Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about what the early Christians believed about the spirit and the soul. Now I can appreciate that at first glance your reaction may be," Well, who cares? What difference does it make?" To be honest, that was my first reaction when I originally noticed that the early Christians taught that there is a difference between our soul and spirit. There were so many other new things I was learning that I just shoved this issue to the back burner.
However, the significance of it has become clear to me over time because it has everything to do with the nature of mankind after the fall. And our nature after the fall has everything to do with our salvation and our walk with Christ. Now many of us have grown up being taught that as a result of the fall, we humans are totally depraved. We can do no good in our own power. Every good thing we try to do is obnoxious to God.
For example, Matthew Henry writes this," We have all by sin become not only obnoxious to God's justice, but odious to His holiness. For sin is that abominable thing which the Lord hates and cannot endure to look upon. Even all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. The best of our persons are so, we are all so corrupt and polluted that even those among us who pass for righteous men are but as filthy rags fit to be cast to the dunghill. The best of them is as Briar.
Continuing, he writes," The best of our performances are so. Those which pass for the sacrifices of righteousness when they come to be inquired into are the torn and the lame and the sick and therefore are provoking to God as nauseous as filthy rags." Now that represents the Augustinian slash Calvinist view of man after the fall, and this is the Reformation view. And that view would largely be the understanding of most people who claim to be Bible-believing born-again Christians.
Now, the opposite view to that would be that we are all basically good, and that we can save ourselves through our own good works. And that is certainly incorrect. Many Christians like to pretend that those are the only two options. However, the truth is that there is a huge middle ground between those two extremist, unscriptural views.
Nevertheless, let me say it loud and clear at the start of this message that neither I nor the early Christians believed that we can save ourselves or that we can earn our salvation through good works. Now I'm saying this as plain as I know how, yet I know that I will nevertheless be accused of teaching that we can save ourselves or that the early Christians taught this. At the same time, there is a huge problem with the Reformation view of man.
That problem is that it contradicts both Scripture and our own human experience. Let's start with the scriptural problem. The Reformation view simply doesn't fit what the Scriptures tell us about mankind. For example, I want to read to you what the Bible says about Job. Job chapter 1:1 reads," There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil." So we're told that Job is blameless and upright.
Not that he was abominable and corrupt, as the Reformers describe all mankind. Well, that's just the Bible writer saying that you may respond. You may say in the eyes of other humans, sure, Job appeared to be blameless and upright, but not in the eyes of God. In God's eyes, Job's righteous deeds were nothing but filthy rags. Well, let's see if that's the case. Let's read further about Job. We go down to verse 6 of that first chapter.
It says," Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan," From where do you come?" So Satan answered the Lord and said," From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it." Then the Lord said to Satan," Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil." End quote.
So now it is God Himself who is calling Job blameless and upright. And he's declaring this to Satan of all creatures. It certainly doesn't sound to me that God sees Job as totally depraved, abominable, and polluted. No, he calls him blameless and upright, even though Job is not born again. Well, still not convinced, you may respond," David, actually God merely imputed righteousness to Job." In truth, Job was totally depraved and his works were filthy rags. Alright, let's see.
Now, if that were the case, then we can expect Satan, who never misses a trick, to say to God," Look, you and I both know that Job is totally depraved. His blameless deeds are actually filthy rags in your eyes. You're merely imputing righteousness to him. You're pretending he's righteous, but we both know that he isn't." However, that's not what Satan told God. Rather, we read this, beginning with verse 9. So Satan answered the Lord and said," Does Job fear God for nothing?
Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You've blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. But now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." So Satan doesn't deny that Job is upright and blameless, which he surely would have done if that were the case. Rather, he merely accuses Job of serving God for selfish gain. He says that Job serves God because God blesses him.
So Job truly was blameless and upright. Not when compared against a standard of absolute perfection, but in a real way, in the way that God assesses mankind. Please understand, Job is not some isolated example. I encourage you to do a word search for the word" righteous" in the Old Testament. You'll find that there are about 200 instances where the Old Testament uses the word" righteous" to describe people living in that time period.
For example, we read in Ezekiel 14:14," Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, talking about unfaithful Jerusalem, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness," says the Lord God. So this notion that God views us all as an abomination, as totally depraved, simply doesn't fit the testimony of Scripture itself, not when you look at the whole picture. I realize, of course, that you can selectively pull a few proof texts to make it appear that we're totally depraved.
