The Holy Spirit and the Believer’s Spirit 227
the spirit of the sinful archangel exists forever so the spirit of sinful
man continues too. Because he has a body his fall rendered him a
man of the flesh (Gen. 6.3). No religion of this world, no ethics,
culture or law can improve this fallen human spirit. Man has
degenerated into a fleshly position; nothing from himself can return
him to a spiritual state. Wherefore regeneration or regeneration of the
spirit is absolutely necessary. The Son of God alone can restore us to
God, for He shed His blood to cleanse our sins and give us a new
life.
Immediately the sinner believes in the Lord Jesus he is born anew.
God grants him His uncreated life that the sinner’s spirit may be
made alive. The regeneration of a sinner occurs in his spirit. God’s
work begins without exception within the man, from the center to the
circumference. How unlike Satan’s pattern of work! He operates
from the outer to the inner. God aims first to renew man’s darkened
spirit by imparting life to it, because it is this spirit which God
originally designed to receive His life and to commune with Him.
God’s intent after that is to work out from the spirit to permeate
man’s soul and body.
This regeneration gives man a new spirit as well as quickens his
old one. “A new spirit I will put within you”—“That which is born of
the Spirit is spirit” (Ezek. 36.26; John 3.6). The “spirit” in these
passages has God’s life in view, for it is not what we originally
possessed; it is accorded us by God at our regeneration. This new life
or spirit belongs to God (2 Peter 1.4) and “cannot sin” (1 John 3.9) ;
but our spirit, though quickened, may yet be defiled (2 Cor. 7.1) and
in need of being sanctified (1 Thess. 5.23).
When God’s life (which can equally be called His Spirit) enters
our human spirit, the latter is quickened out of its coma. What was
“alienated from the life of God” (Eph. 4.18) is now made alive again.
Hence “although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are
alive because of righteousness” (Rom. 8.10). What we are given in