Will you please turn to Psalm 8, just verse 4?
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
Please turn also to 1 Corinthians 3. We will read the first three verses.
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ.
I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able to bear it: nay, not even now are ye able;
for ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of men?
Let us go back to 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2.
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
Finally, turn to Galatians 5:24.
And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof.
Let us pray.
Lord, we do want to thank Thee for Thy presence with us. We do thank Thee for Thy precious Word, and we thank Thee for Thy Holy Spirit, Who is here with us too.
We do want to open ourselves to Thee tonight and allow Thy Word to fall into good ground, that it may bear fruit unto Thyself. We commit this time into Thy hands and ask for Thy blessing.
May Thy name be exalted. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Those who were here last week know that we had meetings on Saturday and the Lord’s Day. God willing, we will have meetings tonight and tomorrow morning.
In these four sessions, we focus ourselves just on three words: “What is man?”
When David cried out, “What is man?” he was not only asking a question. Actually, it is an exclamation. He thought of what man is in the thought of God—when God created man. The man that God created is so noble, so wonderful, that David could not help but cry out, “What is man?”
Brothers and sisters, we mentioned before that it is very important to know what man is. Now, we are men—of course, that includes men and women, grown-ups and children. We need to know ourselves.
You know, it is rather strange. We know everything around us, but we do not know ourselves. This is because it is impossible for us to know ourselves.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and is incurable; who can know it? If we try to examine ourselves, we will just deceive ourselves. God alone is the One Who examines our hearts.
Therefore, if we want to know what man is, we need to go back to the Word of God. It is only in the light of the Word of God that we are able to know what we really are. As the psalm says, “In Thy light shall we see light.”
So we mentioned in the first session: What is man in God’s creative purpose?
God created man in His own image, according to His likeness, and God gave man dominion over all the things that He had created. God put man before the tree of life, and, of course, by the side of it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God allowed man to make a choice. He did not create a robot; He created a living soul. He created man according to His own image, because He is the supreme will. So He created us with a free will.
He allowed us to make our own choice: whether we would eat of the tree of life—that is, receive His divine, uncreated life into us—that we might be united with God in life and live by His life in us.
Only in this way are we able to fulfil all that God purposed for the man He created. Yet He also gave us liberty to make a choice. If we decide to eat of the forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is to say that we want to be independent of God’s life.
We want to develop our own soul life. We want to make gods out of ourselves. God says, “You may either choose Me or choose yourself. You may either choose to live by Me, or you may choose to live by your own self.”
If you choose to live by My life, then with My life you will fulfil the man that I purposed. But if you want to live by your own life and develop your soul life, the result is that you fail.
When God created man, man was the masterpiece of God. When God created other things, there was not one thing that He created in His own image.
So, brothers and sisters, let us remember: man is not the product of evolution. Man was created with God’s deliberate purpose, in His own image, having His qualities and the capacity to receive God into himself.
Man was created not only as a vessel of God; man was created as an instrument of God. God wanted to use man to subdue all things, to bring all things to the feet of God.
God created man a little lower than the angels, and yet God would use man to defeat the archangel who turned himself into Satan. So God put man in the garden of Eden to till it and to guard it.
Unfortunately, we find that man failed. Man did not guard the garden. He allowed the enemy to slip into the garden.
Satan, as an angel of light, deceived Eve. We remember the story. Eve was deceived, so she ate of the forbidden tree and gave the same to Adam. But Adam sinned deliberately.
Because, in the order of God, Adam is the head of the family, Adam was responsible for introducing sin into this world.
We mentioned last time that fallen man in the Bible is called the natural man. He is no longer the man whom God created in the beginning. He has fallen into the natural man.
What is a natural man? A natural man is a man whose spirit is dead unto God. God said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
The moment they ate of the forbidden tree, their spirit was dead unto God. That is to say, their communication with God was cut off. So they fell into flesh and blood, and their lives were lived by the soul or by the body.
Those of the higher class probably live by their soul—that is, according to their mind and according to their thoughts, because they have a rational mind. People of a lower class may simply live by the passions and lusts of their body.
So the Bible calls fallen man the natural man. The Bible says, “In Adam all die.” Adam is not just one person; Adam is the federal head of a race.
All who are born of Adam are in Adam. When Adam sinned, all who would be born of Adam sinned in Adam. So, brothers and sisters, let us remember one thing: when we are born into this world, we are born of Adam.