Luther did a very good job at that. But the totality of Scripture doesn't present that view of mankind. And when we're looking for truth, we look at the totality of Scripture, not a few proof texts. Yes, you may say, but the standard changes when we get to the New Testament. Does it? Let's see. Let's go to the first event of the New Testament. And that is when the angel appeared before the priest Zacharias and told him that he would beget a son. We read, this is in Luke 1:5.
It says," There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth." Now listen to this. It says," And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments, and ordinances of the Lord blameless." So right from the start, when we open the New Testament, we read of blameless people who were righteous before God. They weren't abominations before God.
But if the Reformation view were correct, how could this be? Because Zacharias and Elizabeth were not born again. They were ordinary, fallen humans. And yet it says they walked in all of the commandments and ordinances of God blamelessly. It specifically says that they were righteous. If you still have any doubts about this matter, listen to Jesus' own words. I'm reading from now Matthew 13: 17.
And Jesus Himself says," For assuredly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it." End quote. So Jesus refers to Old Testament persons as righteous men or righteous humans. So could it be that human nature is different than what most of us have been taught? You see, originally Christians did not believe we are totally depraved, that we can do no good.
It wasn't until the 5th century that someone that is other than the Gnostics taught that we were totally depraved. That man was Augustine. Sadly, the major Reformers embraced his teachings. However, the Anabaptists, along with others, refused to embrace this unscriptural doctrine that we all begin life totally depraved. Yes, you may ask, but didn't Paul say that no good dwelled in him? Well, actually what he said was this.
I'm quoting," For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells." So Paul said that" no good thing dwelt in his flesh." And I think that's a good launching point into our discussion about what the early Christians believed concerning the nature of man. I'll tell you in a nutshell, they believe that we are composed of three separate elements: the Spirit, the soul, and the flesh. The Spirit is the element of God that still dwells in fallen man. It wills to do what is right.
It is what gives even fallen humans a conscience. It is particularly in tune with God and with the Holy Spirit. In contrast, the body, or the flesh, is drawn towards evil because of the fall. It mainly wants what is pleasurable for itself. It tends to be selfish and prone to do whatever pleases it the most. Okay, what about the third part, the soul? Well, the soul lies in the middle. It can choose to be led by the Spirit, that is, the human spirit, the godly part of man, or it can choose to follow the flesh.
It has free will to make this choice. So it can follow the leading of our Spirit, which for a Christian is also the leading of the Holy Spirit, or it can choose to rebel against God and link itself with our fallen flesh. As a result, there is a war going on within every man, particularly in the person who wants to follow God. The Spirit and the flesh fight to gain control of our soul. What we become as a person has a lot to do, or I should say, has everything to do with which part of our nature wins this battle.
Is it going to be our spirit or our flesh? However, very few Christians today have been taught this. Most of us have been taught that we have only a twofold nature, body and soul. And we're taught that both body and soul are depraved, incapable of doing good. We've also heard that our spirit is the same thing as our soul. OK, I've told you what the early Christians believe. Now I'm going to read to you some representative quotations from their actual writings. This first one is from Tatian.
He was one of the Christian apologists who wrote around the year 160. He says," We recognize two kinds of spirit that is within a person. One kind is called the soul, but the other," that would be our human spirit, is greater than the soul. It is an image and likeness of God. Both existed in the first humans. So in one sense, those humans were material, but in another sense, they were superior to matter. So he explains we have two spiritual natures inside of our body.
One is what we know as the spirit, and the other one is the soul. Irenaeus talks about it in more detail. He wrote around the year 170 or 180. He was a bishop living in modern-day France. He says," The complete man is composed of flesh, soul, and spirit." One of these does indeed preserve and fashion the man, and that is the spirit. It is united and formed to the other, the flesh. Then there is that which is between these two, the soul.
The soul is sometimes indeed raised up by the spirit when it follows it, but sometimes the soul sympathizes with the flesh and falls into carnal lust. So again, he sets forth the threefold nature, the soul is the one in the middle. Origen writes," We frequently find in the Scriptures, and we have often discussed this topic, that man may be said to be spirit, body, and soul.
And when it is said the flesh desires contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit desires contrary to the flesh, the soul is undoubtedly placed in the middle. Either it gives assent to the desires of the spirit, or it is inclined towards the lusts of the flesh. If it joins itself to the flesh, it becomes one body with it in its lust and sinful desires. But if it should associate itself with the spirit, it shall be one spirit with it. So that was the basic early Christian view.
Now, I do want to tell you that there was one notable exception to this view of the tripartite nature of man, and that was Tertullian. He believed the soul and spirit to be one and the same. Now, as far as I know, he was the only exception. However, Tertullian was still in complete agreement with what the other early Christians believed about the Spirit as to its divine origin, its desire to do what is right, and the ongoing struggle between the Spirit and the flesh.
