and give it ground in you, it proves that your mind has not yet been transformed. It indicates that your mind, like an empty finger of a glove, does not yet have the content for which it was created. When you go along with such thoughts, you can be sure that there is very little of Christ in your mind. Instead of going along with these thoughts, you must stop. You must put your mind to death. At such times you should pray, “Lord, strengthen me to put my mind to death.” Please remember that where there is the death of the cross, there is the resurrection life of Christ. When you put your mind to death, be sure that the resurrection life of Christ will follow. When we stop and allow our mind to be put to death, our mind will become a resurrected mind. A resurrected mind is a renewed mind. When we have a renewed mind, there will be a change in our thinking. This change is actually the transformation of the mind. Because your mind has been transformed by renewing, that is, by being put to death and resurrected, you will testify that this brother is a grace and a gift to you from the Lord. Your having this thought is an indication that your mind has been transformed. This transformation is actually the Spirit of Christ spreading into your mind to fill it with Himself.
Some saints are very emotional. When they are happy, they are happy to the extent that they forget about everything, including Christ Himself. When such ones are sorrowful, they may also forget about the Lord. Emotional people must learn to tell their natural man to stop. When you are about to be happy and laugh, it is best not to laugh too much and instead learn to tell yourself to stop. Learn to put your soulish man to death by the strengthening of the Holy Spirit. Some people are quick to lose their temper. Such people are also too emotional. When you are about to lose your temper, you have to say, “Lord, strengthen me to stop my emotion.” If you put your emotion to death, resurrection will follow. Your emotion will be resurrected and filled with the Holy Spirit. Then when you are happy, there will be the image of Christ in your happiness, and when you love something, there will be the image of Christ in your love. We will eventually have the image of Christ in our mind, emotion, and will because we will have been transformed in our soul into the image of Christ, and He will have spread into every part of our being.
We must all practice this fellowship and learn to apply Christ. When you first learned to drive, you were instructed concerning many things. After learning, you needed to practice what you had learned. When you first began to practice, perhaps what you learned did not seem to work. Yet despite your failure, you continued to believe the instructions and went on to practice driving. After perhaps one week, you became quite accustomed to driving. To learn to drive, you simply had to practice driving. It is the same with practicing to stop our natural soul.
We must realize that it is not a small thing that Christ came into our spirit when we were regenerated. Since Christ is in our spirit, all that we must do is apply Him. It is here in the application that we encounter a problem. To continue the illustration given above, we have a car whose tank is full of gasoline, and the car runs; but we must still operate the car correctly. Pushing the car is not the right way to operate the car, and to do so is to act foolishly. Rather than pushing the car, we must learn to drive by practicing. In our practicing to stop and apply Christ, I am afraid that many of us ask the Lord to help us to “push the car.” We may pray, “Lord, help me in this matter. It is so easy for me to lose my temper and very difficult for me to overcome this weakness. But, Lord, You are almighty, and You can help me.” If we pray in this way, the Lord will not help us. The more we pray in such a way, the more we will realize that the Lord does not hear this kind of prayer. In fact, the more we pray, “Lord, help me not to lose my temper,” the more we will lose it. To pray in this way is to “push the car.” If we pray in this way, it is an indication that we have forgotten that we have Christ within us and are not applying Him. We have Christ within us; let us simply exercise to apply Christ.
Exercising to apply Christ is like learning to apply the gasoline that is in our car. It is so easy. Just as there is gasoline in our car, there is power within our spirit. I know this because I have learned how to practice this. For the first ten years after I was saved by the Lord, I did not know this. Then one day the Lord opened my eyes to see that there was something powerful in me. Moreover, I realized that I had to use and apply that supply of power. This power within me and within all of us is nothing less than Christ Himself (2 Cor. 13:3). Christ is in our spirit; all we must do is learn to apply Him. We should no longer cry, “Lord, help me.” If we do, the Lord will answer, “No. I am not going to help you in this way. I am dwelling in you. Practice to apply Me.”
Before we can learn how to apply Christ, we must realize that Christ is in us. Then we must always deny our self, that is, our natural man and natural character. Matthew 16:24 says, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” This means that we should put ourselves to death and put ourselves under the death of the cross. Always deny your natural mind, your natural emotion, and your natural will. Learn to always put yourself to death. Give the Lord a chance within you. Whether you are a person who is too fast or too slow in your nature, you must put yourself under the death of the cross. If you do this, the Lord will honor you and will resurrect you. After resurrection, your mind, emotion, and will — your entire soul — will be in the spirit. Then you will be transformed into Christ’s image.
In many situations in our daily life, we must put ourselves to death. We must tell the Lord, “Lord, in this matter, I deny myself. In thinking, in loving, and in choosing, I deny myself. I commit myself into Your hands. I wish to have Your mind as my mind, Your emotion as my emotion, and Your will as my will.” We must remember to put ourselves to death and let the Lord raise us up in His resurrection power. Then our whole being will be filled with the Spirit of Christ.
These things are not mere doctrine or teaching; they are instructions on how to apply Christ. If you take these instructions, this experience will be real to you. Applying Christ is very simple, as simple as driving a car. You may not believe me when I say this. Nevertheless, to practice this is even more simple than what I have described. You have Christ within you. Forget about your old way of praying to the Lord. Do not pray any longer that He would help you to do anything. The Lord will not answer that kind of prayer. If we have a car with gasoline, and we ask the Lord to help us push the car, the Lord will respond, “Do not be so foolish. Stop! Start to use the gasoline, and the car will move easily.” We must believe the Lord. When we finally stop and learn to apply Christ in this way, we will experience the Lord’s deliverance.
When I was young, we commonly used bicycles for transportation because there were not many cars in my country. One day I decided that I needed a bicycle and bought one. Then I went to a brother and asked him how to ride it. He simply answered, “Go and ride it.” I protested, saying, “Please tell me how to ride.” Again, he answered “Go and ride it.” I took his word and went out to practice. After only two or three hours, I was riding the bicycle effortlessly. I learned by practicing.
We need to accept this simple word. After having served the Lord and contacted the Lord’s children for many years, I have learned something. Messages and doctrines are very good, but they only present to us a very beautiful “building” while giving us no “entrance” into it. Without a “door,” we will never be able to enter into the reality of those teachings. I am not giving you mere teachings. You may see that the Lord is life to you. The problem is that you have no entrance into what you have seen. Now I am giving you instructions on how to enter. You have believed in the Lord Jesus. You have received Him. Now He is within you.
The problem is that we do not practice applying Christ in our daily life. By practicing, we will enter into the experience of transformation. Christ is life, light, and power, but is Christ real to us in these aspects? We must learn to apply Christ. The way to apply Him is first by denying our self — our mind, emotion, and will — and simply stopping. We must simply come to the Lord who is within us and contact Him. Then we will learn to apply Him. After many years of experience, I can testify that no matter what happens to me, it is so easy for me to apply Christ. It is as easy as switching on a light.
I would ask you to take my simple instructions to practice to apply Christ. If you do, you will experience Christ more and more every day. He will never be exhausted by your experience. You will realize how rich He is. Whatever you need, He will be. All you must do is learn to deny the self. Then your soul — your mind, emotion, and will — will be renewed. By this kind of renewing, you will be transformed. If you deny your self, the Spirit of the Lord within you will honor you. He will strengthen you and cause you to experience His resurrection power and life. Then day by day you will taste Him and enjoy Him.
