160 The Spiritual Man
The soulish Christian is eminently different. Though he is in
possession of a spirit power he does not draw upon it for his life. In
his daily experience he persists in making the soul his life and
continues to lean upon his self power. He follows the dictates of his
pleasure and delight because he has failed to learn to obey God. To
God’s work he brings his natural wisdom, devising many ingenious
arrangements. His everyday existence is governed and affected by
the outer man.
To recapitulate what has been said, the problem of the two natures
has been answered but the problem of the two lives remains
unsolved. The spirit life and the soul life coexist within us. While the
first is in itself exceedingly strong, the second manages to control the
entire being because it is so deeply rooted in man. Unless one is
disposed to deny his soul life and permit his spirit life to grasp the
reins, the latter has little chance to develop. This is abhorrent to the
Father for the child of God deprives himself of spiritual growth. He
must be instructed that overcoming sin, blessed though it surely is, is
but the bare minimum of a believer’s experience. There is nothing
astonishing in it. Not to overcome sin is what ought to astonish us.
Does not the Scripture legitimately ask: “How can we who died to
sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6.2) For to believe that the Lord Jesus died
for us as our substitute is inseparable from believing that we have
died with Him (Rom. 6.6). What should amaze us then is not the
cessation of sinning in those who have died to sin but the
continuance of that phenomenon in them as though yet alive. The
first condition is quite normal; the second, altogether abnormal.
To be freed from sin is not a difficult task when viewed in the
light of the finished, perfect and complete salvation of God. A
believer must proceed to learn the more advanced and perhaps more
formidable and deeper lesson of abhorring his life. Not only must we
hate the sinful nature which comes from Adam but also the natural
vitality upon which we now rely for our living. We must be willing
to deny the good which is produced by the flesh as well as the evil of