Where the other early Christians said that the Spirit and the flesh were in a contest to see who can control the soul. Tertullian said that the two were in a contest to see who could control the person. So in the end, what Tertullian taught was not that different from what the rest of the church taught. Now, if you've listened to many of my messages, you've heard me say many times that if you want to know what the early Christians believed on a particular subject, all you have to do is the following.
Number one, look at all of the New Testament passages on that subject, and if applicable, the Old Testament passages. And two, take those passages seriously and literally, that is, at face value. However, at first glance, this teaching of the threefold nature of man seems to be an exception to that rule. I say that because if you go to your New Testament and read all of the passages about the flesh, soul, and spirit, you probably would not come to the same conclusion as did the early Christians. Why is this?
Well, it's not because this is an exception to the rule. It's because this anciently held doctrine is totally disguised in our Bible translations. It's right there in Scripture, but it has been hidden from us in plain sight. Have you ever read Edgar Allen Poe's short story called The Purloined Letter? I remember reading it when I was in sixth grade. I don't think I've read it since then, but the plot has stayed in my mind over the years.
The basic story involves a compromising letter that would have caused quite a royal scandal in France if its contents were made public. Now, the villain of the story snatches the letter from the palace, and he hides it in his Paris hotel room. Well, the police know who took the letter. And so while he's out, they go into his hotel room and they carefully search every nook and cranny. Yet they can't find the letter.
They even insert long needles in the upholstery to try to determine if somehow he hid it inside the furniture. But they come up with nothing. Now they can't just arrest the man for fear that he would then make the contents of the letter public. And so arresting him would do more damage than good. Well, finally, not being able to resolve the problem themselves, they hire this private detective who is the hero of the story, sort of like Sherlock Holmes before the Sherlock Holmes stories were written.
Well, the hero pays a visit to the villain who stole the letter. Well, in the course of his visit with him, his eyes study the room and everything in it. Well, eventually the private detective spies the letter. It turns out it is in plain view. It's attached to a cheap card rack, right there in the open. What the villain had done was simply to turn the letter inside out, and he wrote a new address on the reverse side of the letter, and then he left it in plain view.
It was in such plain sight that the police didn't even think to look at it because they figured, well, he would hide this thing very carefully. Well, in many ways, the doctrine of the threefold nature of man is just like the plot of that story. This teaching is actually right in front of our noses. But it has been hidden by one simple trick. That is changing a lowercase S into a capital S. That one simple switch changes the meaning from our human spirit with a lowercase S to the Holy Spirit with a capital S.
So all of the New Testament passages that talk about the nature of our Spirit, nearly all of them have been transformed by Bible translators into passages about the Holy Spirit. And so the texts are right in front of us, but none of us have seen them because they've been altered. You see, the original New Testament writings were written entirely in uncials or uppercase letters.
So when translating New Testament Greek, there is no way to determine whether or not to capitalize a letter other than the context of the passage. So a translator's preconceptions are going to color the way he translates any given passage. The thing I fault the translators for is that they do not inform their readers that the word" spirit" in so many passages could be talking about our human spirit, not the Holy Spirit. They should, at a minimum, tell us this in a footnote to the reader.
Thankfully, there are at least two verses in the New Testament where the translators were forced to translate them in such a way as to show that there is a difference between the soul and the spirit. The first passage is 1 Thessalonians 5: 23. It reads," Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." So here Paul clearly teaches the threefold nature of man: spirit, soul, and body.
However, most of us have never taken much notice of this verse, as it seems to stand alone. Because in all of the other passages, the translators have rendered them in such a way that it appears that Paul is talking about the Holy Spirit, not our personal Spirit.
There is one other clear passage in Scripture, and that is Hebrews 4:12, which reads," The Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword." Listen to this, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Okay, so here again, the New Testament makes a distinction between the soul and spirit. Now if you're like me, you've probably wondered many times about the meaning of this passage in Hebrews.
But commentaries and study Bibles usually explain it away, and so I had never given much thought to it until I read the early Christian writings. But with the exception of those two verses, a person can read the entire New Testament and never be the least bit aware that there is a difference between the soul and spirit, or that we humans have a tripartite nature. Now, it is extremely rare for the early Christians to ever formulate their beliefs based on just one or two passages of Scripture.
And this subject about the nature of man and the difference between the soul and spirit is no exception. So now I want to lay out for you the other passages the early Christians relied upon. Now I'm going to forewarn you that if you're like me, you're probably going to find it very hard to make the switch from a capital S to a lowercase S in these passages. In other words, we're all used to reading them as though it's talking about the Holy Spirit, not our Spirit inside of us.
