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As human beings, made up of body, soul, and spirit, we need to understand more about our person. The body is not our person but a vessel containing it. The spirit is not our person either but an organ through which God may be contacted. It is the soul that is our person. In order for us to adequately know our spirit, we must first distinguish these different parts of which we are comprised.
In referring to people, the Bible calls them souls. “All the souls who came forth from the loins of Jacob were seventy souls” (Exo. 1:5, lit.) means that there were seventy people. “There were added on that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41) means there were three thousand more persons with them. Every person is a soul. From this we may infer that the soul is the person. When the rich man in Luke 16 died, his body was buried, but his person still existed in Hades (vv. 22-31).
Our human life, the self, is in the soul. The body is the seat of bios, the physical life. Psuche, our person, is in our soul.
When we are regenerated, this relationship between the soul as our person and the spirit as the organ, by which we contact God, changes. With the divine life coming into our spirit, another person is within us. Our existence becomes complicated, because the natural person in our soul is not in agreement with the person in our spirit. In a way regeneration is like getting married. When you are single, you make all the decisions according to your preference. But once you have a husband, he may want the window open when you want it shut, or he may want you to go out with him when you want to stay home. This same complication, of two persons with conflicting ways, arises in us as Christians.
Our soul is the natural man. Our spirit, regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, is the inner man. It is this second person, the inner man, that is the object of God’s good pleasure. In actuality, this person is Jesus Christ, mingled with you. He is God’s delight. The person in your soul is offensive and displeasing to God, but the One in your spirit is a sweet fragrance to Him.
This mingling of the Holy Spirit with the human spirit is a mingling of divinity with humanity. The life that has come into us is divine and eternal.
How shall we take care of these two lives? Is the person in the soul to be nourished and beautified? The Bible calls him our old man and says that he has been crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6). What we must do with this first person is to disregard him. In the words of the Lord Jesus, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). To take up the cross means to stay there, where Christ has put us. Declare to the old man in the soul that he is on the cross. Then deny him by disregarding him.
Does this mean that the soul is nullified? The natural life in our soul has been crucified, but the functions of the soul still remain and are still useful. Our soul still thinks and decides, loves and hates. It is not our mind, emotion, and will that have been crucified but rather the old man in the soul. What has happened is that the soul is no longer the person but an organ. Now the spirit is the person, no longer only an organ.
In our daily experience we find that part of the time we are persons in the soul and other times our person is in the spirit. While we are attending the meeting, we may be a person in the spirit, listening to God’s Word, praying, and worshipping. But after we get home, something our spouse does may annoy us, and again we become persons in our soul. Our irritation may last most of the night, making us sleepless. When we get up the next morning, we say to the Lord, “Forgive me, Lord, for my failure last night. Cleanse me by Your blood.” Once again we enjoy the Lord’s presence and become a person in the spirit.
God wants us to be persons in the spirit. The soul’s use is as an organ; it is not to be our person. Many, many times in the course of the day, however, we travel back and forth from spirit to soul and from soul to spirit. Our soul needs to be exhorted, “Soul, formerly you were my person, but now you are simply an organ. I do not regard you as my person. My real person is the inner man, my spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit with the Lord Jesus.”
Ask the Lord to help you practice. “Lord, thank You that I have a new person. I am not that old man. My regenerated spirit, indwelt by You, is my new person. Help me to walk, live, act, and speak in the spirit, no longer in the soul. I want to live by the inner man.”
This kind of prayer may be new to us. It is far more common to pray for the Lord to help us submit to our husband or to love our wife, that we might obey His Word. But praying in an ethical way like this results in even less submission and love than before.
Rejoice in this new person within you. He submits to the headship. In Him is the love for your wife. This person is the very Lord Himself mingling with your spirit.
What we have said thus far is a preparation for us to understand Ephesians 3:16: “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man.” For many years I have been considering this verse. It is not easy to understand.
When the apostle prayed that God the Father would grant us to be strengthened, he was praying for our precise need. We are weak. Our need is to be made strong.
This phrase, though we can easily read the words, is hard to understand. We are to be strengthened according to a standard. That standard is the extent of the riches of God’s glory. The strengthening is not only according to the degree of God’s glory but even to the riches of His glory. What do these profound words mean?
Glory is God manifested. If we pray that we may be strengthened into our inner man, the result will be that we are full of God’s expression. When God is expressed, there is glory. The riches of His glory are the divine virtues — namely, love, life, light, holiness, and righteousness. These riches of God’s expression will be seen in us. Others will sense the glory of God upon us. This is the meaning of God’s strengthening us according to the riches of His glory.
The Greek word for power here is related to the English words dynamo and dynamic. The power referred to is like a generator; it means a tremendous force. This is the very power that sufficed to raise Christ from the dead, uplift Him to the third heaven, and seat Him there far above all (1:19-21). It is with this same power that God the Father would strengthen us. What a mighty power there is within our spirit!
