If you are not acquainted with the fact, may I remind you:
Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man.
And Paul, when he opened this letter addressing the Corinthians, told them that he had definitely resolved that his presence among them would be with one object only: that he would know nothing among them save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
We have been seeking to understand, I trust, a little more clearly and fully, the difference that Jesus Christ and the knowledge of Jesus Christ makes as to the kind of person that we are, and to which category we belong: the natural man and he that is spiritual.
We have been looking at this Jesus Christ with a view to seeing what it is about Him that is of this category and nature—this type called “he that is spiritual”—and what that means, remembering that the Word has a great deal to say about being conformed to His image.
Now, we left the Lord Jesus this afternoon on the farther side of the Jordan: the heavens opened, the Holy Spirit lighting upon Him, and the voice of the Father attesting Him as His beloved Son.
We saw that this image to which we are to be conformed is one that stands on altogether new ground—ground where the Cross has been made effective in the life, and ground where God Himself can commit Himself.
God can freely say, as is the effect of this announcement from heaven, “This is My ground. To this ground I can commit Myself. This is what I desire; this is what I must have for the fulfilment of My purpose.”
As we saw, it was from that moment that the Lord Jesus entered upon His great life ministry. It was as though the Father said, “Now I have got the ground upon which I can proceed with My great purpose. My ground is a man of this kind, after this order: a spiritual man, or a man of the Spirit.”
But it is very significant—much more than interesting; it is impressive—that no sooner had God obtained His ground in His kind of man, His spiritual man, His man of the Spirit, and declared Himself committed to that ground—“This is My beloved Son”—than there was a tremendous reaction from hell.
The very next thing in the course is the temptation of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness, with which we shall be occupied for this little while this evening.
You know, of course, it is in the Gospel by Matthew, chapter 4:
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And you know the rest: the temptations, what happened, and how the Lord Jesus, this Man of the Spirit, emerged triumphant.
I repeat: how impressive, significant, and instructive it is in this whole setting. This altogether different kind of man is God’s opportunity, God’s occasion, God’s ground. The enemy reacts to that in this determined, persistent, and very subtle way.
It is as though the enemy, Satan, who appears on the scene so quickly after these happenings, said, “We must spoil this Man. We must undo this Man. We must do with this last Adam what we did with the first. We must change Him.”
“Our whole cause is lost. All our work is undone. All our hope perishes if we cannot change this Man and conform Him to the man that we have made—the man, Adam, that we have made. Conform this One to that, or our cause is a lost cause.”
“If we cannot get Him off this ground onto our ground, if we cannot bring Him from the spiritual-man ground to the natural-man ground, then we are lost.” That is the issue.
Undoubtedly, that was the matter in hand in the wilderness: the battle over the spiritual man.
And if you know anything about spiritual warfare and spiritual conflict, if you know anything about the antagonism of the powers of evil, you know quite well that the object is always to try to provoke the natural man—to provoke you on that side of your being, to assert the old man and take natural ground.
You understand that? How true it is.
And I remind you again that, with the Lord Jesus, this was right at the commencement of His great mission—His great mission of redemption, the redemption of man from Adam’s race and Satan’s dominion.
Right there, at the very commencement of that mission, this happened. It was as though the enemy were saying, “We must frustrate and thwart the success of that mission—getting men off our ground, out of our kingdom and dominion, onto this other ground.”
A subtle, deep, terrible battle for the spiritual man.
And what is right at the heart of this? Note again: this is the beginning of the mission, in the wilderness, with the devil himself and the three temptations. We are not going to deal particularly with them; you know them. But this is the point: the nature of those temptations.
You pass from the beginning right to the end, when this spiritual Man is about to complete the mission on the Cross. As He does so, He is in a tremendous prayer battle—not for Himself this time, but for the others: “the men whom Thou hast given Me.”
What is the word constantly recurring through John 17, that great final outpouring of His heart concerning those who are to be spiritual men? The prayer is that they shall be spiritual men. What is the word constantly recurring? You notice it: the world, the world, the world.
I am not of the world.
They are not of the world.
The men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world.
In the wilderness, it was the battle with the prince of this world and the spirit of this world. Look at the temptations. It would take us too much time to dwell upon each one, but look at those three temptations, and it is as clear as broad daylight that this is an attack along the line of the spirit of the world.
And what is the spirit of the world? Can it be summed up in one word, one term? It can. Whether you fully grasp the meaning of the word I use, I will define it afterward. But the one word which sums up the spirit of this world is ego.
Self. Self-good, self-interest, self-realisation—self. Oh, what a comprehensive thing that word ego is. Fill it out: egotism.
That is the spirit of this world. That is the very spirit of Satan, who said at the beginning, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will be equal with the Most High.” Ego.
So, “Save Thyself,” says he to the Lord. “Realise Thyself. Be a law unto Thyself. Assert Thyself. Consider Thyself. And if Thou dost not, Thou wilt lose everything. Thou wilt lose Thy life, Thy kingdom, Thy following.”
Those are the three temptations, are they not? Your own right; your own kingdom—“Worship me, and all the kingdoms of the world shall be Thine”; your own following—“Cast Thyself down from the pinnacle of the temple, and all men will say, ‘This is the Messiah come down from heaven,’ and Thou wilt get Thy following.”
Self-centredness. So is the world. And if only we can get this Man onto that ground, we have captured Him, and defeated all His mission.
And so the Lord prays, in that great final prayer as He moves to the Cross: “Father, those whom Thou hast given Me out of the world, I pray Thee, keep them from the evil one. I am not of the world; they are not of the world.”
