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I. The Lord is the Spirit — 2 Cor. 3:17.
II. The Lord as the Spirit is the treasure in us as earthen vessels — 4:7.
III. Because we have the Lord as life in our spirit, our spirit becomes our inner man — Eph. 3:16.
IV. Our inner man takes Christ as the person — Gal. 2:20.
V. Our outer man needs to decay so that our inner man may be renewed — 2 Cor. 4:16.
VI. We are being transformed into the image of the Lord, even as from the Lord Spirit, by the renewing of our inner man — 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2.
VII. To be transformed by the renewing of the mind requires the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to be with us — 2 Cor. 13:14.
In this chapter we will consider the renewing of the inner man. This subject is both profound and fine. In order to make progress in spiritual matters, we need to learn to go deeper into them and to touch them in a deep and detailed way. This will be our approach as we consider the renewing of the inner man.
Our physical body is outward and superficial. However, within our body we have something that is most precious, something that neither scientists nor medical doctors are able to locate. This is our spirit (Job 32:8). The Bible clearly reveals that man has three parts. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, “The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete.” This verse distinguishes the spirit from the soul, putting the word and between the two words. This clearly shows us that the spirit and the soul are two different things.
The genuineness of our person is our spirit. Sometimes when we smile, our smile may not be genuine. Genuineness comes not only from the heart but also from the spirit. When we lose our temper, our spirit comes out. At that moment we are being genuine. If we become indignant or infuriated, our spirit really comes out. When we get angry to such an extent, we forget about our rationality, our face, and our relationship with others. As a result, our spirit is released. This kind of release of the spirit, however, is not normal but abnormal. Nevertheless, in such a situation our spirit does come out. The spirit of most people is not released easily. It is even more difficult for the spirit of a person who is very patient and refined to be released, for even when such a person is furious within, outwardly he can appear quite rational and cheerful. He knows how to control himself, but he is not genuine. His refined manner is a pretense.
We can illustrate the three parts of man with three concentric circles. The outer circle represents man’s body, the middle circle, which is within the outer circle, represents man’s soul, and the inner circle, which is within the middle circle, represents man’s spirit. Man’s soul is within his body, and man’s spirit is within his soul. Everyone is familiar with the body, but the soul is a bit more complicated. Man’s soul has three parts. The first part, which is the leading part, is the mind. The mind is the faculty by which we think. The mind can consider, memorize, comprehend, infer, and analyze. The emotion, which is the second part of the soul, is also quite strong. The emotion can love, desire, hate, and have joy or sorrow. The third part of the soul is the will. The will can make plans and decisions. Thus, the soul is composed of these three parts — the mind, the emotion, and the will.
On the one hand, human beings have a spirit. On the other hand, the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). The fact that the Lord is the Spirit implies three things. The first thing it implies is that, according to God’s nature, God is Spirit. This is similar to saying that the nature of a table is wood or that the nature of a metal pipe is iron. The second thing it implies is that, according to God’s economy, God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In God’s economy, which is God’s way to accomplish His work, first, God is the Father; second, He is the Son; and third, He is the Spirit. The Father is the source, the Son is the expression, and the Spirit is the One who enters into us. The third thing this fact implies is that, according to God’s plan of redemption, the Lord Jesus was incarnated to become a man, the last Adam, and that one day the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Therefore, after the Lord Jesus accomplished everything on the cross, God’s plan of redemption is still a matter of the Spirit. Thus, the entire Bible can be summarized by the statement the Lord is the Spirit. The Spirit includes God Himself, God’s economy, and God’s redemption. This is why we can say that the Spirit is all-inclusive. Today the God we worship and the Lord we serve is the Spirit. In fact, everything related to our God and our Lord is a matter of the Spirit. The Spirit who is within us today is truly a treasure.
