Regeneration. 
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Spirit and Soul Spirit It is imperative that a believer know he has a spirit, since, as we shall soon learn, every communication of God with man occurs there. If the believer does not discern his own spirit he invariably is ignorant of how to commune with God in the spirit. He easily substitutes the thoughts or emotions of the soul for the works of the spirit. Thus he confines himself to the outer realm, unable ever to reach the spiritual realm.
1 Corinthians 2.11 speaks of “the spirit of the man which is in him.” 1 Corinthians 5.4 mentions “my spirit.” Romans 8.16 says “our spirit” 1 Corinthians 14.14 uses “my spirit.” 1 Corinthians 14.32 tells of the “spirits of prophets.” Proverbs 25.28 refers to “his own spirit.” Darby Hebrews 12.23 record “the spirits of just men.” Zechariah 12.1 states that “the Lord . . . formed the spirit of man within him.”
The above Scripture verses sufficiently prove that we human beings do possess a human spirit. This spirit is not synonymous with our soul nor is it the same as the Holy Spirit. We worship God in this spirit. According to the teaching of the Bible and the experience of believers, the human spirit can be said to comprise three parts; or, to put it another way, one can say it has three main functions. These are conscience, intuition and communion. The conscience is the discerning organ which distinguishes right and wrong; not, however, through the influence of knowledge stored in the mind but rather by a spontaneous direct judgment. Often reasoning will justify things which our conscience judges. The work of the conscience is independent and direct; it does not bend to outside opinions. If man
36 The Spiritual Man
should do wrong it will raise its voice of accusation. Intuition is the sensing organ of the human spirit. It is so diametrically different from physical sense and soulical sense that it is called intuition. Intuition involves a direct sensing independent of any outside influence. That knowledge which comes to us without any help from the mind, emotion or volition comes intuitively. We really “know” through our intuition; our mind merely helps us to “understand.” The revelations of God and all the movements of the Holy Spirit are known to the believer through his intuition. A believer must therefore heed these two elements: the voice of conscience and the teaching of intuition. Communion is worshiping God. The organs of the soul are incompetent to worship God. God is not apprehended by our thoughts, feelings or intentions, for He can only be known directly in our spirits. Our worship of God and God’s communications with us are directly in the spirit. They take place in “the inner man,” not in the soul or outward man. We can conclude then that these three elements of conscience, intuition and communion are deeply interrelated and function coordinately. The relationship between conscience and intuition is that conscience judges according to intuition; it condemns all conduct which does not follow the directions given by intuition. Intuition is related to communion or worship in that God is known by man intuitively and reveals His will to man in the intuition. No measure of expectation or deduction gives us the knowledge of God. From the following three groups of Scripture verses it can readily be observed that our spirits possess the function of conscience (we do not say that the spirit is conscience), the function of intuition (or spiritual sense), and the function of. communion (or worship).
A) The Function o f Conscience in Man’s Spirit “The Lord your God hardened his spirit” Deut. 2.30 “Saves the crushed in spirit” Ps. 34.18 “Put a new and right spirit within me” Ps. 51.10
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“When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit” John 13.21 “His spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols” Acts 17.16 “It is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” Rom. 8.16 “I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment” 1 Cor. 5.3 “I had no rest in my spirit” 2 Cor. 2.13 AV “For God did not give us the spirit of timidity” 2 Tim. 1.7 B) The Function of Intuition in Man’s Spirit “The spirit indeed is willing” Matt. 26.41 “Jesus perceiving in his spirit” Mark 2.8 “He sighed deeply in his spirit” Mark 8.12 “He was deeply moved in spirit” John 11.33 “Paul was pressed in the spirit” Acts 18.5 AV “Being fervent in spirit” Acts 18.25 “I am going to Jerusalem, bound in the spirit” Acts 20.22 “What person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him” 1 Cor. 2.11 “They refreshed my spirit as well as yours” 1 Cor. 16.18 “His spirit was refreshed by you all” 2 Cor. 7.13 AV C) The Function o f Communion in Man’s Spirit “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior” Luke 1.47 “The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” John 4.23 “Whom I serve with my spirit” Rom. 1.9 “We serve . . . in the new life of the spirit” Rom. 7.6 “You have received the spirit of sonship when we cry Abba Father” Rom. 8.15 “The Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit” Rom. 8.16 “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” 1 Cor. 6.17 “I will sing with the spirit” 1 Cor. 14.15 “If you bless with the spirit” 1 Cor. 14.16 “In the spirit he carried me away” Rev 21.10
We can know by these Scriptures that our spirit possesses at least these three functions. Although unregenerated men do not yet have life, they nevertheless possess these functions (but their worship is of evil spirits). Some people manifest more of these functions while
