Man is a spirit being. He possesses a physical body in which he dwells. He has a soul composed of his reasoning faculties. His body enables him to contact physical things. His reasoning faculties contact mental things. His spirit contacts spiritual things.
Before he receives eternal life, his spirit is dominated by spiritual death. This makes it impossible for him to understand the Bible, which is revelation truth.
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
The part of man that is recreated is his spirit.
Ezekiel 11:19 is a remarkable prophecy: “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh.”
Here is a unique suggestion. He is speaking of the new creation.
He will recreate their spirit, or heart, as the term is synonymously used.
He says, “I will give them one heart.” This suggests that a new kind of love is coming that will make them one as a body of people.
Jesus said, “That they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:22).
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:35)
In Ezekiel 36:26, we read, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” Here is the prophecy of an absolutely new creation.
He is going to take the stony heart of selfishness out of them, and give them His own heart of love.
In the next verse, He says, “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.”
There will not only be a new creation, but His indwelling is promised.
We can hear Jesus saying, “Ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17).
First Peter 3:4 says, “But let it be the hidden man of the heart.”
Here we are given a title for the recreated human spirit. He is called the “hidden man of the heart.” He is the new creation man. He is the man.
The physical body is not the man; it is the temporary dwelling place for the man.
The reasoning faculties are not the man; they are his servants.
The body is the home of the five senses, or the five servants of the man. All of the knowledge that the reasoning faculties ever get comes through the five senses, or the five servants of the brain.
The brain would lie dormant, inactive, if the five senses did not function.
It would be good to note here that all of the knowledge that is taught in our colleges, universities, and technical schools has come to man through these five channels.
The only way that man can obtain knowledge, or an education, is through these five servants, or members of the physical body.
Romans 7:22 says, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (ASV). Here this hidden man is called the “inward man.” In either case, the hidden man is the man.
The personality of the inner man is sometimes affected by the outer man.
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16)
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man. (Ephesians 3:16 ASV)
The outward, or the visible man, is the one whom you salute on the street.
The inward man is the one who gives this outer man either his attractiveness or his repulsiveness.
It is a very remarkable fact that God deals with the inward man instead of the outer man.
Spiritual things are unveiled to this hidden man of the heart. The Holy Spirit makes His home in the hidden man.
Sin consciousness comes from this inward man.
It is deeply important that you understand this fact: it is the recreated spirit that convicts the believer of sin, and our conscience is His voice speaking to our reason.
We stated before that the hidden man is the part of us that is recreated, receives eternal life, and becomes a new creation.
Second Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new” (ASV).
The reconciliation it speaks of in the next verse is between this hidden man of the heart and the Father God.
He never speaks of a reconciliation between God and the mind or reasoning faculties. It is always a reconciliation of the heart.
When I first saw this truth unfolded, it began to have an effect upon my attitude toward some of the teachings that I had accepted in my early days.
Let us think of man as being in God’s class. He is a spirit. He is an eternal spirit. He is capable of receiving the nature of God. He is capable of loving God. He is capable of becoming a son of God.
You understand that he was created in the image and the likeness of God—that is, spiritual likeness.
He lost that image in the fall, but it is restored in the new creation.
There is a very remarkable term used many times in the Pauline revelation. For instance, in the first chapter of Ephesians it occurs, in one form or another, eleven or twelve times.
Take this as an illustration: Ephesians 1:7 says, “In whom we have our redemption” (ASV). Notice the first two words, “In whom,” “in Christ,” or “in him.” For a long time, that bothered me. I wondered what it meant.
I came upon something in John 15:5 that helped me: “I am the vine, ye are the branches.”
The branch is a part of the vine; the vine is a part of the branch.
The two are one.
In Ephesians 1:6, Paul says we are “in the beloved.”
Ephesians 2:6 tells us that we “sit together.”
We are seated with Jesus, the beloved One, at the right hand of the Father.
Ephesians 2:6–7 uses these words, “And raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (ASV).
Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.”
You see, this occurred before the resurrection of the Master.
When Christ was recreated, the Father said, “This day have I begotten thee” (Acts 13:33).
In the mind of justice, the entire body of Christ was recreated.
This becomes a reality in us the moment we accept Christ as our Savior and confess Him as our Lord. We then receive eternal life, the nature of the Father. This makes us new creations.
Now come back to the Scripture from 2 Corinthians, where we find the proof of it:
So if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new: and all things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and given to us the ministry of that reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17–18 DBY)
Romans 6:4 says, “We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” (ASV).
Notice the next verses:
For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; 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. (Romans 6:5–6 ASV)
Note the tense. Our old man was crucified.
For he that hath died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. (Romans 6:7–8 ASV)
Darby’s translation throws much light on this:
Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death? We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin. For he that has died is justified from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. (Romans 6:3–8 DBY)
Notice carefully that the part of us that was recreated and made new was the hidden man of the heart. He is called “our old man.”
This old man was crucified with Christ. It was neither our physical body nor our reasoning faculties, but our spirit. That is the part of us that was spiritually dead and had to be recreated.
Colossians 3:9–10 says, “Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”
Notice that the old man was put off, crucified with Christ.
When Christ arose from the dead, a new man arose with Him. That new self is the human spirit.
Now the physical body, which is the home of the five senses, must be brought into conformity with Christ, who is the head of the body.
This brings us to Romans 12:1–2:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed [or transfigured] by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
This body is the home, or dwelling place, of the spirit. This recreated human spirit wishes to communicate its newfound joy to those around it.
Hidden away as it is in the human body, it has no way of communication but through the five senses.
Therefore, the first thing that must be done after one is recreated is to bring these five senses into subjection to the recreated human spirit and the Word. When this is done, the mind will be renewed.
Although you are born again, you still possess the same mind and body that had been under the dominion of the adversary. This is the reason that it is so important to renew the mind and bring it into harmony with the recreated spirit.
You must bring it into subjection to this new self that has come into being.
The trouble with the majority of believers is that their minds have never been renewed.
The mind will never be renewed until they begin to practice love. They must live this love life that Jesus introduced to the world.