You follow that? It makes it very clear. This is the battle: the spiritual man and the natural man.
Come back to your first letter to the Corinthians and read again. What are you in the presence of at Corinth? The inroads that the spirit of the world has made into the church at Corinth.
Read all the things that the apostle has mentioned, and every one of them, in some way, is an expression of the spirit of this world. The church is undone because the world has been given its place.
“The wisdom of this world,” says the apostle to them—the wisdom of this world. And all the other things there are just marks of this world, where these Corinthians are seeking their own interests, their own ends, drawing to themselves, making themselves—the self—the criterion in its gratification.
It is all there, is it not? The world at Corinth has broken into the church.
So the apostle has to draw this distinction between the natural man, who is actuated by self-interest, and the spiritual man, like Jesus Christ. There is no personal interest.
There is that great fragment of Philippians 2: He emptied Himself, took upon Him the form of a servant, being found in fashion as a man. We may come back upon that perhaps in a minute. He emptied Himself; He let go.
The selfless spiritual man. And he said to those at Philippi, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”—the selfless mind.
“Keep them from the world.” It is a heart-cry of the Lord Jesus, because He is fully acquainted with the immensity of the issue. He has fought this battle to such a point of exhaustion that God had to send an angel to strengthen Him after the battle.
So deep is the meaning; so great are the issues: the spirit of the world and the Spirit of Christ, the natural man and the spiritual man.
As soon as the Lord gets anything that really is spiritual—shall I put that in another way? It is the same thing. As soon as the Lord gets anything that is really, genuinely of Christ, there will be a terrific battle to spoil it.
Is that not true? Oh, look at Christendom. Look at Christianity. Look at the church and the churches over this world.
In so many instances, there was a beginning of something pure, something good, genuine, and true. In that beginning there was so much value, so much spiritual strength, beauty, and virtue—something of Christ.
But look now. Look now. Nothing escapes, friends. Do not ever say, whether you are at Deal or anywhere else, “It cannot happen to us.”
I expect the church at Ephesus at one time would have said that: “It cannot happen to us.” Oh, no. Nothing escapes this onslaught, this determined purpose and intention of the powers of evil to spoil what is truly of Christ.
They do not care about the formal thing, the thing that is merely formal, institutional, or traditional. But you get some genuine expression of Christ, and there is a battle—and there will be that battle.
And the battle—oh, is it not true? You do agree, I am sure. Is it not true that the battle always arises on some personal interest, a personality complex, some personal element? The ego is always just there. The trouble arises because the natural man is to be asserted over the spirit.
This is history, and up-to-date history indeed. Now, having said that—and anyone with any spiritual discernment can see how true it is—I am only interpreting what you know by both experience and observation. Conflict over spirituality really is tremendous.
And having said that, you notice that this whole thing falls into two realms: what we may call the two conformities.
To the Roman Christians, in his letter, the apostle said:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
There is one conformity. But be transformed by the making over again of your mind—the renewing, the making anew, of your mentality. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”: the transformed mind.
Do not be conformed to this world. The same word, in other ways, is used by the apostle in what I have quoted from Philippians: He was found in fashion as a man and took the form of a servant.
Here we are: taking a form, a fashion. “Be not fashioned,” as one translation renders Romans 12:2; “be not fashioned according to this world.” Do not take on the fashion of this world. Do not fall into line with the fashion of this world. Do not be influenced by the fashion of this world.
Be transformed, changed over by another mind: the mind that was in Christ Jesus.
To the Galatians the apostle wrote, “My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be fully formed in you.” Back with our words: transformed, formed, fully formed in you.
Now, of course, I can add a great deal and spoil everything by putting on too much. But I am going to close with one thing: the final criterion.
Listen. The final criterion—that is, the standard, our judgment, verdict, conclusion—is, after all, the measure of Jesus Christ.
I sometimes think the Lord, from above, must look down with a pathetic look on His face—pathetic, sometimes perhaps humorous.
I remember my first flight by air. I have had a good many since, but I remember the first. When we climbed up a few thousand feet and I looked down on this earth, I saw people. I looked: “Are they people, or are they maggots?” They looked like little crawling things on the earth.
And yet look at them, dressing themselves up. Some of them are putting on certain kinds of garments, and collars round the wrong way, and mitres and robes, and all this. These little tiny maggots on the earth, doing all this—making such a show in this play, pomp, and ceremony.
Oh, is it not pathetic? You see things from heaven—you know what I mean. See things from heaven and heaven’s standpoint. The Lord looks down with pity and says, “They make everything of that sort of thing. To Me, it is all under My feet; it is nothing.”
“The only thing that counts with Me is just how much of My Son is there. I shut My eyes to all this nonsense, this paraphernalia, this playing of things, this pretending, this make-believe. No, that does not exist for Me. They make everything of it; for Me, it is nothing.”
“The only thing down there which counts is: how much of My Son is there? Is there some of My Son, some of My Son, some of My Son behind that sort of thing? All right, I fasten upon that and try to forget all the other.”
The criterion with God is just how much of this other Man—the spiritual Man, this Son of His—is there.
And Paul was so much in line with the mind of God. He said, in effect, “Nothing. I know nothing. You are making everything of your philosophy. You are making so much of your worldly wisdom. You are making so much of this; but for me, nothing of that. That does not exist for me.”
“I am determined to know nothing of all that which means so much to you, but only Jesus Christ—only Jesus Christ.”
That is the criterion, after all. The difference is not anything external, elaborate, or otherwise. It is just the measure of this other One, this different One: the spiritual Man, Jesus Christ.