I've read these verses so long from Bible translations that use a capital S, that I still find it very hard personally to mentally make the switch, even knowing how the early Christians understood these passages and agreeing with the early Christians. So I think the only fair thing I can ask of you is not that you change your understanding of these Scriptures overnight, but simply as we go through them, pretend for the next half hour or so that you are Origen or Irenaeus or some other early Christian.
And you're reading these passages through their eyes. You've put on eyeglasses that makes your mind read it the same way they would have back then. You don't have to adopt their understanding, but let's at least look at how they understood these passages. The first one I want to read is Galatians 5, 16, and 17. Now, of course, when you're hearing this audibly, there is no distinction between a capital S and a small S. But as I'm reading, you need to mentally be hearing a lowercase S.
We're talking about our human spirit. Again, we're reading these through the eyes of the early Christians. Okay, Galatians 5:16 and 17. I say then," Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." And these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish." End quote. Now, you and I, of course, have been used to reading those passages with the capital S on the Word Spirit.
So, all of our lives, we thought Paul was saying that there is a battle between our flesh and the Holy Spirit. And of course, there is some truth to that. It's not an absurd rendering, but it's not how the early Christians were understanding Paul. They were reading him to say that our human spirit and our human flesh are in conflict with each other. One wants to do what's right, and the other wants to do things its own way.
In other words, even after we are born again, we still have this conflict inside of us, and our flesh frequently wins out. But again, reading it through the eyes of the early Christians, you see this clear teaching that there is a war between our God-given human spirit and our fallen flesh. That is, that is crystal clear if you're reading this mentally with a lowercase S on the word" spirit." Okay, Paul then goes on to say in verse 18. And each time as I'm reading this, think of a lowercase S on Spirit.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. In other words, if through the help of Christ, our soul is led by our Godly Spirit, our soul follows the Spirit instead of the flesh, then we no longer need to be under the Mosaic Law, which is what Paul was trying to explain to the Galatians. The law was meant for those who are not led by their Spirit. It is for those whose soul has aligned itself with the flesh. Paul then goes on to describe what kind of fruit comes from your flesh.
He says," Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So if we are led by our flesh, if our soul has aligned itself with our flesh, then the evidence will be seen in the type of fruit we produce. Can a born-again Christian produce fleshly fruit? Definitely so. In fact, we've all seen these very things: hatred, contentions, jealousy, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies, which meant sects, envy? Sure, we've seen all of those things in otherwise born-again Christians.
And it's not as common, but adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, drunkenness also take place. So a Christian can produce the fruit of the flesh. But what if our soul has aligned itself with the spirit inside of us, our human spirit? What kind of fruit will we see? Paul tells us. But the fruit of the Spirit, small S is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Now if you're like me, you have read that passage so many times with the understanding that Paul is describing the fruit of the Holy Spirit, that it's almost impossible for us to read it any other way. It literally has taken me 30 years to make that transition in my mind. But do you see what a difference in meaning there is when we use a lowercase S instead of a capital S?
It's huge. But you may be asking, well, David, how do we know that Paul is not talking about the fruit of the Holy Spirit? Actually, we don't. However, I have to ask the question, who do you think was in a better position to understand the apostles correctly? The 2nd century Christians or the 16th century Reformers? I think obviously the early Christians were in a better position.
This doesn't make the early Christians infallible, but how they understood the New Testament should carry considerable weight instead of just being brushed aside as though they were a bunch of spiritual bimbos who knew nothing about Scripture. In addition, the early Christian understanding of the Spirit and the flesh fits exactly what Jesus told the apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said," Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.
The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Now we've all read that verse dozens of times. In fact, you've probably read it hundreds of times. But did you ever catch the significance of what Jesus was saying about the Spirit and the flesh? I know I never did until I read the early Christian writings. Tertullian wrote this about Jesus' words. He said," We read that the flesh is weak, and we thereby soothe our consciences at times.
Yet we also read that the Spirit is strong, for both expressions occur in the same sentence. Flesh is an earthly material. Spirit is a heavenly one. Why then are we so prone to make excuses for ourselves? Why do we offer our weak part as our defense? Should we not rather look at our strong part? Why shouldn't it be the earthly that yields to the heavenly? Since the Spirit is stronger than the flesh, being of a nobler origin, it is our own fault if we follow the weaker of the two.