Man is different from the beasts, because man has a spirit inside of him. Moreover, those who are saved are different from those who are not saved, because those who are saved not only have a human spirit, they also have received the Lord as the Spirit into them. Thus, as saved ones, we truly have reason to shout, “Hallelujah!” We have something that the unbelievers do not have — we have the Lord Himself in our spirit. How do we know that the Lord, who is the Spirit, has come into this particular part of our being? We know this because the Bible clearly says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). The Lord is Spirit, and as the Spirit, He enters into and lives in our spirit, causing us to be joined to Him as one spirit. The Bible also says, “The Lord be with your spirit,” and “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit” (2 Tim. 4:22a; Rom. 8:16). These verses prove that the Lord as the Spirit is in our spirit.
Let us now consider the difference between the outer man and the inner man. We have already stated that man is composed of three parts — body, soul, and spirit. Now we must ask, which of these three parts is our real person? Neither our body nor our spirit is our real person; our real person is our soul. We can see this in Genesis 2:7. This verse begins, “Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground.” This refers to the way in which God formed our body. Then this verse continues, “And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” This refers to the creation of man’s spirit. Finally, this verse ends, “And man became a living soul.” This final expression indicates that man’s person is the soul, for man became a living soul. In addition, there are also other verses in which the Bible uses the term souls to refer to persons. When the seventy members of Jacob’s family went down to Egypt, Exodus 1:5 refers to them as “seventy souls” (lit., Hebrew) rather than seventy persons; and when three thousand people received the Lord and were baptized on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:41 says, “There were added on that day about three thousand souls.” From these verses we can see that a person is a soul, and the soul is the person. In other words, the soul is the self and the personality.
Our body is an outward organ for contacting the physical world, and our spirit is an inward organ for contacting the spiritual world. Only our soul is our person. Originally, our spirit is merely an organ, but when Christ comes into our spirit, He comes into us as a person. Now we have a person in our spirit. As a result, our spirit, which now has a person and a life within it, is no longer only an organ. It has become a person. Formerly, we had only one person inside of us — the soul. However, now that the Lord has entered into our spirit to become the life of our spirit, our spirit has become a person. Thus, today we have two persons within us — our soul is the old man, the outer man, and our spirit is our new person, the inner man.
Since we now have two persons within us, I would pose the question, “Is it better to have one person or to have two persons within us?” Consider what it is like for two people to live together in the same room. Is it better to have one person or to have two persons live in one room? Nearly all would say that it is better to live alone. Why do we prefer to live alone? We prefer to live alone because when we live alone, we have more freedom. If we live alone, we have no one to bother us. We can open or close the doors and the windows as we please. As soon as two persons begin to live together, however, there is trouble. One person wants to open the window, but the other person wants to close the window. Right away there is the question of who should listen to whom. On the one hand, we cannot deny that it is a blessing that we are saved, for the Lord has come into us as a genuine treasure (2 Cor. 4:7). But on the other hand, it is also true that because the Lord has come into us, we experience some trouble. Before we were saved, it may have been very natural for us to tell a lie now and then, to occasionally play mah-jongg with our friends, and to curse when we lost our temper. This may have been the situation before we were saved, but what is our experience now? On the day that we were saved, Christ as the treasure came into us. Now if we want to tell a lie, we do not have peace. When we want to lie, He does not want to lie. Moreover, to do something like playing mah-jongg is now entirely out of the question. When we want to play mah-jongg, the Lord is not only unhappy about this; He even gets angry. Who can deny that this is troublesome?
Faced with this troublesome situation, what should we do? The Bible reveals that it is not good for us to have two persons within us at the same time. Thus, we must get rid of one of them. If we must do this, which one should we get rid of? Surely we must get rid of the old man. Romans 6:6 declares that “our old man has been crucified with Him,” and Galatians 2:20 states, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live.” When the old man is crucified, the new man is enlivened.
We all need to be clear that the Lord Jesus is in us not only as life but also as a person. Every man has a person within him, but those who have received the Lord into them as life have also received the Lord into them as another person. Thus, we need to see that the Lord is in us today not only as life but also as a person.