It is through the Spirit of God that we are strengthened with power.
This phrase, especially the word into, troubled me for years. Why did Paul use the word into rather than in? No doubt he chose the word into intentionally. Gradually through experience I began to understand the thought behind the words.
When we are weak, we are outside the inner man. We are in our mind, emotion, will, or heart. If we are considering how inadequate the elders are or how insubordinate the sisters are, we may be assured that we are in the mind. Whatever we are thinking will lead to trouble. Flee from the mind! Escape to the spirit! We are weak when we are in our mind.
The mind is the highway on which the brothers drive. Most sisters, in contrast, are in their emotions. They consider why this or that sister does not pay any attention to them, or why the elders respect another sister more than them. There are also a few brothers and sisters who stay in their will. Their aspiration is to be better than all the others in the church. They resolve not to criticize the elders, even though they feel that the elders are not doing a good job.
These descriptions give us a picture of the general condition of a local church: most brothers in their mind, most sisters in their emotion, and a few brothers and sisters in their will. What a weak condition! That is why Paul prayed that God the Father would grant us to be strengthened into the inner man.
Exhorting or admonishing the saints does not help to bring them into the inner man. Telling the brothers and sisters not to gossip, for example, seems to lead to more gossip. The best way to be drawn into your inner man is to pray. Forget your situation. Do not consider your condition. Do not be concerned about your gossiping tongue. Pray! “Lord, I need You. I want to breathe You in. Impart Yourself into the depths of my being. I long to see You. Meet me as I pray-read Your Word. Add more and more of Yourself to me.”
If you spend some time praying this way, you will find that you are transferred from your mind, emotion, will, or even your heart, and into your spirit. The interest in gossiping will be gone. You will be strengthened through the Spirit of God with power.
The Father longs to see us live this way. His good pleasure is that we be strengthened into the inner man according to the riches of His glory. Morality and ethical virtue cannot compare with the expression of the divine life through us. It is not a matter of staying away from department stores or from places of worldly entertainment because we do not love the world anymore. That attitude is too shallow. What we do is the outcome of our being strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man.
When we are thus strengthened, Christ will make His home in our heart, and we will be filled unto all the fullness of God (3:17, 19). This is the church life. By being filled with God’s riches, we become the expression of those riches. We are strengthened into our inner man, Christ makes His home in our heart, and we are filled even to the extent of the full expression of God.
Do not think such a living is beyond us. If this were not possible, it would not be mentioned in the Word. This is the normal church life, fully expressing the Triune God. The Lord’s recovery is not for doctrines or for outward practices. It is for the experience of being strengthened into our inner man, that Christ may occupy our whole being until eventually we are filled with God unto His full expression. Do not be discouraged about the elders. Do not worry about the condition of the church. Do not talk about this brother or that sister. Pray, “Father, thank You for my regenerated spirit where Christ dwells. Do strengthen me according to the riches of Your glory, through Your powerful Spirit, into my inner man. Spread out from my spirit and settle also in my heart. Make Your home in my whole inward being, that I may be filled with You, unto Your full expression.”
When the Lord wholly occupies us, we are one with all believers. This oneness is the meaning of being built together. “Being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone; in whom all the building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit” (2:20-22). Being close to certain saints is not what is meant by being built together. It is when we are fully one with the Lord and saturated with Him that we are also one with all other believers.
The building comes as the element of Christ increases in us. Suppose you go to Japan and meet a Japanese brother there. You will sense a kinship with him because you both have the life-giving Spirit, even if only in an initial way, connecting you. But if you spend some length of time together, you will begin to feel uneasy. He does not express his feelings, and you cannot tell if he is happy or annoyed. You speak so openly, but he is inscrutable. The American disposition differs from the Japanese.
However, the same problem of disposition arises in a brothers’ house where all are Americans. They have the initial relationship through the life-giving Spirit, but friction arises even in the matter of washing dishes because each brother has his own disposition. Even though they are growing as they attend the meetings week by week, their disposition does not change.
Your disposition will faithfully cling to you year after year! God’s economy is not to change your disposition but to fill you with Christ. As He increases in you, you will gradually change. Little by little you will be saturated with Him, and your own disposition will be swallowed up.
This organic, inward change, which is called sanctification and transformation, makes us one with other saints wherever we go. When this is the case, we are built up. Please be clear that building among the saints is not intimacy, friendship, or affection. It is purely the increase of Christ in all of us.
You must grow. For Christ to increase, you must remain in, or return to, your spirit, where He is. Do not try to improve yourself. Practice staying in your spirit. If you walk out, come back quickly. Especially work on this at home. It is easy to be in spirit in the meetings or when you are with more spiritual ones. The test comes when you are alone with your spouse. This is the easiest time to indulge your self.
May the Father strengthen us all into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in our hearts, and that we may be built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit. This is His good pleasure.
