REALITY OF OUR SOUL
Firstly, the Lord desires us to SEE and understand His basic Light about our SOUL.
Adam and Eve were innocent, clean and spiritual in all three parts of their being: spirit, soul and body. After their disobedience and fall, all three parts lost their spiritual character and living fellowship with God in losing the Spirit of God from their spirit, soul and body. Before their fall, they had the “Nature-Character” of God, they were sinless, had their life IN GOD and they served Him. Through their disobedience to God and obedience to Satan, they acquired the “nature-character” of Satan. They became “natural” and sinful in their spirit, soul and also mortal in body; they lost their life IN GOD and began to serve Satan. In their “new” natural and sinful state they could not serve God even if they would have wanted to. (Rom. 6:16)
THIS was the death of Adam. In his spirit he was separated from God immediately; in body he died as a 930 year old. (Gen. 5:5) Therefore, God did not allow Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of life and live for ever in that sinful, corrupted state, but drove them out from the Garden and from His Presence. (Gen. 3:22-24)
Satan appealed to the desire of Eve’s SOUL, to her heart’s desire and mind’s imagination and thereby deceived her. (Gen. 3:6) Adam’s SOUL (heart) was not deceived as Eve’s was, yet he disobeyed God in eating the fruit also (1Tim. 2:14) because HE LOVED EVE MORE THAN GOD!
MAN’S BEING – BODY, SOUL, SPIRIT – HAD BECOME A LEGAL OWNERSHIP OF SATAN AND MAN’S SOUL HAD BECOME THE PRINCIPAL TERRITORY OF ALL SATAN’S OPERATIONS, EVIL DEEDS, PLOTS AND DECEPTIONS IN MAN’S LIFE!
MAN HAD BECOME SIN, UNABLE TO GET BACK TO GOD, HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM AND LIVE GOD’S LIFE AGAIN. MAN WAS DOOMED AND THERE WAS “NO WAY” TO BRING HIM BACK!
The Lord had not died for our sins only so that we may be forgiven our sins, but for our WHOLE BEING – spirit, soul and body, which was destroyed by Satan by being severed from God’s Spirit through man’s disobedience. Man became natural, now he has to become spiritual again. Hence, the True and Full Salvation of man includes the SALVATION of our SPIRIT, SOUL and of our BODY! All three must be recovered, resurrected, recreated and preserved blameless unto the Coming of Our Lord. (1Thes. 5:23)
At our Redemption, we were reconciled to God, our vital link to God was restored, we were made alive to God again, we could start living our life IN GOD again… but ONLY IN OUR SPIRIT, which we call the “born-again” experience. At our Redemption, our BODY and SOUL remained “un-renewed”; their life was NOT IN GOD as yet, being still in the natural state. All our physical and mental sicknesses and infirmities also point to this spiritual fact. There is no sickness or infirmity of any kind in the Spirit of God and where He dwells and rules. Hence, we must wait for their restoration, resurrection, salvation which will be done when God’s Spirit takes HIS DOMINION in all parts of our being and they become spiritual. So, God starts our Salvation in our SPIRIT, continues with our SOUL and ends with our BODY.
Since our soul remains natural after our Redemption and water baptism, we must then focus on the SALVATION OF OUR SOUL and what it takes to accomplish it according to the Word of God. But our soul has its own WILL which can oppose God. That is why God works in us so that we would be WILLING to do His pleasure and not always our own. (Phil. 2:13)
Here is an important example from the Word of God showing what our soul is capable of doing and what its true spiritual state is after we have been born-again (redeemed) and baptized. When God tells us to “bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2Cor. 10:5), it means that the thoughts in our mind or heart, which are organs of our SOUL, ARE NOT OF CHRIST because THEY DO NOT OBEY HIM. If they are not of Christ, then of whom are they? Well, they are of OUR SELF and also of the powers of darkness and evil to the degree to which our mind and heart are yet ruled or influenced by those powers and are neither delivered nor cleansed from them.
But if our thoughts are not of Christ, then THEY ARE NOT OF THE WORD OF GOD! Why? Because CHRIST IS THE WORD OF GOD! (Jn. 1:1,14// Rev. 19:13) Christ is not the letters, but the Life, the Truth, the Way, the true meaning of the letters. Therefore…
THE THOUGHTS OF OUR NATURAL SOUL ARE NOT CAPABLE OF ACHIEVING THE LIFE AND THE TRUE MEANING OF THE WORD OF GOD! WHEN WE STUDY, TEACH AND PREACH THE WORD THROUGH OUR NATURAL SOUL, WE DO NOT TEACH OR PREACH THE SPIRITUAL TRUTH OF THE WORD, BUT OUR TRUTH, WHAT WE UNDERSTAND TO BE THE TRUTH! IT MAY BE GOOD AND LOGICAL, BUT IT CANNOT CONVEY THE DEPTH AND THE TRUE MEANING OF THE SPIRITUAL AND FULL TRUTH AS BREATHED BY THE SPIRIT. IT IS SOULISH TRUTH, RELIGIOUS TRUTH, INTELLECTUAL TRUTH, BUT NOT SPIRITUAL TRUTH.