Ephesians 3:16-17 says that we need to be strengthened with power into the inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts. The fact that Christ wants to make His home within us indicates that He is a person. Thus, the question is, who is the person inside of us? Is the self the person, or is the Lord Jesus the person? It is true that the Lord Jesus is inside of us, but He can be inside of us in different ways. For example, you may receive me into your home, but this does not mean that I can make myself at home. Although you have invited me into your home, I am still only a guest. If you lead me into the living room and tell me, “Brother Lee, we have prepared this room for you,” then I can have the freedom to use that room. This does not mean, however, that I can move into any of the other rooms in your house. When I am in your house, everything is decided by you, not by me.
Today the Lord Jesus is inside of us, but will He be able to possess our whole being, or will we force Him to stay only in our spirit? Frankly, some brothers and sisters confine the Lord Jesus to a “corner” within them. You might be thinking, “Since Christmas is almost here, I will buy a few presents and send them to my children in the United States.” While you are thinking this, the Lord is in the “living room” of your spirit. However, in response to your plans, the Lord may try to come into the “room” of your mind, yet when He tries to do this, right away you shut the door to your mind, saying, “Lord! Please sit in the living room; do not come in here.” If this is the situation, then the Lord has not made His home within you.
One day a sister may come to a meeting and see a dress worn by one of the other sisters. Upon seeing the dress, she may be stirred up in her emotions because she likes the dress very much. As a result, she may quickly note the brand of the dress and ask the other sister where she bought it. However, while the sister is preparing to go out and buy the dress, the Lord Jesus may come to interfere with her plans. The Lord may begin by asking her, “Do you really want to buy that dress?” However, the sister may reply, “Lord, please stay in the living room. It does not feel so comfortable when You try to come into the room of my emotion. Please do not come in.” We all have experiences like this. There are many parts within us that we do not allow the Lord to enter into. We do not want Him to interfere with what takes place in these parts of our being. Thus, we force the Lord to stay in our spirit.
Because our tendency is to force the Lord to stay in our spirit, the apostle Paul prayed for us. He prayed that we would be strengthened into the inner man, so that as a result the Lord Jesus would be able to make His home in our hearts. For the Lord to make His home in our hearts means that He is able to go from our spirit to our conscience and from our conscience to our mind, emotion, and will, thus occupying our entire heart. Only when the Lord has this freedom will He be able to make His home in our hearts.
The Lord Jesus does not like to stay only in our spirit. He likes to visit our mind, emotion, and will. Moreover, once He has visited these parts, He does not want to leave; He wants to fully occupy them. This is what it means for Christ to make His home in our hearts. The Lord has indeed come into our spirit, but He is waiting in our spirit for a chance to spread His influence from our spirit into every corner, every part, of our being. The Lord wants to spread His influence in our being to the extent that if He does not move in our mind, we will not think about buying things, if He does not move in our emotion, we will not give our love to anything, and if He does not move in our will, we will not make any plans or decisions.
When the Lord Jesus gains the ground in every part of our being, He will then be able to make His home in our hearts. Thus, we must learn the lesson that as believers we are meant not only to rely on His power and live by His life but also to receive His entire person into us to be our person. This lesson is both deep and fine.
If we receive the Lord Jesus as our person in this way, our outer man will be consumed every day. The Lord will cause circumstances to rise up to consume our outer man, but as He is doing this, He will also cause our inner man to be renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). This is the meaning of John 3:30 — “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Our inner man, the new man, is Christ Himself. Christ must increase within us. Our outer man, the old man, is the self. The self must gradually decrease. The result of this increase and decrease will be that we no longer live but that Christ lives in us as our person (cf. Gal. 2:20). Then Christ will not only be our life; He will also live in us as our person. Hence, each of us will be able to declare, “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21).
This is a very sweet matter. Our inner man is being renewed and is expanding day by day. This will happen to the extent that one day even our body will express the glory of the Lord. In the end we will be transformed into His image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18). Brothers and sisters, this is what the Lord desires to gain today.
