Will you please turn to 1 Thessalonians 5?
We will read verses 23 and 24.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly;
and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is He that calleth you, Who will also do it.
And will you please turn to the book of Hebrews, chapter 4, verses 12 and 13?
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
And there is no creature that is not manifest in His sight:
but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.
Dear Lord, as we gather in Thy presence, we do pray and thank Thee for Thy presence with us.
We do open our hearts today. Speak to each and every one of us. We pray and thank Thee because Thou dost know us so well.
And it is Thy desire that Thou wilt bring us into all that Thou hast predestinated for us. May Thy Spirit work today. Bring us into Thy truth, and may Thy truth set us free.
We give Thee all the praise and glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.
This time, we want to share together on this matter of spiritual exercise.
Why is it that we want to talk about this matter? Why is spiritual exercise so necessary and important to our spiritual life?
One of the foremost reasons is this: because this is God’s eternal will for each and every one of His redeemed.
Anything that is related to God’s eternal purpose is worthwhile. Whatever is outside of God’s eternal purpose for us is vanity.
You remember Romans 8. It is said:
For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Thank God that He has called us, and His calling is according to His purpose. His purpose is nothing less than that we be conformed to the image of His beloved Son—that we should be like Him, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
So, in other words, God’s purpose for every one of His redeemed is that we may be like Christ. And this does not refer to outward appearance. It refers to His image—that is, His character.
For this reason, He gave us His own life. It is the purpose of this life that we may be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ Jesus.
This is God’s will for each and every one of us. Thank God we are redeemed. Thank God we have His life in us.
But for that life to be really conformed to the image of God’s beloved Son, God has made every provision for it. But on our part, there is a need for spiritual exercise.
In other words, that life within us needs to be exercised.
We mentioned yesterday that exercise is not just being active. Our spiritual life needs to be exercised, but that exercise must be according to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides us and directs us.
We mentioned yesterday that the first spiritual exercise is consecration. Why is it that consecration is so important in spiritual exercise?
This is not only because consecration is the first spiritual exercise. It is also the foundation of all spiritual exercises.
If anyone is not consecrated, his spiritual life has never grown. We cannot go into any other spiritual exercise. All the spiritual exercises are based upon consecration.
So, dear brothers and sisters, it is so important that every one of us must enter into the door of consecration.
As we have been constrained by the love of God, there is no other way but to consecrate ourselves to Him.
Now, after we have consecrated to Him, there is a way of consecration we have to go through. The Holy Spirit will guide and lead us into spiritual exercise. He will make our consecration real, that we may enter into a consecrated life.
And this is what God desires.
Now, this afternoon, we would like to go into the next lesson, the next spiritual exercise. And that is the dividing of spirit and soul.
I suppose, brothers and sisters, we all know about the making of man. Even though there are different theological schools, we want to simplify it. We just go to what the Word of God says.
Now, according to God’s Word, if you read 1 Thessalonians 5:23, He says, “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly.” Your whole being—spirit and soul and body—may be sanctified.
So, brothers and sisters, here you find that the Word says your whole being is made up of three parts: spirit, soul, and body. The spirit, the soul, and the body make up the whole man.
These three parts can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated, because the three parts make up one being. When we are talking about the three parts of man, we are not talking about three beings. We are talking about one being with these three parts.
Our spirit gives us God-consciousness. Because God is Spirit, in order to communicate with God, you have to use your spirit.
You remember many years ago, the Russian astronauts went into outer space, and they said, “We looked around and we did not see any God.” Now, that is foolishness. Because God is Spirit. How can you see spirit with your naked eyes? If you want to contact God, you have to use your spirit.
And our soul gives us self-consciousness. I know I am because I am a soul. It gives self-consciousness.
And our body gives us world-consciousness. How do I know the world around me? It is by the five senses of my body.
We all know this body because it is visible. It is made of matter; it is physical. So we have no problem with this body. But sometimes we have problems with spirit and soul, because they are nonmaterial. They are spiritual.
So sometimes we may have some difficulty. We know our spirit and we know our soul by their functions.