38 The Spiritual Man
others less. This does not however imply that they are not dead in sins and transgressions. The New Testament does not consider those with a sensitive conscience, keen intuition or a spiritual tendency and interest to be saved individuals. Such people only prove to us that aside from the mind, emotion and will of our soul, we also have a spirit. Prior to regeneration the spirit is separated from God’s life; only afterwards does the life of God and of the Holy Spirit dwell in our spirits. They then have been quickened to be instruments of the Holy Spirit. Our aim in studying the significance of the spirit is to enable us to realize that we as human beings possess an independent spirit. This spirit is not man’s mind, his will or his emotion; on the contrary, it includes the functions of conscience, intuition and communion. It is here in the spirit that God regenerates us, teaches us, and leads us into His rest. But sad to say, due to long years of bondage to the soul many Christians know very little of their spirit. We ought to tremble before God, asking Him to teach us through experience what is spiritual and what is soulish. Before the believer is born again his spirit becomes so sunken and surrounded by his soul that it is impossible for him to distinguish whether something is emanating from the soul or from the spirit. The functions of the latter have become mixed up with those of the former. Furthermore, the spirit has lost its primary function— towards God; for it is dead to God. It thus would appear that it has become an accessory to the soul. And as the mind, emotion and volition grow stronger, the functions of the spirit become so eclipsed as to render them almost unknown. That is why there must be the work of dividing between soul and spirit after a believer is regenerated. In searching the Scriptures it does seem that an unregenerated spirit functions no differently from the way the soul does. The following verses illustrate this.
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“His spirit was troubled” Gen. 41.8 “Then their spirit was appeased toward him” Judges 8.3 Darby “He that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly” Prov. 14.29 Darby “A downcast spirit dries up the bones” Prov. 17.22 “Those who err in spirit” Is. 29.24 “And shall wail for anguish of spirit” Is. 65.14 “His spirit was hardened” Dan. 5.20
These show us the works of the unregenerated spirit and indicate how similar are its works to those of the soul. The reason for not mentioning soul but spirit is to reveal what has occurred in the very depth of man. It discloses how man’s spirit has become controlled and influenced completely by his soul with the result that it manifests the works of the soul. The spirit nonetheless still exists because these works come from the spirit. Though ruled by the soul the spirit does not cease to be an organ.
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- Re: Regenerating your life. tomi444
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This is a reply to # 2,326,641What then must one do to be born anew in one’s spirit? We know that the Lord Jesus died in the sinner’s place. He suffered in His body on the cross for all the sins of the world. God views the death of the Lord Jesus as the death of all the world’s people.
His holy humanity suffered death for all unholy humanity. But something does remain for man himself to do. He must exercise faith in committing himself—spirit, soul and body—into union with the Lord Jesus. That is to say, he must reckon the death of the Lord Jesus as his own death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus as his own resurrection. This is the meaning of
John 3.16: “Whoever believes into (literal) him should not perish but have eternal life.” The sinner must exercise faith and a believing into the Lord Jesus. By so doing, he is united with Him in His death and resurrection and receives eternal life (John 17.3)—which is spiritual life—unto regeneration. Let us be careful not to separate into distinct matters the death of the
Lord Jesus as our substitute and our death with Him. Those who stress mental understanding will surely so do, but in spiritual life these two are inseparable. Substitutionary death and co-death should be distinguished but never separated. If one believes in the death of the Lord Jesus as his substitute he already has been united with the Lord Jesus in His death (Rom. 6.2).
For me to believe in the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus is to believe that I already have been punished in the Lord Jesus. The penalty of my sin is death; yet the Lord Jesus suffered death for me; therefore I have died in Him. There can be no salvation otherwise. To say that He died for me is to say that I already have been penalized and have died in Him. Everyone who believes in this fact shall experience its reality. We may say then that the faith by which a sinner believes in the death of the Lord Jesus as substitute is “believing into” Christ and
thus union with Him. Though a person may be concerned only with the penalty for sin and not with the power of sin, his being united with the
Lord is nonetheless the common possession he shares with all who believe in Christ. He who is not united with the Lord has not yet believed and therefore has no part in Him. In believing, one is united with the Lord. To be united with Him means to experience everything He has experienced. In John 3 our Lord informs us how we are united with Him. It is by our being united with Him in His crucifixion and death (vv.14-15).
