Many who read this will be familiar with the position
of psychology, and it is just here that we find that
point which makes all the difference between the natural,
which keeps God out, and the spiritual, which gives Him
His full place. For here we find that the scriptural
description of man runs entirely counter to the
conclusions of 'scientific' psychology. We have observed
that the psychologist will not allow the threefold
description of man as spirit, soul and body, but only
soul—or mind—and body. But still, the
psychologist has to confess to the existence of a third
element. He recognizes it, finds his chief interest and
occupation with it, builds up a whole system of
experimentation around it, and often borders on calling
it by its right name. But to do so would be to give too
much away; and Satan, who has the mind of the natural man
well on leash, sees to it that in this, as in other
matters, just the word is not used. The
psychologist, therefore, recoils and calls the extra
factor 'the subconscious mind', or 'the subjective mind',
or 'the subliminal self', or 'the secondary personality',
etc.
Listen to some of the things which indicate the length
to which such teachers go:
'The soul consists of two parts, the one being
addicted to the truth, and loving honesty and reason; the
other brutish, deceitful, sensuous'.
Or again:
'There is a schism in the soul'.
'The existence of a schism in the soul is not a mere
dogma of theology, but a fact of science'.
'Man is endowed with two minds, each of which is
capable of independent action, and they are capable of
simultaneous action; but, in the main, they possess
independent powers and perform independent functions. The
distinctive faculties of one pertain to this life: those
of the other are especially adapted to a higher plane of
existence. I distinguish them by designating one as the
objective mind, and the other as the subjective mind'.
'Whatever faculties are found to exist in the
subjective mind of any sentient being, necessarily
existed potentially in the ancestry of that being, near
or remote. It is a corollary that whatever faculties
we may find to exist in the subjective mind of man must
necessarily exist in its possibility, potentially, in the
mind of God the Father'. (All italics ours.)
When we read things like this, two things press for
exclamation: first, Oh, why not call it by its right
name! The other: What a tragedy that pagan philosophers
should have been their sphere of research and that the
Bible should have been set aside! It may be thought that
it does not matter much what you call it if you get hold
of the thing itself. But we hold that it is vital to read
that we are dealing with two things which are absolutely
distinct and separate, and not with two sides of one
thing. It is error to speak of soul-union or
soul-communion with God, for there is no such thing.
'Divine union' is with spirit. "He that is joined
unto the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor 6:17),
and however highly developed the soul-life is, there is
no 'Divine union' until the spirit has been brought back
to its right place and condition.
This opens a further big question:
What is it that is Born Again?
This experience is said by Christ to be imperative
(John 3:3,5,etc.).
Nicodemus stumbled over the physical question, but was
soon told that "that which is born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit". Firstly, then, and obviously, it is not the
body that is born anew. But neither is it the soul!
"The sinful body of the flesh was destroyed"
(Rom 6:6), and "they that are Christ's have
crucified the flesh with the affections and
lusts" (Gal 5:24). The passages similar to
these are too many to quote, but look up
"flesh", "old man", "natural
man", etc. The answer to the question is
emphatically that new birth is the requickening of the
human spirit by the Spirit of God, an imparting
to it of Divine life, and thus a re-uniting of man with
God by one life in the inward man. This, of course, is
solely on the ground of Christ's resurrection, and is the
believer's union with Him therein; implying that all the
meaning of His death as atoning, substitutionary and
representative, has been accepted by faith, although
perhaps not understood. From that time it is "in
newness of the spirit" (Rom 7:6). The soul may still
be capable of its erstwhile fears, doubts, questionings,
feelings, etc., showing that it is not a new
soul: but there is something deeper than all this, and
God is greater than our souls. That which is the truest
thing about the new-born is often deeper than
consciousness, and although the soul, and even the body,
may derive good and enjoy the blessing, God will seek to
wean us as babes from the sensations to the fact and to
Himself. Such as must have, and demand,
in the senses continuous evidence of their new life will
not grow up spiritually, but will remain babes. More on
this later. Seeing that we have seemed to give the soul
such a completely secondary place, we must hasten to the
third question.
What is the Place of the Soul?
What have we said and inferred as to the soul? We have
indicated that it was with his soul that Adam sinned. The
result of this was that it is with the soul that the evil
powers have become allied. Further, a consequence is that
man has become pre-eminently a soulical being as against
a spiritual; that is, soul dominates. Thus man is in a
disrupted state, and represents an upsetting of a Divine
order. This is only one part of a much wider derangement
through Adam's sin. In the new creation in Christ the
principles of the true Divine order are re-established.
The spirit quickened, raised, indwelt and united with
Christ is set to be the organ of Divine government over
the rest of man, soul and body. In a truly spiritual or
born-anew person, the soul and body will not have a place
of pre-eminence, but in their right place will be very
fruitful and useful servants and instruments. By his
soul, man functions in two directions—from within to
without, and from without to within. The soul is the
plane and organ of human life and communication.