The functions of our soul are mainly three:
These are the three main functions of our soul. I know that I am because I feel, because I think, and because I will.
Everyone is different because the way you feel is different from the way I feel. The way you think is different from the way I think. And the way you will is different from my will. That makes us individuals.
God loves variety. So nobody is the same. Not only physically speaking—even twins, the parents know the difference. It is the same thing with our soul. Every soul is an individual. We all have our individuality.
But then you find there is our spirit. How do we know that we have a spirit?
You know, after the fall of man, the common understanding is that we are soul and body. The spirit seems to disappear.
You know, when I was young, there was an American lady who lived with our family. She was a missionary. She came to China during the Qing dynasty, and she led my father to the Lord.
After she retired, she refused to come back to America. She wanted to stay in China, so she stayed with us. We called her Grandma.
Whenever she was exasperated, she would cry, “Oh, my soul and body!” You know, this is American usage. Where is the spirit?
So, to the people of this world, they do not know they have a spirit. Why is it so? Because when God created man, He created man with spirit and soul and body.
You remember God used the red earth to form a body. The elements of our body are the same as the red earth: out of the dust, and returning to the dust. But the body gives us world-consciousness.
Then you remember God breathed His breath into man’s nostrils. This breath of God is that which comes out of Him in natural life. When it came into this body, it became the spirit of man.
God created man according to His image. This is the most wonderful thing. God had never created anything according to His image except man. Only man did God create according to His own image, because God has a purpose behind it.
God is Spirit, and He breathed His breath into man. That breath became the spirit of man, and with that spirit, man can communicate with God, who is Spirit.
When the spirit came into contact with the body, a reaction came. So the Bible says that man became a living soul. This is the marvel of our creation.
And then God put man in the garden of Eden. In the garden, God planted all kinds of fruit trees.
In the center of the garden, He planted the tree of life. Beside it, He put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
There are three kinds of trees. There was food for the body. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was food for the soul. The tree of life was food for the spirit.
But God commanded man and said, “Of all the trees in the garden, you can freely eat, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Why is it so? Because God’s purpose is that our spirit should grow. It is not God’s purpose that only our soul should grow. If our soul grows alone, without the spirit, then something happens.
God’s purpose is for man to eat the tree of life, because this is the food of his spirit. If he eats the tree of life, he receives the divine life into his spirit.
With that life in his spirit, he is able to be conformed to the image of God’s beloved Son. This tree was put in the center of the garden, as if God were suggesting, “You should eat it.”
The next tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said, “If you eat it, you will die.”
And unfortunately, our forefather chose the wrong fruit. He was tempted by the tempter.
The tempter said, “If you eat that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be as God. You do not need God anymore. You can live your independent life. You will know what is good and what is evil.”
But without telling him that you may know the good and yet do the evil. Because of this, you are condemned.
Man wanted to be independent of God. So there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the day man ate that fruit, God said, “You die.”
Did Adam die? On that day, he lived hundreds of years. His body continued living for hundreds of years.
How about his soul? He had many sons and many daughters. His soul was very active.
His spirit died on that day. Now, what is this? Death does not mean that you are no longer there.
Scientifically speaking, death is the cessation of communication with its proper environment. What is meant by the death of our body? It is when we cease to communicate with the world. That is the death of the body.
What is the death of the spirit? It does not mean that the spirit as an organ no longer exists. It means that it has lost communication with its proper environment, which is God.
God is the proper environment of the spirit. So when man sinned, the spirit was dead to God, but the spirit as an organ was still there.
How do we know? You cannot communicate with God, but you can communicate with evil spirits. That proves that the organ was still there, but it was dead toward God.
And that is the reason the people of this world know only soul and body, because their spirit is dead to God.
But, brothers and sisters, thank God, we have new birth. We were born from above.
What is meant by being born from above? In John 3, we are told:
That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
The first word, “Spirit,” is the Spirit of God—the Holy Spirit. The second “spirit” is the human spirit.
In other words, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes into us and regenerates our dead spirit. Our spirit becomes a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in our spirit.
That is the reason why, when you believe in the Lord Jesus, the first sign is that you lift up your eyes and cry, “Abba, Father.”
