Soul and Spirit

Soul and Spirit

God jealously yearns for the spirit which He let dwell in us. Jas. 4:5. What does God want to do with our spirit? He wants to sanctify it—separate it unto Himself in order to make it alive.

The first Adam became a living soul. This soul was defiled and ruined by sin. When Christ, the last Adam, came, He voluntarily partook of this soul that was defiled by sin by being made sin for us; He poured this soul out unto death (Isa. 53:12; Heb. 2:14), and He Himself became a life-giving, or quickening spirit. 1 Cor. 15:45. This life-giving spirit yearns to possess our spirit completely and entirely.

Man consists of body, soul, and spirit. The body is to be reckoned dead because of sin (Rom. 8:10), because sin is manifested through the body; the soul must be poured out into the death of Christ (i.e., the old life shall die), but God yearns for our spirit in order to make it alive. In 1 Timothy 3:16 we read that Christ was justified in the spirit. It is precisely in our spirit where personal righteousness dwells. Thus God has determined that our life is to be a spiritual life in which our spirit makes contact with the Spirit. It is indeed in our spirit that God has put our life in God, our hope, and our faith. In Galatians 5:5 we read that we by faith wait in the spirit for the things that righteousness gives us reason to hope for. In other words, we have the expectation in the spirit concerning the hope which righteousness in the spirit gives us. What else is that but that we shall receive again incorruptible what we here on earth had to reckon as dead because of sin? What a blessed, living hope we have in the spirit of a corresponding hope of being clothed upon with a glory that is perfectly suited for a spirit that is made alive!

God has to separate our spirit from whatever it is bound to, so that He can deal with it. As long as a person is bound to the world, his entire spirit-life is bound to the flesh, which makes him think and live according to its will, so that the spirit follows the body and its desires.

After a person has received the forgiveness of sins, he continues in faith, and as many as are willing to believe are crucified with Christ, which means that the flesh with its passions and desires is crucified.

Now the spirit has been separated from the flesh. Now the person has victory over the tendencies of the flesh, and the spirit can now follow its new desire, which is life and peace. However, there is another division that is necessary. This we find in Hebrews 4:12. The word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing through until it divides between soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, judging the thoughts and intents of the heart. Here we can clearly see that the edge of the sword is to pierce deeply into our inner life—even to the point of dividing between soul and spirit. And this is where we come to the deepest life-process itself—losing our life in order to find it. The life is in the soul, and the soul is in the blood. This is where we are to lose the old soul-life according to the first Adam, so that the last Adam can raise up the new spirit-life in our spirit. Therefore, Jesus says that the one who loses his life shall find his life. You lose the old life by dying with Christ, because He poured out His soul; you will find the new life by living with Christ, because He is a life-giving Spirit to our spirit. Now we understand why God jealously desires our spirit. The aim of all God’s leading in our life is to have our spirit made alive, so that we can be a spirit-power in Him with a spiritual perspective, with spiritual goals, and a spiritual growth.

Once a person has been baptized with the Spirit, he has thereby received power to lay down his old soul-life, because the dying of Christ is now working in the old life with the intent that the old life is now being poured out in the same manner as He poured it out. Christ did not pour out His life so I can avoid doing it. He poured out His life for this very purpose—that I can follow Him on this way—even if it is ever so narrow. Because we cannot lose our life in the power of our own life, God has given us the Spirit so we can lay down our life in the power of the Spirit. When the sword-blows of the Spirit begin to strike and cleave, we have received the power to let it happen—the power not to draw back. The person who has been baptized with the Holy Spirit but does not use this power according to the mind of the Spirit, i.e., to lay down his life, has received the baptism of the Spirit in vain, because he has only received it for the enjoyment of the soul, which is united with his spirit. The old “I” is lodged in the old soul-life, and this soul-life desires to be covered by grace. However, it must die so that God’s righteousness can enter the spirit.

The one who is willing to let the word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit, divide between soul and spirit, will further experience the specific working of God’s Spirit in his spirit. This work transpires without the participation of the soulish element. The work of the Spirit with our spirit is, first of all, that He gives light to our feet and is a lamp on the path that lies ahead of us; secondly, He puts a compelling power into our spirit to walk in this light, in this truth, and in the glories which He has presented to our spirit, and thereby our spirit is always impelled to go forward, because the Spirit of God always gives us new light. This is a prophetic inner light of the Spirit on our ways. God’s Spirit shines on a dark place until the Morning Star arises in our heart; i.e., until the light and the truth we have seen becomes our life. In other words, it enters our spirit and transforms it according to what we have seen. Through a driving power toward glorious revelation in our spirit, we sense our poverty of spirit by receiving a vision of these things. The poverty of our spirit and the riches in God’s Spirit meet, and we are increasingly filled in our spirit with the righteousness of God. Thus we receive a constraining power in our spirit, and this will always be noticeable in word as well as in deed.