Every believer at least positionally has been united with the Lord in His death, but obviously “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6.5). Hence he who believes in the death of the Lord Jesus as his substitute is likewise positionally raised up with Christ. Though he may not yet fully experience the meaning of the death of the Lord Jesus, God nevertheless has made him alive together with Christ and he has obtained a new life in the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus. This is new birth. We should beware lest we insist that a man is not born anew unless he has experienced death and resurrection with the Lord.
The Scriptures deem anyone who believes in the Lord Jesus as already regenerated. “All who received him, who believed in his name . . . were . . . born of God” (John 1.12-13). Let it be understood that to be raised together with the Lord is not an experience antecedent to the new birth. Our regeneration is our union with the Lord in His resurrection as well as in His death. His death has concluded our sinful walk, and His resurrection has given us a new life and initiated us into the life of a Christian. The Apostle assures us that “we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1.3). He indicates that every bornagain Christian has been resurrected already with the Lord. However, the Apostle Paul in Philippians still urges us to experience “the power of His resurrection” (3.10).
Many Christians have been born
anew and been thus raised with the Lord, even though they are lacking in the manifestation of resurrection power. Do not confuse, then, position with experience. At the time one believes in the Lord Jesus he may be most weak and ignorant; he is nonetheless placed by God in the perfect position of being considered dead, raised and ascended with the Lord. He who is accepted in Christ is as acceptable as Christ.
This is position. And his position is: all that Christ has experienced is his. And position causes him to experience new birth, because it hinges not on how deep he has known experimentally the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus, but on whether he has believed in Him. Even if experimentally a believer is totally ignorant of the resurrection power of Christ (Phil. 3.10), he has been made alive together with Christ, raised up with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly places (Eph. 2.5-6). Still another matter should be carefully noticed with respect to regeneration; namely, that far more became ours than simply what we had in Adam before the fall. On that day Adam possessed spirit; yet it was created by God.
It was not God’s uncreated life typified by the tree of life. No life relationship existed at all between Adam and God. His being called “the son of God” is similar to the angels being so called, for he was created directly by God. We who believe in the Lord Jesus, however, are “born of God” (John 1.12-13). Accordingly, there is a life relationship. A child born inherits his father’s life; we are born of God; therefore, we have His life (2 Peter 1.4). Had Adam received the life which God offered in the tree of life, he immediately would have obtained the eternal uncreated life of God. His spirit came from God, and so it is everlasting. How this everlasting spirit shall live depends upon how one regards God’s order and upon what choice he makes. The life we Christians obtain in regeneration is the same which Adam could have had but never had:
God’s life. Regeneration not only retrieves out of chaotic darkness the order of man’s spirit and soul; it additionally affords man the supernatural life of God. Man’s darkened and fallen spirit is made alive through being strengthened by the Holy Spirit into accepting God’s life. This is new birth. The basis upon which the Holy Spirit can regenerate man is the cross (John 3.14-15). The eternal life declared in John 3.16 is the life of God which the Holy Spirit plants in man’s spirit. Since this life is God’s and cannot die, it follows that everyone born anew into possessing this life is said to have eternal life. As God’s life is totally unfamiliar with death, so the eternal life in man never dies. A life relationship is established with God in new birth. It resembles the old birth of the flesh in that it is once and for all. Once a man is born of God he can never be treated by God as not having been so born of Him.
However endless eternity may be, this relationship and this position cannot be annulled. This is because what a believer receives at new birth is not contingent upon a progressive, spiritual and holy pursuit after he believes but is the pure gift of God. What God bestows is eternal life. No possibility exists for this life and position to be abrogated.
Receiving God’s life in new birth is the starting point of a Christian walk, the minimum for a believer. Those who have not yet believed on the death of the Lord Jesus and received supernatural life (which they cannot possess naturally), are deemed in the sight of God to be dead, no matter how religious, moral, learned or zealous they may be. Those who do not have God’s life are dead. For those who are born anew, there is great potentiality for spiritual growth. Regeneration is the obvious first step in spiritual development. Though the life received is perfect, it waits to be matured. At the moment of new birth life cannot be full-grown. It is like a fruit newly formed: the life is perfect but it is still unripe.
There is therefore boundless possibility for growth. The Holy Spirit is able to bring the person into complete victory over body and soul.
- Re: Regenerating your life. tomi444
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