Your spirit was reborn.
So, brothers and sisters, God’s purpose is that our spirit should have the highest place in our life, because it is to communicate with God.
Our soul takes the central place because it represents “I.” And our body has the lowest place.
Our dear brother Watchman Nee used such an example. He said our spirit is like the master, our soul is the steward, and our body is the servant.
Our spirit is in contact with God, who is Spirit, and it gives orders to our soul. Our soul is like a steward, and it tells our body to act it out.
So this is the divine order of spirit and soul and body.
Spiritual exercise is in our spirit, but it also affects our whole being.
Now, may I remind you: when we are reborn, our spirit is reborn. Our spirit is saved.
Oftentimes we say, “Are you saved?” Now, what do we mean? If you look at me outwardly, I am still that old “I.” I have not changed—perhaps only superficially.
Because when you believe in the Lord, your long face becomes a round face. But that is very superficial. It is still your old body.
How about your soul? Is your soul saved? Well, you say, perhaps a little bit. Why? Because what is repentance? Repentance is a change of mind, and the mind belongs to our soul.
So with repentance, it seems as if your soul has changed. But again, that change is very superficial.
Strictly speaking, what was saved was your spirit.
So the Bible says we were saved, we are now saved, and we shall be saved. The salvation of our spirit was at the time of our new birth.
Now there is the salvation of our soul. If you look at 1 Peter 1, you see this term:
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
The salvation of the soul is a process going on today. After our spirit was saved, then we begin the process of saving the soul.
How about the body? If you turn to Romans 8, you will find in verse 23:
And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit,
even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
This body of ours will be saved in resurrection. This is something in the future.
These three are together. Our whole being—spirit and soul and body—will all be saved. Now, these are fundamental.
We are talking about spiritual exercise. In spiritual exercise, the next lesson after consecration is the dividing of the soul and spirit.
To an unbeliever, there is no such experience, because they are soul and body. But to believers, after you are saved, the Holy Spirit begins to work.
Now, maybe let me add something to it. To a believer who has not consecrated himself, this matter of dividing soul and spirit does not happen.
Or maybe I can put it another way: if you have a mistaken idea of consecration, then the dividing of soul and spirit will not be your experience.
Now, why do I say it? What is consecration? What do you consecrate? What will happen after you consecrate?
We said, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice.” You gave yourself to the Lord. For what?
Formerly, you served the world. Now, you consecrate yourself to serve God.
So we often hear people say, “If you are talented in music, then you should serve God with your music. If you are talented as an executive, then you should be an elder in the church. You should serve God with your own talent.”
Now, what do you mean? You should serve God with your soul. You should serve God with your emotion, with your mind, and with your natural will.
What you were before, you used for yourself. Now you use it for God.
Now, brothers and sisters, may I ask you a question? Are you serving God with your soul or with your spirit?
God is Spirit. If you want to worship, you have to worship in spirit. Can you worship God with your soul or with your body? No, you cannot.
That is the reason why we find many people who can say, “Lord, I cast out demons in Your name. Lord, I preached the gospel. Lord, I even gave my body to be burned.” But the Lord says, “I do not know you.”
How sad it is. In Christianity today, even in this matter of consecration, there may be a consecrated self.
Do you remember the story of Mrs. Penn-Lewis? She was greatly used by God. She was seeking God for power. She gave herself totally to God.
But one day, when she was seeking for power from on high, she was already being used by God. She had already brought many to the Lord. But she was not satisfied, so she sought earnestly for the power on high.
God said to her, “Are you consecrated?” She said, “Yes, I have consecrated.” But God said, “It is the consecrated self. It is still your own self.”
“You are using your energy. You are using your wisdom. You are using your way. You are serving Me. You seem to be consecrated to Me, but everything is self.”
“You have to go to the cross. Unless the cross works, there is no true consecration.”
And Mrs. Penn-Lewis was greatly used by God. So, brothers and sisters, there is the need for the dividing of the soul and the spirit.
Now I am talking to you, dear brothers and sisters, who know the meaning of consecration. You are not trying to consecrate yourself and serve God by yourself, to do something for God.