Therefore, we inherit Adam’s character and his fallen life. No matter who we are, we are in Adam, and we all die.
But thank God, we cannot deliver ourselves. How can we deliver ourselves from Adam? We have no way. But God provided a way of salvation.
He raised up the second Man. You know, in the sight of God there are only two men. The first man is Adam, and all who are born of Adam belong to Adam. Then there is the second Man.
The Bible says Christ Jesus is the second Man. God sent His beloved Son into this world to become the beginning of a new race. Through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, we are delivered out of Adam into Christ.
How did we get into Adam? We did not join Adam; we were born into Adam. How, then, could we be delivered out of Adam? We had to die. But we cannot die, because if we die, we are finished.
The Bible says it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment. It would be eternal death. But we praise and thank God: God provided a Saviour, even our Lord Jesus Christ.
He Who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. So when Christ died, all who were in Adam died in Him.
If you read the Bible, you will find that Christ is not only the second Man; He is also the last Adam. In other words, He concluded the Adamic race in Himself. When He died, the Adamic race was terminated in Him.
But then He rose from the dead, and He became the beginning of a new race. He gave His life to all who believe in Him. So we are dead to Adam, and we are made alive in Christ. That is salvation.
Brothers and sisters, we do thank the Lord that we were once born in Adam, but through our Lord Jesus Christ we are now out of Adam and into Christ. We are in Christ. We are Christians. We belong to God. We have a new beginning.
This evening we will continue. We say we are no longer natural men. Now, what are we? You have believed in the Lord Jesus. You are born again. You have received His life into you.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17:
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.
Now, brothers and sisters, are you in Christ? Thank God, we are in Christ. Who put us in Christ? First Corinthians 1:30 says that it is God Who put us in Christ.
When we believe in the Lord Jesus, not only do we receive Christ into us, but at the same time God puts us in Christ. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.
There is a new creation in you because you have received a new life. That new life is the life of Christ, and that life has a new nature. That nature is the nature of Christ Jesus.
Because of this, you will grow from glory to glory. There is such a potential within you. The Bible says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
You are in Christ; therefore, all the fullness that is in Christ is yours. How full is Christ? In Colossians, we are told that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, and ye are complete in Him.
Who can describe the fullness of God? Who can fully understand the love of God, the grace of God, His mercy, or His holiness? Whatever God is, is in Christ Jesus.
God has put you in Him. In other words, all the fullness of the Godhead is now available to you. That is why the Bible says, “Thanks be unto God, Who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
Brothers and sisters, do you see how blessed you are? When you believe in the Lord Jesus, sometimes we say, “Well, we have our sins forgiven.” Of course, that is wonderful.
When we were under the load of sin, we lived under guilt and were afraid of the future. But when we believe in the Lord Jesus, our conscience is purified by the blood of our Lord. Our sins are all forgiven—not only forgiven, but forgotten.
We may also say, “If you believe in the Lord Jesus, one day you will go to heaven instead of going to hell.” That is wonderful, but, brothers and sisters, that is only a little bit of the blessing with which God has blessed you in Christ. It is just the beginning.
God has put you in Christ, and all the fullness of the Godhead is open to you. He wants to fill you with Himself. He wants to fill you with His love, with Christ, and with the Holy Spirit—with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, it is not a small thing to be a Christian. Do you know who you are now? You are in Christ. You are a Christian. All the fullness of the Godhead is open to you. He wants to fill you with Himself.
If anyone is in Christ Jesus, there is a new creation. From strength to strength, from glory to glory, from grace to grace. In other words, our future is unlimited. That is what you are after you believe in the Lord Jesus.
But then, very soon, you discover that there is something else there. I do not know what your experience is, because everybody’s experience is different. God deals with each one of us differently. Do not try to copy anybody else.
But I believe one thing is certain: when you believe in the Lord Jesus, something wonderful happens. Some people, when they believe in the Lord Jesus, feel so free that they can fly.
When they look at things, they find that everything is new. The birds seem to sing sweeter. The grass seems greener. Everything seems to have changed.
During that time, oh, how you love God. When you pray, He is so close and so near. When you read the Bible, you find that the Bible speaks to you, just as if you were reading a family letter.
When you see another believer, you just love that person. If God wants you to do anything, if He wants you to give up anything, it is very easy. There is no problem. God is everything.
When you first believe in the Lord Jesus, did you experience such an experience? How good it would be if we continued on in that way.
