370 The Spiritual Man
but were we to observe the Bible perfectly, we still would not
necessarily be following the mind of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because
often we search the many teaching of the Scriptures with our natural
mind and later do them with our strength. Although what is
understood and is done agrees perfectly with the Scriptures, it is
nevertheless done without dependence upon the Holy Spirit. The
whole matter has remained within the realm of the flesh. Wherefore,
not only what we know in our spirit concerning the mind of the Holy
Spirit needs to be checked by the Scriptures, but also what we know
from the Scriptures must be carried out through our spirit. Do we not
realize that the flesh craves priority even with respect to keeping the
Holy Scriptures? The spirit has intuition; but it also has power. It is
consequently null and void if we understand any doctrine in our mind
while at the same time it remains unexecuted by the power of the
spirit.
One more matter needs to be noticed: a great danger looms before
us if we live and walk by the spirit too much. Although the Word
does emphasize the believer’s personal spirit, the Word also informs
us that the significance of one’s spirit is due to the indwelling Holy
Spirit. The reason why we must walk and live in the spirit at all is
because our spirit, being the habitation of God’s Spirit, is where He
expresses His mind. The leading and discipline we receive therein is
His leading and discipline. In stressing the significance of the Holy
Spirit we are at the same time emphasizing our own spirit since the
latter constitutes His base of operation. Our danger, upon
apprehending the work and function of man’s spirit, is to rely
entirely on it, forgetting that it is merely the servant of the Holy
Spirit. God’s Spirit and not our spirit is the One upon Whom we wait
for direct guidance into all truth. If man’s spirit is divorced from the
divine Spirit it becomes as useless as the other parts of man. We
should never reverse the order of man’s spirit and the Holy Spirit. It
is because many of the Lord’s people are ignorant of man’s spirit and
its operation that we have presented in these pages a detailed account
of it. This does not mean, however, that the position of the Holy