Please understand, I don't expect you to be able to instantly make this switch in your mind. It has literally taken me 30 years to become comfortable with all of this. But I have come to realize that using a lowercase S in this passage in Galatians about fruit of the Spirit, it clears up a lot of mysteries. First, it explains why those men and women like Job, Zacharias, and Elizabeth, who were not born again could still live godly lives. It's because their souls were united with their spirits.
They were led by their spirits, and this enabled them to live blameless lives and to walk in obedience to God. Understanding Galatians the way the early Christians did explains why born-again Christians often produce the fruit of the flesh. Being born again doesn't guarantee that we'll let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit and our inner human spirit. We still have to discipline ourselves to maintain an obedient love faith relationship with Christ.
It's why Paul said about Himself," I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified." Now, if Paul had to do that, how much more so do we? Third, understanding the fruit of the Spirit to be talking about our God-given human spirit, we shouldn't be surprised to learn that non-Christians can produce the fruit of the Spirit, just like Christians can produce the fruit of the flesh.
non-Christians still have that divine element and voice of conscience within them. That's why we've all met non-Christians who exhibit love or joy or peace, gentleness, kindness, self-control, and other fruits of the Spirit. You know, I mentioned at the beginning of this message that the early Christian understanding about the soul and the Spirit fits not only Scripture, but also our human experience. For example, Jesus said there is no greater love than to lay down our lives for another person.
I remember a few years ago reading in the news about a man who was standing at a subway station, and if I remember it correctly, he had an epileptic attack and fell down on the tracks with a train quickly approaching him. Well, a man who was standing there immediately jumped down after him and moved him to the center of the tracks and lay down on top of him just as the train went over them and saved that man's life, but risked his own life to do that.
Now, as far as I know, the hero in that story was not a Christian, but it probably happens every day that a non-Christian lays down literally his life or certainly risks his life to save that of another person. And Jesus says there is no greater love than when we do that. We've all met people who are kind. I know I've met many non-Christians who have better self-control than many of us Christians. I mean, just look around.
We can't help but notice that many of us, as Christians, lack self-control when it comes to the area of eating. And I'm not excluding myself from that. But there are millions of non-believers who are able to exercise self-control in this area and in other areas where Christians struggle. That's because they are being led by their God-given spirit in that area of life. Now, please don't fall back on what I call the Jehovah's Witness cop out.
As you know, I grew up a Jehovah's Witness, and they understood Galatians 5 to be talking about the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And so naturally, the question came up," Well, we see people other than Jehovah's witnesses who have fruits of the Spirit." And the answer was," Well, it appears to be the fruit of the Spirit." But no, it's not real love. They said agape love is something only a spirit-filled person can exhibit, that it's a special kind of love different from every other kind of love.
And I believed that until I read the early Christian writings. And I was surprised to find that none of them knew that agape was any special word, which made me go back and look in the New Testament. And I discovered not only is it used to describe Christian love, but it's used to describe love of wrong things. Jesus said," Even sinners love those who love them," and He uses the word agape in both places there. So even wicked people can have agape love.
He said," Woe to you Pharisees for you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces." And that's agape that he uses there. The Bible says," Do not love the world." The word uses agape. All throughout the Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint uses agape almost always when the Hebrew word is" love," it'll translate into agape. Even the Song of Solomon, with all of the mushy parts there about romantic love, agape is the word used in the Septuagint.
So it's just not true that non-Christians cannot have agape love. The same way the witnesses said," Well, it looked like they are joyful, but it's not real Christian joy. They appear to be kind, but it's not the real thing." Now, I think you would take exception to that explanation.
You would say," No, the love I have is the real thing, and the joy I have is the real thing." So please don't use then the same explanation in dismissing that of other people, saying that those in the world, well, they appear to be loving, but it's not real love, or they appear to have joy, but it's not real joy, it's not real kindness. We're just not being honest. The early Christian understanding of our human spirit also explains many other things. It's why lie detectors work.
If we're totally depraved, then it should be natural for us to tell lies. And so a lie detector should set off when we say something that's true. But it works just the opposite. It's not infallible, that's for sure. But because it is not normal and natural to lie, because our spirit inside of us is going to resist our telling a lie, it causes these physical symptoms that lie detectors pick up on. It's why the army has to train soldiers to kill. It's not natural for humans to kill another human.
And there is a resistance there. It's why sometimes even in war, soldiers will refuse to fire their gun and shoot the enemy. It's happened in every war that, yes, some of the rifles are never fired or they're fired up into the air. This natural spiritiness and our ability to produce the fruits of it, even if we're not born again, explains why most people don't steal.