But unfortunately, sooner or later, you begin to discover that there is something old still in you. You think, “Now that I am in Christ, the old things have passed away. Everything is new.” But the Bible does not say that in quite that way.
If you read very carefully, it says, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.” It does not say, “He is a new creation.” It says, “There is a new creation.”
A new creation has begun, and it should proceed from strength to strength, from grace to grace, and from glory to glory.
I remember Brother T. Austin-Sparks spoke a great deal over this verse. He was puzzled because he found that after one is in Christ Jesus, there is something new, but many old things are still there.
Then one day he read the original. The Bible says, “If anyone be in Christ, there is a new creation.” It is not that you are already a new creation in every respect; there is a new creation. That is to say, the potential is there.
Brothers and sisters, you are in Christ Jesus. A new creation is there. There is a new beginning there. You should go on from strength to strength, from grace to grace, and from glory to glory.
But unfortunately, you begin to discover that within your soul, your old man—your old self—is still there. There seem to be two persons within you.
When you are in your first love toward God, that old man, that flesh, is subdued. But it is still there. When your love toward God begins to cool down, that old man within you begins to raise his head.
You begin to feel that there are two persons within you, striving against each other. But the old man seems to be stronger because the new man is still young.
When you come to 1 Corinthians 3, the Apostle Paul says:
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ.
The first man is earthly; therefore, all who are in the first man are earthly. The second Man is heavenly; therefore, all who are in the second Man are heavenly. The first man is of dust, so all who belong to him are of dust. The second Man is spiritual; therefore, all who are in the second Man are spiritual.
In the will of God, everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus and is in Christ Jesus is to be spiritual. They should live by the Spirit of God. They should be spiritual men and women.
But when we first believe in the Lord Jesus, the potential to be spiritual is there, but we are still babes in Christ. Paul says that as babes in Christ, we are fleshly.
The original word means “fleshy”—that is, the material of which you are made. Look at a baby. Everybody loves a baby, right?
A baby is very self-centred. It is very selfish. At midnight, if the baby wants to cry, the baby cries. The baby does not care that you are sleeping. If the baby is hungry, the baby wants to eat. If you are a little late, the baby becomes angry.
A baby is fleshly. Now, the baby needs to grow up into maturity.
We who believe in the Lord Jesus are the same way. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, there is spiritual potential within us. If we walk by the Spirit, we will be spiritual. But unfortunately, we are often very fleshly. We have not been delivered from our fleshiness.
As babes, you should not remain babes for twenty years or forty years. If you are a newborn baby and behave like a baby, everybody accepts you. But if you have been a baby for forty years, everybody will find it very strange.
Spiritually, that is the same thing. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, we are babes in Christ. You cannot say, “I believe in the Lord Jesus; therefore, I am instantaneously spiritual.”
Today we want everything instantly—instant coffee and instant tea. People want to become spiritual instantly. There is no such thing as instant spiritual maturity. Life has to grow.
In the beginning, you are a babe in Christ. People will accept that. But do not remain that way too long. After thirty or forty years, if you are still the same, something is wrong.
You know, this is quite clear in the Old Testament. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, they represented the natural man, because they lived as slaves. They were under bondage; they were not free.
God delivered them out of Egypt. What was God’s purpose in delivering them? God delivered them out of Egypt to bring them into Canaan.
But from Egypt to Canaan, there was a wilderness journey. If you read the Old Testament carefully, you find that the wilderness journey should not have exceeded two years.
In two years, they should have been in Canaan. But unfortunately, they spent forty years in the wilderness because of their unbelief.
What is the wilderness experience? They rebelled against God. They wanted things for themselves. They did not believe God. They even questioned whether God was with them. They asked, “Can He spread a table in the wilderness?”
In other words, they were carnal. They had passed from being fleshly to being carnal.
When you read 1 Corinthians 3:3, the word used carries not merely the thought of the material from which one is made, but a moral quality. You manifest and exhibit all the things of the flesh. That is carnality.
Brothers and sisters, after you believe in the Lord Jesus, there will be a period when you are fleshly. You are babes in Christ, and God will allow it and people will accept it. But remember, it should not continue too long.
That is why Paul wrote the letter to the Corinthians. They should outgrow their babyhood. They should be mature. In the book of Hebrews, you find the same thing: according to the years, you ought to be teachers, but you still need milk. That is not right.
