Part 11 of 14

The Essential Spirit - An Error Needing Correcting

 

I feel that here I must make an insert in order to correct an erroneous doctrinal teaching, taught by some great Christian teachers who I otherwise still regard very highly. However, their great error leads many Christians to presumption and powerlessness in living triumphantly over Sin. Some dear Christians yet hold to a false doctrine that in essence says “The Sin-spirit came into man’s human spirit via Adam, but it was evicted when Christ’s spirit of life came in at the new birth.” This is not so and it is plainly refuted by Scripture that records the words of our Apostle to the Gentile body of Christ – Paul. Those who purport this doctrine play fast and loose with Scripture, usually by misinterpreting and misapplying Scripture. E.g., they misapply 2Cor 5:17 presuming that it means we are 100% new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV) … if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” They say, “See, Sin must gone because all things are become new.” Actually, in the light of Paul’s other clear writings; this verse is saying that which is gone, crucified with Christ, is our “old man,” not Sin. That which is new is all that which has to do with our spirit – Our body is by no means new, since that still will die, and not our soul is not new, since Paul says our soul needs to become renewed. 2 Cor. 4:16 …though our outward (body man) man perish, yet the inward (soul) man is renewed day by day. Only our essential self is made entirely new – our spirit man.

Just parenthetically, think of it, would God ever permit the Sin-spirit of the Devil come to indwell man’s human spirit, which was God’s intended temple? 2 Cor. 6:16a what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God…That temple is our spirit, where He abides in the believer. John 3:6b… that which is born of the (His) Spirit is (your) spirit. If the tyrannical and dominating Sin-spirit and nature indwells a man’s human spirit, then how could be ever make a free-will choice to receive Christ? Such a concept is folly and unsupported by Scripture.

From the Gospel account in Matt 8:32 we see that fallen demon spirits prefer to inhabit flesh, as seen when Jesus cast demons out of two mad men; the demons spirits then entered swine – the epitome of flesh. Matthew 8:32  he (Jesus) said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.

As noted earlier, in Romans 7:17-23 and 8:3, Paul confirms that it is not man’s human spirit that is possessed of the Sin-spirit, but it is man’s fleshly body members, quite apart from man’s spirit. Romans 8:3 … God sending his own Son … condemned sin in the flesh:  Sin is not, and has never dwelt in a man’s human spirit – rather, as noted previously, Paul writes of Sin being specifically located in his fleshly body members, even while Christ indwells his human spirit. Sin is still near at hand, even while Sin has no power over the Christian. Sin is “made of no effect” by our death with Christ. I earlier referred to the “apparent dual nature within man” because Sin no longer is part of the ruling nature in man, since a believer has been crucified with Christ to make Sin “of no effect.” The believer possesses only one life and nature – it is Christ alive in His spirit core.

Now consider here what Paul wrote to the regenerated Galatian believers. Galatians 5:17 …the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.  “Flesh” here is not the bodily flesh as meat, but it is the Sin-infected flesh of man, which prompts man with evil desires and sinful impulses. Sin, though powerless, is still near at hand.

So, as we saw in the Numbers 20 account of the serpents biting the Israelites, rather than the eviction of Sin’s poison, Paul, in Rom 7:4 and 6:6-7, tells us it is the believer’s death, as to his “old man” in union with Christ’s His death on the cross (Rom 6:3-4) that makes the believer’s sin-laden body to be “made of no effect” (NOTE: Rom 6:6, KJV, “destroyed,” Greek” kartargeo,” means “to be made of nor effect”).

Now we, as a self-soul, are free to live by trusting and yielding to “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” within us. Christ, as the Spirit in us, is the only one who is able to overcome the Sin nature in our body members. Romans 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh (with Sin in it), ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify (put to death) the deeds (praxis, habits) of the body, ye shall live.