How is it possible? If after our Redemption we had not followed the Lord according to His Word in Mt. 16:24, then we must realize that our cross was never brought into action in our soul and, therefore…
OUR SOUL HAS BECOME RELIGIOUS,
BUT NOT CRUCIFIED, NOT HOLY, NOT RIGHTEOUS!
What does that mean? The Lord shows the following.
THE RELIGIOUS SOUL is a soul in which its natural, fleshly character had not disappeared but had become religious. It studies and acquires the knowledge of the Bible, it understands the Word and Christianity in its own way, it may “work for the Lord” and be engaged in many activities of its church or community, it sees all its ways clean and correct, but it sees nothing in spirit, understands nothing in spirit and cares not for the spirit, yet, it may talk a lot about the Spirit. Religious soul lives by its religious flesh. But the works of the flesh are strife causing divisions, separations of brethren so that one cannot get along with another. If this religious soul cannot get along with a brother, it separates itself from him, which is the easiest and quickest “solution”. Such a religious soul will never search for and deal with the reasons for their separation because it fears truth and elevates its own beliefs above all heavens. Such a soul may preach even about the Cross, but denies it in its own life.
THE CRUCIFIED SOUL is a soul delivered from the powers of evil and darkness within itself, from its “flesh”… pride, fears, hypocrisy, selfishness, self-righteousness, stubbornness, disobedience, arrogance, foolishness, and so on. That soul is now occupied, ruled and guided by the Spirit of the Lord, Who gained access to our soul from our spirit! It is our spirit which is the “candle of the Lord” searching all our inward parts, and not our soul. (Pr. 20:27)
The Full Salvation of our soul takes the rest of our earthly lifetime and then it continues after our rapture! (see more later) Our soul is then fully governed by the Spirit of Christ and HE LIVES in and through our soul. (Gal. 2:20) Only with this PERFECTED SOUL we may be considered having “no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Eph. 5:27) and never before. Now, the perfected soul lives differently, behaves differently, thinks differently, responds (to others) differently, prays differently, sees, hears and understands differently. This “fruit” proves the spiritual soul and by this fruit it is easily recognizable from a natural soul.
One consequence of our soul not being crucified results in the well known and deep divisions and separations within the Church, which no man can bridge, eliminate or heal. We may have never seen, understood and realized why there are such divisions within the Church of Jesus Christ while all of its various factions, denominations, organizations, sects and groups are based on One and the same Book. Well…
ALL THE DIVISIONS, SEPARATIONS, CONFUSIONS, DIFFERENCES IN DOCTRINES AND UNDERSTANDING IN THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST, ALL THE DIFFERENT ROADS, DIRECTIONS AND DECISIONS THAT BELIEVERS TAKE, ALL THIS TRAGEDY OF BELIEVERS IS DUE TO THEIR UNCRUCIFIED, UNRENEWED, UNCLEANSED NATURAL SOULS!
SUCH HEARTS AND MINDS PRODUCE THOUGHTS, REASONING, PREJUDICES, JUDGMENTS, SPECULATIONS, CONVICTIONS AND THEN THE ENSUING TEACHINGS AND SERMONS WHICH ARE NOT OF CHRIST, NOT OF THE TRUTH, NOT OF THE SPIRIT, NOT OF THE WORD OF GOD.
The “religious” preachers, teachers and evangelists become lecturers, intellectual or social educators not seeing and realizing that WE CANNOT REACH ANY SPIRITUAL TRUTH AND GROWTH BY ANY INTELLECTUAL PROCESS!
If we preach reading from our notes that we had prepared in our study, though they may be theologically correct, it can never bring any spiritual fruit. Because “out of the abundance of (our experiences with the Lord in) the heart the mouth speaks” (Mt. 12:34) and not out of the abundance of written notes with logical and intellectual explanations from our mind. Do we see this fact? NO! Believers then become listeners or students that may increase their knowledge of Biblical information and may even be amazed at the brilliant reasoning of the preacher, but they remain THE SAME IN SPIRIT AND THEIR SOUL REMAINS NATURAL! Many ministers may be screaming, sweating, striving, persuading believers even running across stages; their profound statements may be accentuated by drums or organs for an additional “effect”. Or they may be calm, composed… and some may keep their hands in the pockets of their pants while speaking about God, Jesus Christ or reading the Word of God… as if God or Jesus Christ were their “buddy” or just “objects” of their “grand theological study and lecturing”! PROUD AND TOTALLY UNPROFITABLE SOULS ARE THEY! Have mercy on such, Lord, for they truly know not what they are doing.
Their soul is still able to receive and understand the letter of the Bible, but it cannot receive and be changed by “the things of the Spirit of God” which are hidden in those letters! These things of the Spirit include the LIVING TRUTH, LIVING MEANING of the letter of the Bible. (1Cor. 2:7,14) Quoting the Bible doesn’t mean that either the preacher or the listener lives or is able to live what is quoted. And if neither of them is able to live it, then they cannot have any living understanding of the spiritual truth contained therein.
Let us now get a deeper, more living understanding of the human soul and its natural life in the religious theater.
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To be continued next week in chapter 3 – part 3
brother Hanola
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