If the average person walked into a grocery store and all of the employees had just stepped out because there was an earthquake or you know some natural phenomenon, I mean, most people wouldn't go there and start shoplifting everything. This spirit inside of us is why most people are peaceful, law-abiding citizens. More importantly, it's why we can expect our children before they are born again, before they surrendered their lives to Christ.
We can and we do expect them to be kind, to be peaceable, to be good, to exercise self-control. We expect them to love their parents and their siblings. We expect them to love God. Now, if only born-again people can do this, then we have no right to expect our children to behave in a godly manner. No, our children can produce the fruit of the Spirit, because it is the fruit that comes from our own human spirit that was given to us by God. It's God's witness inside of us, and we can let it control our lives.
It's why Paul says what he does in the second chapter of Romans.
Romans 2 verses 14 through 16, he says," For when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." Now Paul could say this because these Gentiles had souls that were being led by their spirits in those areas.
An example of the type of person Paul is talking about is Cornelius. He was a godly man of prayer who gave generously to help the poor. Now, that alone couldn't save Cornelius. Cornelius still had to hear the gospel message of Christ and to believe. But once Cornelius and his household did believe the gospel, then they received baptism from the Holy Spirit and were baptized in water. But before receiving the Holy Spirit, Cornelius was exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit that comes from our human spirit.
Now, our love, joy, peace, kindness, are these also fruits of the Holy Spirit? Of course. If they're attributes of God's nature in our human Spirit, how much more so are the attributes of the Holy Spirit? So we can get these fruits from the Holy Spirit abiding in us and also from our human spirit. The two work together. Again, what we need to understand is that our utter dependency on Christ's blood and on God's grace for our salvation does not require us to be totally depraved.
The early Christians certainly did not believe that anyone could save himself. They knew he had to be washed in the blood of the Lamb. They knew that apart from God's grace, there would be no salvation for anyone. However, they did not believe in total depravity, or in predestination where God arbitrarily decides who will be saved and who won't. They recognize that the Bible teaches that we fallen humans still have our human spirits, which give each human a conscience and an internal witness to godly conduct.
I want to encourage you in your daily Bible reading to start noticing the word" spirit" as it is used in the New Testament, remembering that it's basically up to us to decide if it should be capitalized in a particular instance or left as a lowercase letter. In other words, is it talking about the Holy Spirit or about our spirit? In many instances, we honestly don't know, but try reading it as though it's talking about man's spirit and see what a difference it makes in understanding.
Interestingly, the original 1611 King James Version uses a lowercase S throughout Galatians 5, the chapter we just read, when Paul talks about the war between the flesh and the Spirit. The 1611 also uses a lowercase S when Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit. What happened was in 1769, the scholars at Oxford University revised the King James Version, and they turned those lowercase S's to capital S's. In doing that, they significantly changed the meaning of the text.
And virtually every Bible translated since then in English has followed their revisions. So just remember that those capital S's are a fairly recent revision. Unless it's specifically mentioned as the Holy Spirit, we have every right to change those capital S's back to lowercase S's. Let's just look at some examples from Paul's epistles. As I read these, use a lowercase S in your mind.
As before, pretend for a moment that you're an early Christian and that you are hearing these passages with the understanding that Paul is using a small S, talking about our human spirit. Now, for the sake of time, I'm going to be moving through these fairly rapidly. The first one, Galatians 6, 7, and 8," Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption.
But he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. 1 Corinthians 6:20," For you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." Romans 8:1 and 2," There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:4 and 5," That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
A short time ago, I shared this message about the Spirit and Soul with a small group of believers, which was actually the very first time I had ever given this message. And one of the brothers asked me," So what does the new birth do for us?" Which is an excellent question. Well, one of the things the new birth does for us is described by Paul in verses 8 through 10 of this same chapter of Romans 8.
He says," So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God, but you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you." Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, He is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." End quote. So with the new birth, we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Now, instead of just having our human spirit to resist the flesh and the world, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. That gives us a lot more power than we were originally born with. In addition, of course, it is in the new birth that our past sins are forgiven, and we are given a new standing before God, with the blood of Jesus cleansing us from sin. So the teaching about the threefold nature of man in no way minimizes our need for the new birth.
All right, moving on, Romans 8:12, and 13." Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." Again, each time you hear the word" spirit," unless it says" Spirit of God" or of Christ, think in your mind small S, our Spirit. This is how the early Christians were understanding these passages.
Okay, verses 14 and 16," For as many as are led by the Spirit of God," that's a capital S, these are sons of God. The Spirit Himself as talking about the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Verse 16 there is very important as it reveals how things should work for a born-again Christian. The Holy Spirit works in cooperation with our human spirit and bears witness to our Spirit that we are children of God.