Just as the Spirit of God is now dealing with us by leading us to perfection through His constraining power, so we will now deal with every human spirit that is in need of our ministry. Then we work with the others as God’s Spirit works with us, namely, by giving them light to their feet and on their paths so they can always take another step forward on the ways of God into God’s mysteries. Because we ourselves are led in this manner, this same constraining power of God dwells in our human spirit, which now gives light to the ones we are serving. The one who now hears also knows that he has both light and strength to enter into this light.

However, if our spirit is still bound to soulish things, our desire will be to enjoy our own life, our state, and our victories; and whatever we desire, we will also speak about as the most desirable thing, because everyone praises what he desires. Since such a person’s spirit-life is bound to his old soul-life, and since, for that reason, there is no constraining power in him that compels him to go forward, he cannot give light to the others’ feet. He rather loves to speak about himself in the midst of all his blessings and enjoyments; he loves to relate how glorious “I” have it. Quite often there is a race between such people to present their own enjoyment as the greatest, in order to be considered the greatest spiritual person. This kind of person is engaged in a constant retreat to their first state, but those who are being freed out from their soul-life are engaged in constantly advancing toward the things that lie ahead; they have a perpetual hunger for more of that with which God can satisfy them. Thus we find that the foundation of the one person’s words is his soulish state, whereas the foundation of the other person’s words is the Spirit of God. The first person sets up his state and his experiences as a form of doctrine, seeking to adapt God’s Word to it. The second person, who is liberated, has the Spirit of God as the foundation for his doctrines, because the Spirit of God enlightens his spirit without going by way of the old soulish life.

This dividing process between soul and spirit occurs only in those people who have truly started to go the way of the cross. They are the ones who forsake everything in order to win the prize. There are many people who have been baptized with the Spirit; nevertheless, they are still anchored in their old, soulish self-life. They have no desire to go further because they are entirely rich and content where they are. However, if they do not progress into the riches and the mind of Christ, they will more often than not, backslide. Their spirit is not only bound to their soul-life, it will even form attachments to the flesh again. This attachment to the flesh is expressed (as everyone knows) by envy, quarreling, strife, arguments, backbiting, etc. By observing the believers’ lives, we will discover that at one time many of them had begun in the spirit but have now descended utterly into the flesh. This will be obvious to every clear-seeing eye.

The person who desires to advance to the perfection of his spirit forsakes everything and is always willing to let his spirit be driven deeper into God’s unsearchable riches by the Spirit of God.

Jesus committed His body to His enemies, His soul into death, and His spirit to God. “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”

When we enter into this process of letting the soul be divided from the spirit, i.e., into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, the spirit will assume control of our body. Just as the body was formerly driven by the strength of the old soul-life, so this strength is now put aside and the body becomes subservient to the spirit. See Romans 12:1. Therefore, presenting our body as a sacrifice in serving becomes a spiritual service because the service and the sacrifice are determined in our spirit. The works we perform now by means of this corruptible body become the fine linen (Rev. 19:8) of the new body. That which is done by the body will be added to the body. It is done in corruption; it is added in incorruption. By means of wisdom, truth, and love in our quickened spirit, we can produce the most excellent treasures manifested by the works that are performed by our body and thus reap the most precious riches in the world to come. The fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. However, righteous deeds are rooted in a righteous spirit.

The more our spirit is separated, the more alive it can be; the separated spirit is now completely free to grow so that it can be continually renewed and filled, as it is written: “Renewed in the spirit of your mind . . . .” Eph. 4:23.

The spirit of your mind. In the world, a person’s mind is in external things, but now it is raised beyond the carnal and soulish things and focused on the highest spiritual things—God’s eternal wisdom. If you worship on a soulish level, your whole attitude of mind will be to enjoy your Christian life and speak about its blessings and gifts, etc. But if your mind has been raised up into the spirit, it will be entirely occupied with the glories of Christ. This is the spirit of the mind that needs to be renewed, and this is done by a continual filling of the Spirit of God. Thus our mind and our spirit become increasingly divine.

Paul writes, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thess. 5:23.

During this life-process, if our spirit, soul, and body are not preserved blameless before our conscience, then that proves that the flesh has gained the upper hand and, we have done something which our conscience judges. Only by keeping our spirit, soul, and body from sin can we become partakers of this life where soul is divided from spirit. At this stage, the victory in our life is so perfect that even the soul that is to be poured out must be blameless, so that it cannot be judged by the conscience.

This developing spirit-life leads to the highest measure of spiritual purity, power, and victory. God’s energy and power of action, God’s righteousness and His manifold wisdom, an abundance of joy and love, now fills our spirit that is charged with a heavenly elasticity and power to suffer, endure, bear, and carry out all of God’s will according to His pleasure. The end result of all this is an exceedingly abundant entrance into God’s eternal kingdom.