What are the symptoms of a carnal man? A carnal man is different from a natural man. The natural man’s spirit is dead, but a carnal man is a Christian. His spirit is renewed, but unfortunately he does not live by the spirit. He still lives by the flesh.
Sometimes you look at two people—one a believer and the other an unbeliever—and you cannot see any difference. First Corinthians 3 tells us why:
For whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of men?
You are believers. You should not be jealous. You should not be striving. You should be humble. You should learn to prefer one another. You should be united as one.
In the world, you find jealousy and strife. That is the character of fallen man. It should not happen in the church. But you find that the carnal man walks according to the natural man. Outwardly, you do not see any difference.
Sometimes we are challenged by people who say, “Look at that Christian. He does the same thing that a non-Christian does. Non-Christians love the world, and Christians also love the world. Non-Christians want money, and Christians also love money. What is the difference? Why should I be a Christian?”
There is no difference because a carnal man walks according to man. He still lives by the flesh.
The Bible says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” The flesh never changes into spirit. You cannot improve your flesh and make it spiritual. The flesh is always flesh, whether it is in an unbeliever or in a believer.
The second symptom is that a carnal man can only drink milk; he cannot eat meat.
What is milk? Milk is predigested food. Somebody digests it for you. A cow eats the grass, digests it, and then produces milk. It is already digested, and so you can drink it because your stomach is not strong enough yet.
But if you eat meat, you have to digest it yourself. Spiritually, it is the same thing. A carnal man is a carnal Christian. Even though he has spiritual life in him, he does not exercise his spiritual senses.
He does not exercise the conscience of his spirit. Sometimes the Holy Spirit restrains you. Have you had such an experience after you believed in the Lord Jesus?
Suppose you were a person who loved to tell jokes. After you believe in the Lord Jesus, as you begin to do that, is there Someone within you telling you, “Now, stop”? But you continue to talk, and afterwards you know that you have sinned.
You do not exercise your conscience. You do not exercise your intuitive power. You try to reason things out instead of letting the Holy Spirit speak directly to you. You do not commune with God’s Spirit. You try to listen only to what people say.
You do not exercise your spiritual senses; therefore, you cannot eat spiritual meat. You must have someone digest it for you and then feed you.
That is the sign of a carnal Christian. You cannot study the Bible for yourself. You must let people tell you what the Bible says.
Brothers and sisters, to be babes in Christ is all right at the beginning. If you feed a baby with meat, you will kill the baby. But we need to outgrow our babyhood.
We should exercise our spiritual senses in prayer, in reading the Word, in communion with God, in listening to the voice of the Spirit, and in listening to what our conscience tells us. Then we will grow into maturity.
The third feature of a carnal man is found in Romans 8:6-8.
For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace:
because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be:
and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
A carnal man walks according to the world. He can only drink milk. Now we are told that the mind of the flesh is enmity against God.
If you live by the flesh, no matter how good that flesh is, it is enmity against God. There is good flesh and bad flesh, but even the best of your flesh is enmity against God.
For instance, before you believed in the Lord Jesus, you did many sinful things. But after you believe in the Lord Jesus, you may say, “Now I am going to serve God.” How do you serve God?
Do you go to God and ask, “Lord, what dost Thou want me to do?” That was what Saul asked on the road to Damascus: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
Instead of doing that, you may say, “Formerly I served sin; now I am going to serve God.” So you use your own mind. You do something because you like it, and then you do it as if you are serving God.
Actually, you are serving yourself. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God. The Bible tells us that it is not subject to the law of God.
You are not submissive or subject to God. In other words, you are still your own master. You cannot submit yourself to the law of God, and you cannot subject yourself to God.
There is a difference here. An unbeliever, a natural man, does not know God. He does not receive spiritual things and cannot know spiritual things. But a carnal man knows the law of God, yet he cannot submit himself to God’s law.
Why? Because he still wants to be his own master. He knows what God says, and yet he does not do it. That is carnality. A carnal man cannot please God.
If you turn to Romans 7, you find a person who wants to serve God. He wants to keep God’s commandments, and he is trying his best to do it.
But he discovers that in him—that is, in his flesh—there is no good thing. What he wants to do, he cannot do; and what he does not want to do, he does.
This is because he is still under the law of sin and death. If we live according to the flesh, we are still under the law of sin and death. Only when we live according to the Spirit are we delivered from the law of sin and death, because the law of the Spirit of life rules over us.
Brothers and sisters, what is God’s will for us? We are babes in Christ, but that is not the will of God. The will of God is that we may all grow up into maturity.