Instead, you consecrate yourself that God may do everything in you.
Now, if this is your understanding, recall your past experience. When you were first saved, when you were in first love with God, it seemed as if you were totally obedient and surrendered to God.
It seemed as if you were a changed person. There was nothing that God might ask you that you were not willing to give to Him. So you began to feel that now you were a changed person.
But gradually, when your first love began to grow cold, you began to realize that your old habit, your old thinking, and your own way began to come back.
You begin to wonder if you are really saved. If you are saved, you should be changed. But it seems that the change is only for a short period.
So, are you saved? Let me explain.
Who dwells in your spirit? Christ dwells in your spirit.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
When we believe in the Lord Jesus, we have Christ. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. But where does He dwell? In our spirit.
Who dwells in our soul? Not yet. It is your old self.
Because when you are saved, it is the saving of your spirit; it is not the saving of the soul. Your self—your “I,” your “me”—is still the life of your soul.
So you begin to realize you are a dual person, because within you there are two lives. In your spirit lives Christ. In your soul lives “I.”
In your first love, the “I” seems to subside, so it is all Christ. But when your love begins to grow cold, you find the old soul raises its head.
You remember Martin Luther said, “I am not afraid of the pope and all the cardinals outside of me, but I am afraid of the pope within me.”
And his companion, Philip Melanchthon, said, “Little Philip is no match for the great Adam within me.”
You begin to see that, even though you are saved, your old habit begins to take over. Your old thinking, your old way of life, even your own ideas and opinions, begin to govern your life.
The Holy Spirit is reminding you. He is holy. So whenever your old thing comes back, the Holy Spirit will touch you. He will touch your conscience.
And you find there is conflict. The soul and the spirit struggle against each other. The soul strives against the spirit.
Within you, you know what is right. You know what is holy. But you cannot do it, because your soul-life is so strong. You struggle and struggle.
Now, I wonder if this is your experience. If you are a truly consecrated person, I would say that within a year of your salvation, this should begin.
You will discover that within you there is a civil war. The spirit and the soul are striving against each other. The life of Christ and my life are struggling against each other.
You find that your spirit, most of the time, is weak, because the Christ-life in you is young, but the self-life in you is strong, because Adam is very old.
You cannot do what you want to do. You do what you do not want to do.
And not only that, there is another problem. Now you are saved. In your spirit, you want to please God. But somehow you find it difficult to know what is the will of God.
Is it my own will? Can I do this? If I do this, do I do it out of Christ or out of myself? Do you have such an experience? It can make you very nervous.
I often say nervous Christians are good Christians. If you are not nervous, be careful.
You do not know the difference between soul and spirit, and the result will be that what you do is mostly soulish.
So you find that in spiritual exercise, the next lesson is that gradually you begin to realize that there are two lives within you, and they are struggling. You are weak.
But not only that, you find that oftentimes it is very difficult to discern what is the spirit and what is the soul—what is of Christ and what is of me.
Why is it? Because the faculties of the soul work very similarly to the way the faculties of the spirit work.
Conscience is in your spirit. The Holy Spirit will touch your conscience, and you feel it. Now, in your soul there is a faculty called feeling.
So it is all feeling. Whether it is the feeling of the conscience or the feelings of your soul is very difficult to distinguish. And the soul has the ability to counterfeit.
So you get very puzzled.
The same thing is true with intuition. We say the spirit has the faculty of intuition.
In other words, the knowledge in our spirit is direct. It is not something that you get as information from outside. The Holy Spirit directly instructs you. So it is a direct knowledge.
Now, our thought is an indirect thing. You get information, you analyze it, and you make a conclusion. But oftentimes these things get mixed up.
The same thing is true with worship and our will. You find in Colossians that there is will-worship. So you do not know whether your worship is in your will or in the spirit.
When you are in that kind of spiritual condition, what do you do? You try to analyze yourself. You try to say, “Is this of the spirit? Is it of Christ? Is this of myself?”
But, brothers and sisters, self-analysis is an activity of the soul. So it does not help. The more you try to do it, the more you will be spiritually paralyzed.