Of course, if our soul is following the leading of our flesh instead of our Spirit, then our Spirit receives no such witness from the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:11, I think in all Bibles, this is translated with a small S. It says," For what man knows the things of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him?" So the Spirit in us knows more about ourselves than we often are conscious of.
1 Corinthians 2:13 and 14, Paul says," These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." Now, both places there is talking about the Holy Spirit, but I wanted to read this passage because it's another example where our Bible translators have failed us.
See, Paul actually did not say that the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit. He says the soulish man in Greek Psychikos Anthropos. This is a person whose soul has taken the bit into his mouth, so to speak, and he doesn't listen to His Spirit any longer. He is no longer controlled by His Spirit or by the Holy Spirit, either one. Now, there is no excuse for the way most English Bibles translate this word.
It makes it sound like Paul is saying that someone who is not born again, that is, a natural man, doesn't receive the things of the Spirit. Yet the context of that passage is all about born-again Christians. Paul is rebuking the Corinthian Christians because they are not led by their own Spirit or by the Spirit of God. One final one, Romans 7:18 and 22. Paul says," For I know that in me," then he clarifies," That is in my flesh, nothing good dwells.
For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do, but the evil I will not do that I practice. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man." Now the inward man there is, of course, the Spirit. Now, some Christians imagine that Paul is talking about his own personal walk with God here. They imagine that he was living in continual sin, that he was doing the evil that he didn't want to do because his flesh dominated him.
However, the early Christians understood that here Paul was taking on the persona of a new believer who had not yet been able to bring his flesh under control, who was not ruled by His Spirit or by the Holy Spirit. As I mentioned previously, when Paul was talking about himself, he says," I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified." Now again, in any of the verses we've read, Paul might sometimes be referring to the Holy Spirit.
We simply don't know in each individual instance unless it says the Spirit of God or something like that. But it is dishonest to just capitalize the word Spirit in every instance without letting the reader know that the New Testament writer might be talking about our Spirit, not the Holy Spirit. When we read these passages with the understanding that Paul is talking about our human spirit, as did the early Christians, it gives a very different meaning to these verses.
And Bible translators should at least, in the footnotes, let the reader know that in each instance, this could be talking about our Spirit, not the Holy Spirit, or vice versa. Thankfully, in the last two centuries, there has been a rediscovery of the New Testament teaching on the tripartite nature of man. Quite a few authors and theologians today acknowledge this threefold nature. Watchman Nee is probably the most notable or the most widely read among these.
Unfortunately, from what I've seen, what most of these Christians have to say about our threefold nature is not actually the historic faith. Many of them say things like," The Spirit is the center of our deepest emotions," or something like that. In other words, they're trying to uphold the distinction between soul and spirit, but they aren't aware of the historical Christian teaching on this subject.
Again, most of them don't realize, or at least they don't acknowledge, that all these passages we've looked at from Galatians 5 and Romans 7 and 8, and from Corinthians, that they're talking about or could be talking about the human spirit. So these modern writers miss most of the significance of this doctrine. Furthermore, most of them say that in the fall, our human spirit died. So the Spirit in man, they say, lies lifeless until we're born again.
Well, if that's the case, in the end, it isn't really very different from the standard Protestant view of the dual nature of man. A friend of mine who was aware that I was going to be recording this message gave me some excellent advice.
He said," David, after explaining what the early Christians believed and the biblical foundation for it, you should address some of the arguments made by modern theologians who reject this tripartite nature of man." So I went through my own library to see what I could find as to what today's theologians are saying on this subject. I also searched the web and other sources to see what arguments were being made against the threefold or tripartite nature of man.
Well, I found right off that the ones who are the most adamant in rejecting the tripartite view of man are the Calvinists like J.I. Packer and R.C. Sproul. This isn't surprising since the early Christian view presents such a different picture of man than that painted by Augustine and Calvin. However, whether they are five-point Calvinists or not, nearly all of the authors and theologians who oppose the tripartite view take the same approach and make the same arguments.
First of all, they make assertions that the spirit and the soul are one and the same without offering any support for their assertions. The fact that they have a doctorate is supposed to be authority enough. For example, J.I. Packer writes," It is a mistake to think that soul and spirit are two different things. A trichotomous view of man as body, soul, and spirit is incorrect and out of step with biblical teaching." Okay, so how can a teaching based on the Bible be out of step with biblical teaching?
He offers little proof. It calls to mind the words of one of the early Christian writers, Mark Minucius Felix, who said," People tend to accept something as true simply because it's boldly asserted." Okay, secondly, the critics explain away the two strongest texts in modern Bibles that demonstrate the spirit and soul are different, which are 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12.