He wants us to be sons and daughters of God. Only when we are grown up will we know our Father’s thought, and then we may serve Him and do His service.
Only when you are grown up are you able to serve. You are able to be the man that God has created. So God’s will is that we grow up.
Do not be content to remain babes. As babes, you are not responsible for anything. Other people take responsibility for you. You do not serve anybody; you let everybody serve you. Some people like to be babes all their lives, but that is very unnatural.
God wants us to grow up. He wants many sons. He will bring many sons into glory. Christ is to be the firstborn among many sons. That is the will of God.
How can we be delivered from being carnal men? Paul says, “When I am among you, I am determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”
In other words, to be delivered from being a carnal man, you need the cross. The cross is the only way that can deliver us from being carnal.
The Corinthian believers’ understanding of the cross was very limited. They knew the cross of Jesus Christ only in terms of atonement—that when Christ died on the cross, He bore our sins upon Himself, and because of this God forgives our sins.
They knew only this initial sense of the cross of Jesus Christ. They did not know the full meaning of the cross.
The cross of our Lord Jesus, on the one hand, atones for our sins. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, so that our sins might be remitted.
But at the same time, when our Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, He not only took your sins away—He took you away too.
Romans 6:6 says:
Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin.
When Christ died on the cross, the old man—your flesh and my flesh—our Lord Jesus took us to the cross with Him. When He died, the old man died. You and I died because we were in Him.
When He died, we also died. He not only took your sins away; He has also taken you away. Brothers and sisters, you are the problem. The reason why you are not spiritual is because of you.
You stay in the way. Instead of letting Christ live in you, you want to live by yourself. That is the reason why you are carnal.
God says that in your flesh there is no good thing. Do not look to Adam. Adam cannot be improved. Adam had to die. That is the only way.
When God looks at you and me—your flesh and my flesh—He says there is no hope. “I cannot improve you. I cannot decorate you. There is only one way: you have to die.”
How are you going to die? Our Lord Jesus, when He died, included you and me in Himself. We died with Him, and we died in Him. That happened two thousand years ago. Before you were born, you already died.
You may say, “How can that be?” It is very simple. When Christ bore all your sins on the cross, that was two thousand years ago. You had not been born yet. You had not committed even one sin, and yet two thousand years ago He already bore your sins in His body.
Why? Because with God there is no time factor involved. Truth is eternal, so time does not affect it. When you believe in the Lord Jesus, you find your sins are forgiven.
When Christ died on the cross two thousand years ago, you died in Him. Do you believe it? The problem is that we do not believe it.
If you do not believe that Christ bore your sins, your sins are still upon you. But because you believe in Him—believe in what God has done in Christ Jesus—you experience the forgiveness of your sins.
The same thing is true concerning deliverance from the flesh. Why are we not delivered from our flesh? Because two thousand years ago our old man was already crucified. The reason is that we do not believe it.
We look at ourselves and say, “My old man is still very alive. Oh, I have not died yet.” Do not look at yourself. Look at the cross.
When you look at the cross, God will open your eyes. Then you will see that you are dead in Christ.
That is why Romans 6:11 says:
Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
The words “in Christ Jesus” must be applied to both. It is only in Christ Jesus that this is true. In Christ Jesus, you can count yourself dead unto sin. In Christ Jesus, you can count yourself alive unto God.
In yourself, you are still alive to sin and dead unto God. But in Christ Jesus, it is true. Therefore, we need to believe.
If we believe that when Christ died, we also died, then we can say:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
Then we experience deliverance from the flesh. If you do not believe, why do you not believe? Because you still believe in yourself.
You may think, “There are lots of bad things in me. That is true. But it is not all bad. I need to be improved a little bit, but I do not need to die.”
One day the Apostle Paul discovered, “In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” Then he cried, “Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” The next verse says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
So, brothers and sisters, do not continue to live as carnal men. That is not God’s will for you. We need to be delivered from our flesh, and the only way to be delivered is to look at the cross of our Lord.
If we look at the cross of the Lord Jesus and believe what He has done for us, the Holy Spirit will make it real in our experience.
What is the Christian life? It is not I, but Christ.
How can it be that it is not I? Because you have despaired of yourself already. You accept God’s verdict. You believe that when Christ died, you died too.
You are willing to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow the Lord.
So, brothers and sisters, this is how God will recover us to be the man that God first created. We will speak further about the spiritual man.