Even Divine things, which cannot in the first instance be
grasped or known by the soul, if they are to become practical
in human life, must have an organ constituted to
interpret, translate and make intelligible to humans.
Thus, what is received by the spirit alone with its
peculiar faculties (see later) is translated for
practical purposes, firstly to the recipient himself, and
then to other humans, by means of the soul. This may be
by an enlightened mind for truth (reason); a filled
heart, with joy or love etc., for comfort and uplift
(emotion); or energized will for action or execution
(volition). But it must ever be borne in mind that to
really serve Divine ends and to be of eternal
value this does not come in the first instance from our
own souls, but from God to, and through, our spirits. It
must be truth by revelation (Eph 1:17,18 R.V.) not
firstly of our own reasoning; joy and love by the Holy
Spirit, not our own emotion; energy and strength in
Christ, not our own drive and force of will. When these
latter obtain, then again the Divine order is upset, a
false position exists, and the fruit will perish,
although it may seem very good for the time being.
Then, as to the opposite direction. The soul can
recognize, appreciate, register and apprehend everything
of this world in the measure of its capacity, natural or
acquired. All this can stop there and be exhausted upon
itself, or it can be brought on to the higher ground and
regulated so as to be transmuted into spiritual value
(which is eternal), made completely subservient in life,
or rejected. The spirit will thus, by its touch with God,
dictate as to what is good or evil, or only seemingly
good. The soul does not know this of itself. It
must have a spiritual organ with spiritual
intelligence, conveying Divine standards.
Why is it that so many of the most artistic, poetic
and soulish people have been and are so morally
defective, degenerate, lustful, jealous and vainglorious?
Why is it that dictators whose ego is so
all-else-obscuring, are so godless and God-defiant? Why
is it that so many great intellectuals are so proud,
arrogant and often infidel? Well, the answer is obvious.
All this is soul! They know nothing of a
balancing, adjudicating spirit-union with God, and
therefore their own souls are the last word in every
matter. It is not that they all dismiss God from the
universe, for they sometimes refer to Him. But there is
no correspondence between Him and them, and He exists to
no practical moral purpose where they are concerned. We
leave this just for the present.
We have sought to show that the soul as a servant—not
a master—can, and should, be very fruitful and
useful in relation to a superior organ. And thus, when we
speak of people being 'soulish', we only mean that soul
predominates, not that soul is wrong or necessarily evil.
Divine order is always a law of Divine fulness.*
FOOTNOTE: See Appendix—note on "Natural
Man" and "Old Man".
At the same time, we would be careful to point out
that the soul is a very responsible servant. Indeed, the
human ego—the 'I'—as a conscious and
rational self-life, has to answer to God for its
submission or vaunting of itself; its 'laying down of its
own life', or its exalting and asserting of itself beyond
its measure and province. Hence "the soul that
sinneth, it shall die" (Eze 18:4) was God's dictum,
and still is. Altogether apart from a renewed spirit by
new birth, there is a responsibility for God's Word.
In this connection, certain things must be made clear,
as clear as possible. While it may not be possible for an
unregenerate person to do the revealed will of God,
because for this the enablement of the Holy Spirit is
essential, yet to such and all others that revealed will
makes an appeal and a demand. This may only be to the
extent of taking an attitude to be made willing and able.
But, as morally responsible creatures, that obligation
rests upon us whenever the word of God is presented.
Then with regard to those who are the Lord's people,
there is no such thing as an extra spirituality or
revelation, which sets God's Word on one side or
transcends it. If God says a thing in the Scriptures,
that thing stands, and we stand or fall by it. By
spiritual illumination we may come into much fuller
meaning of the Scriptures and see God's thoughts and
intents behind them. But that does not suspend their
practical obligation, provided that we are in the
dispensation to which they apply practically. We
have met a certain type of Christian who, claiming to be
acting according to the spirit in relation to the will of
God, has been guilty of the most flagrant contradiction
of the most obvious and elementary obligations of
honesty, righteousness, good faith, trustworthiness and
humility.
Sometimes a subtle mental evasion is betrayed by the
attempted justification of a course contrary to the Word
of God in 'Yes, but the devil can quote Scripture'. It
seems incredible; had we not been met by this sort of
thing we would feel it too unbelievable to mention. It
is, however, something which touches our very subject.
Let us ask, How often does Satan try to turn an
unregenerate person away from Christ by using Scripture?
Have you ever heard of his doing so? It must be the most
remote case if you have. No; it is those who are truly
God's children with whom he employs the method of using
the Word of God. Why is this? It is because he has
something very much deeper in view. Let us get at it by
taking Christ's own case.