One writer said," In the classic text in Thessalonians, Paul seems to be making a tripartite affirmation, but it could well be he is using interchangeable terms to relate that he is talking about the entirety of the human being." Once again, a kind of parallelism or overstatement for emphasis to give fullness of meaning could be the style in this passage. The rich vocabulary of the Greek Paul used gave ample opportunity for this kind of prose, end quote.
Another author said that Paul was simply using a superfluidity of words to get his point across. As to Hebrews 4:12, R.C. Sproul writes," This may be a figurative and hyperbolic way of saying that God's Word can make distinctions we cannot make." Again, what do we have? Nothing more than naked assertions. A third, quite a few of the critics argue from Mary's song in the first chapter of Luke that is often referred to as the Magnificat. They argue from it that the soul and spirit must be the same.
Their argument goes something like this: A, Mary begins her song with the two parallel lines," My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." Then they say that this is a classic example of Hebrew poetry, which is often marked by parallelism of thought expressed in two successive lines. Now, I would agree with them that Mary's song is an example of Hebrew poetry, and that such poetry is often marked by parallelisms.
Well, then C, they conclude that the soul and spirit are the same since Mary mentions them in parallel lines. Now, that's not an absurd argument, but it is a very weak one. Just one example from the Old Testament demonstrates how weak this argument really is. We read the following parallelism in Proverbs.
It's Proverbs 23:22." Listen to your father who begot you and do not despise your mother when she is old." This is a classic Hebrew parallelism, but would anyone argue from it that a person's father and mother are one and the same thing? Of course not. These parallel lines complement each other. They don't repeat the exact same thought. And that's true most of the time in Hebrew poetry.
Likewise, when we read the rest of Mary's song, we see that her parallelisms express complementary thoughts, non-identical thoughts. For example, she says," He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly." Now putting down the mighty from their thrones is not the exact same thing as exalting the lowly. The two thoughts complement each other, but they're not identical.
So in the end analysis, when Mary says," My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." She is actually indicating that her soul and spirit are two separate things. Now, interestingly, in reading these various critics, nobody I read acknowledges that the crux of the matter turns on translating spirit with a lowercase S as spirit with a capital S. That's what the discussion should focus on. And it should be particularly talking about Galatians 5 and Romans 7 and 8.
But nobody even mentions this fact. Finally, most of the sources I looked at never acknowledged that this was the early Christian view. I'm guessing that most of these authors weren't even aware of it. Those critics who do mention the fact that the early Christians taught the tripartite view either dismiss it offhand, or they dishonestly make the claim that the early Christians were influenced by Greek philosophy. For example, the evangelical dictionary of theology says this about the tripartite view.
This view developed from Plato's twofold division, body and soul, through Aristotle's further division of the soul into an animal soul, the breathing organic aspect of man's being, and to a rational soul, the intellectual aspect. Early Christian writers, influenced by this Greek philosophy, found confirmation of their view in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Well, upon reading that statement, it was immediately obvious to me that the author has never even read any of the early Christian writings.
He's critiquing something that he has no personal knowledge of whatsoever. I say that because nobody who has actually read the early Christians would ever claim that their beliefs came from Plato and Aristotle. They came from the New Testament. So just out of curiosity, I checked this author's bibliography to see where he got his information. As I had guessed, it's all from secondary and tertiary sources, works like psychotherapy and a Christian view of man, and a psychological approach to theology.
In fact, the overriding question we should all be asking is, if this is what the early Christians believed, why don't we believe it today? What reasons do we have to change the faith once handed down, particularly when it is thoroughly supported by Scripture? I'm sorry, but throwing out naked assertions or accusing the early Christians of being influenced by Greek philosophy isn't good enough.
We either need to have some solid reasons for rejecting their view, or else we should be humble enough to learn from those who lived in the same age as the apostles, and who copied and preserve the New Testament writings for us. Now, as I said at the beginning, I have no problem with someone who says," I can see what the early Christians are saying," and that the Scriptures support that view. However, this is such a different viewpoint for me. I'm having trouble getting my mind into it.
Like I said, I saw this teaching 30 years ago. I was able to intellectually accept their view at that time, but it has taken a long time for my mind to make the transition from capital S to lowercase S in these various Scripture passages. Again, if you're like me, it's going to be hard to read these well-known passages about the Spirit and mentally make the switch from the capital S that appears in our Bibles to the lowercase S that the early Christians were reading.
But if you can make the transition, I think you'll find that it clears up a lot of spiritual questions about the nature of man and the Christian walk.