That is the reason why, when you are first saved, it is very easy for you to share the gospel with people.
But when this thing happens, you wonder, “Am I speaking in the spirit, or am I speaking in the soul? I do not want to speak in the soul. I want to speak in the spirit.” So you begin to analyze, and you become paralyzed.
I love that story. There was once a centipede. A centipede has one hundred feet, and it moves very fast.
One day the centipede said to itself, “I wonder which of my hundred feet moves first.” There it was, thinking about which foot moved first, and it could not move. It gave up.
You know, this is our spiritual experience. We get paralyzed.
The spirit and the soul need to be divided. If they are not divided, we will never be able to grow spiritually.
But how can they be divided? The Bible shows us the way. Thank God for His Word.
That is in Hebrews 4. Will you please turn to Hebrews 4:12?
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
May the Lord open our inner eyes, enabling us to see the picture. You know, this verse gives us a picture.
What is the picture? The picture is that there is a sacrifice.
Now, who is the sacrifice? What do you do to yourself? You do nothing. Is any sacrifice that is bound on the altar trying to move around? No. A sacrifice is there, dead on the altar.
Now a priest comes. A priest is a trained butcher. If you want me to kill a chicken, it is a mess. But a priest is trained, knowing how to cut rightly.
He uses a sharp two-edged sword. He penetrates and divides. He divides the soul and the spirit; he divides the bone and the marrow.
Here you find three things: the soul and the spirit, and the bone and marrow, which is the body. But here he is not merely trying to tell us that we are three parts.
He is using the relationship of the body to speak of the relationship between the soul and the spirit.
We have the bones, which are the structure of the body. But within the bones there is marrow. The marrow is within the bone. It cannot be seen.
But the marrow is the life-giving thing, because it produces red cells. The bone is only an outward structure. The important thing is the marrow.
You know, brothers and sisters, our soul is in the body, and our spirit is in the soul. The soul is like the bone, and the spirit is the marrow.
So you find that it has to be penetrated and then divided. Then the marrow will be seen. Now, this is an illustration for our spirit and soul to be divided.
God’s way is to use His Word, because the Word of God is the breath of God. It is living, and it is active.
When the Word of God is put on paper, it becomes letters. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
So when we read the Bible, we may understand what it means, but it seems that it does not work.
For instance, our old Adam was crucified with Christ. Am I crucified? But I say, “No,” because I am very much alive.
The Word of God is living and active. It is like a sharp two-edged sword. It will penetrate; it will divide.
How is it? It depends on who is using it. If I am using the Word of God, I will cut it into a mess.
You know, lots of people use the Word of God to cut people, and they make a mess of it. Oh, no. We do not know how to use the Word of God. We are not trained.
It is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes hold of the Word of God.
And when He reveals the Word of God to us, it penetrates. Then you find all the thoughts and intents of your heart are exposed. Your intents and your will are all exposed.
Because everything is naked before the eyes of God.
So, brothers and sisters, what is our experience? If you are striving and trying, you fail.
But if you lie there quietly, allowing the Holy Spirit to quicken the Word of God in your heart, then you will find that it works.
Then you can see that the soul and the spirit are divided. Not only are they divided, but it gives you the power to overcome.
So, brothers and sisters, we need to rest in Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives.
As a living sacrifice, you tell the Lord, “I am not struggling. I am not trying. I am lying here, waiting for Your Holy Spirit to use the living Word to divide the soul and the spirit.”
In other words, you do not need to be paralyzed. You do not need to analyze yourself. Just put yourself in the Lord, and He will do the work.
This is the way of dividing the soul and the spirit.
This is a spiritual exercise that we need to have. You can see very easily that this is a daily matter.
Whenever the Spirit of God, using God’s Word, penetrates and divides, because you are consecrated, therefore you will yield and surrender to do the will of God.
As Psalm 131 says, it is like a weaned child resting with his mother.
This is our situation. So may the Lord help us.
Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we do offer these few words into Thy hand. If they are of the Lord, use them to bring us into this spiritual exercise.
Bring us out of our own struggle and into believing Thy work.