When Satan assailed Christ, our Lord met him with
"It is written". In effect, Satan said (within
himself): 'Oh, that is your ground, is it? Very well,
then—"It is written, he shall give his angels
charge concerning thee",' etc. He at once sought to
defeat Christ on His own ground. What was his real point
of attack? The Lord Jesus had definitely and deliberately
taken up the position that He would have and do nothing
for or of Himself, but that all should be held in
relation to the Father and therefore only by the Father's
permission; yes, all things utterly and only for God, and
self-interest, soul-gratification, utterly set aside. The
thing most likely to move Him from such a position of
abandonment to God would be to support any proposed
movement or course by the very Word of God itself. It
would be useless to say to the Son of God, the last Adam:
"Yea, hath God said?" But to say "God hath
said" is much more subtle. It is the question of
spirit (in union with God) or soul (in self-direction)
that is ever the point of Satan's efforts. If Satan
quotes Scripture, it is to destroy inward union with God.
But the Word of God itself never leads to that; and no
one would ever defend a course contrary to the clear Word
of God with the rejoinder that 'the devil can quote
Scripture', or even have such a thing in their mind,
unless they were in themselves wanting to go a certain
way. How our soul-life will defend and save itself! But
how necessary it is for our own deliverance from our
deceitful heart that we are so subject to God that we are
alive to the nature and implication of the snare. We have
here touched the key to the whole question of the place
of the soul. Two things have got to happen to it.
Firstly, it has got to be smitten a fatal blow by the
death of Christ as to its self-strength and government.
As with Jacob's thigh or the sinew thereof after God had
touched it and he went to the end of his life with a
limp; so for ever there has to be registered in the soul
the fact that it cannot and it must not: God has broken
its power. Then, as an instrument, it has to be
"won", mastered and ruled in relation to the
higher and different ways of God. It is spoken of so
frequently in the Scriptures as being some thing
over which we have to gain and exercise an
authority. For instance:
"In your patience ye shall win your
souls" (Luke 21:19).
"Ye have purified your souls in your
obedience to the truth" (1 Peter 1:22). "The
end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls"
(1 Peter 1:9).
We must be careful that, in recognizing the fact that
the soul has been seduced, led captive, darkened and
poisoned with a self-interest, we do not regard it as
something to be annihilated and destroyed in this life.
This would be but asceticism, a form of Buddhism. The
result of any such behaviour is usually only another form
of soulishness in an exaggerated degree; perhaps
occultism. Our whole human nature is in our souls, and if
nature is suppressed in one direction she will take
revenge in another. This is just what is the trouble
with a great many people if only they knew it. There is a
difference between a life of suppression and a life of
service. Submission, subjection and servanthood in
Christ's case, as to the Father, was not a life of
soul-destruction, but of rest and delight. Slavery in its
bad sense is the lot of those who live wholly in their
own souls. We need to revise our ideas about service, for
it is becoming more and more common to think that service
is bondage and slavery; when really it is a Divine thing.
Spirituality is not a life of suppression. That is
negative. Spirituality is positive; it is a new and extra
life, not the old one striving to get the mastery of
itself. The soul has to be taken in charge and made to
learn the new and higher wisdom. Whether we are able yet
to accept it or not, the fact is that if we are going on
with God fully, all the soul's energies and abilities for
knowing, understanding, sensing and doing will come to an
end, and we shall—on that side—stand
bewildered, dazed, numbed and impotent. Then, only a new,
other, and Divine understanding, constraint, and energy
will send us forward or keep us going. At such times we
shall have to say to our souls, "My soul, be thou
silent unto God" (Psa 62:5); "My soul... hope
thou in God" (Psa 62:5); and 'My soul, come thou
with me to follow the Lord'. But what joy and strength
there is when, the soul having been constrained to yield
to the spirit, the higher wisdom and glory is perceived
in its vindication. Then it is that "My soul
doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath
rejoiced in God my Saviour" (Luke 1:46). The spirit hath,
the soul doth—note the tenses.
So that unto fullness of joy the soul is essential,
and it must be brought through the darkness and
death of its own ability to learn the higher and deeper
realities for which the spirit is the first organ and
faculty.
No; do not live a life of suppressing your soul, nor
despising it; but be strong in spirit, so that your soul
may be won, saved and made to serve your fullest joy. The
Lord Jesus desires that we should find rest unto our
souls, and this, He says, comes by way of His yoke—the
symbol of union and service.
The soul, like some people, will find its greatest
value in service, not as a master. It wants to be the
latter, but it is blind to the limitations which God has
imposed upon it. It thinks that it can, but God says it
"cannot". But, in its place, with the
self-interest lying under the ban of Christ's death, it
can be a very useful servant.