324 The Spiritual Man
advancing a mile. Paul candidly reminds the believers at Corinth:
“You were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready.” In what
were they unprepared? They were not prepared to serve God with
their intuition, to know more of God intuitively, to receive His
revelation in their intuition. They were obviously not ready when
they first believed in the Lord; but now years later, though enriched
in speech, knowledge and gifts, they still were not so. By those two
words—“even yet”—the Apostle signified that though they were
replete with outward enrichments their spiritual life had made no
progress since they first believed. Real advancement is measured by
the growth of the spirit and its intuition; the rest belongs to the flesh.
This should be impressed indelibly on our hearts.
How sad that believers today seem to achieve progress in almost
every sphere except in that of their spirit. After trusting the Lord for
many years, they continue to lament; “I do not feel I have a spirit.”
The difference between our mind and God’s mind is wide. We, like
those at Corinth, try successfully to garner much so-called spiritual
knowledge by exercising the intellect of our mind. Unfortunately the
increase of our mind does not and cannot substitute the maturing in
our intuition. To God we appear unchanged. We must henceforth
remember that the increase God pre-eminently desires is not in our
outward man but in the inward man and its intuition. He expects the
new life which we receive at regeneration to enlarge. And all which
belongs to the old creation He expects to be denied.
A believer fails to be spiritual because he is influenced too much
by the flesh. Only one whose intuition is alive and who enjoys
uninterrupted communion with God knows the deep truths of God. If
the intuitive power is weak, what else can be absorbed except milk?
Milk is pre-digested food. What this denotes is that the soulish
believer cannot maintain clear fellowship with God in the spirit’s
intuition and hence must depend upon other more advanced
Christians for the things of God. Matured Christians fellowship with
God in their intuition and then transform what they have been shown