We know that wisdom comes from the human spirit, and that God’s impartation of wisdom does not come direct to the intellect, but through the human spirit to the intellect.
Millions of dollars have been spent on developing the human body, and hundreds of millions have been spent on developing the human mind, but the real man, who is the spirit, has been utterly neglected.
We had thought that the only way to develop it was through religion, but when we realize that the great forces of humanity are spiritual, and that they all emanate from the spirit, then it becomes vitally important that this part of man be seriously considered.
Jesus promised cooperation with our spirits after He had settled the sin problem and sat down at the right hand of the Father.
Here is a sample of His promises:
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (John 14:16–17)
This Spirit of truth was the Holy Spirit, and He was to come and take Jesus’s place after He had finished His redemptive work.
It is almost an unknown fact that the Holy Spirit does not communicate knowledge to the intellect, except in rare cases where one is so dense spiritually that He must communicate with the senses.
All the knowledge that natural man has, has come through the senses. It may be necessary for the Spirit to come to man’s level (his senses) in order to deal with him.
John 16:13 says, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.”
This promise was not only for the special revelation that God gave to us through the apostle Paul, but it is for every believer.
He is to guide us into the reality of the redemptive work of Christ. All that Christ wrought in His substitution was wrought in His Spirit. It was His Spirit that was made sin. It was His Spirit that suffered the torments of judgment on behalf of humanity.
It was His Spirit that was declared righteous. He was made alive in His Spirit.
It was His Spirit resurrection rather than His physical resurrection that has given to humanity its redemption.
Man is so tied up with sense knowledge that he has only seen the physical suffering of Christ on the cross and His physical resurrection.
It was something infinitely beyond that. It was His Spirit that was suffering for our spirits.
It was His Spirit that was made righteous for our spirits. It was His spirit that was recreated for the recreation of our spirits.
Until we know this in our spirit, there will be no great development of faith, neither will we come into the knowledge of our rights and privileges as sons and daughters of God.
There can be no development of the human spirit until it receives eternal life; in other words, until it is recreated.
We know this because there had never been a great inventor, chemist, or scientist in any nation until that nation received eternal life. This, in itself, is a staggering fact. Thinking men would be mightily moved if they knew this truth.
The Holy Spirit recreates us through the Word. He imparts to us the nature of the Father, and with this impartation comes the new kind of wisdom. Christ is made unto us wisdom. This is accomplished when we are recreated.
It is God’s wisdom that is imparted to us in His nature, just as His love is imparted to us in His nature.
I have come to believe, as I have studied the subject of the spirit, that when God imparts His nature to us, there comes with it all of the attributes of Himself. They are undeveloped, but they are there lying latent in our human spirits.
There is faith that will link us up with God. There is love that will make us God-like. There is stability that will make us as stable as God, and all the other wonderful attributes that have challenged us in the man Jesus can be reproduced in us, as we walk in the light with Him.
It is necessary that we grasp the significance of the finished work of Christ, for in His finished work is the recreation of the spirit and a revelation of the vast possibilities of entering into a fellowship with God, a fellowship of which man has never yet been conscious.
Here are some facts connected with this new creation, some of the new things that come to man through the recreation of his spirit.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
It was the Spirit of Christ that was made sin. It is the spirit of man that is righteous with His righteousness.
This new righteousness that is imparted to the human spirit gives to the human spirit a sense of freedom and liberty with God that man has not had since the fall.
It takes away from man’s spirit the sin consciousness that has held him in slavery through the ages.
Sin consciousness is not of the reasoning faculties. It does not come to us through the five senses. Sin consciousness, or conviction of sin, comes from the human spirit. It comes because the natural human spirit is not in fellowship with God.
The new birth has recreated this human spirit and imparted to it the righteousness and nature of God so that it can fellowship with God on terms of absolute equality.
No religion in the world has ever dealt with the human spirit. All religions have been connected with the senses.
This is something that makes Christianity stand utterly distinct from other religions.
John 5:24 says, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life.” This is a new kind of life; it does not come to the reasoning faculties, but only to the human spirit. This life is God’s nature.
Romans 5:5 declares that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts” by the Holy Spirit.
The heart is used figuratively for our spirit. This new kind of love, agape, is poured into the human spirit by the Holy Spirit. It comes with the new birth when one begins to fellowship with the Father.
This new kind of love is not a thing of reason. It is a thing of the spirit consciousness.
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. (1 Corinthians 1:30)
Just as He was made righteousness unto us, just as He was made redemption unto us, and just as He was made sanctification unto us, He has been made wisdom unto us.
Just as He was made health and healing to us, so He is made unto us wisdom.
That wisdom is from God. James tells us if any man lacks wisdom, he is to ask of God. James is writing to the babes in Christ, the undeveloped ones.
Paul, here in his revelation, is speaking to the full-grown believer, one who has come into his inheritance.
One of the most vital things for us to understand is that we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ. Not only has Christ been made unto us righteousness, but we have been made the righteousness of God in Him.
That righteousness lets us into the very throne room where we can associate with the Father in terms of fellowship, where we can sit at the table, as it were, and feast on the riches of His grace. (See Hebrews 4:14–16.)
It brings us into the place where, instead of asking for wisdom, we recognize that He has been made wisdom unto us. We simply thank Him for the wisdom, and then act, knowing that the wisdom will be there to guide the action.
Wisdom sits at the head of the government. You may have all kinds of knowledge, but if you have no ability to use that knowledge, it is worthless.
You have gathered up the knowledge of His will, of His purpose and plan for you in the Word. After having done that, you thank Him for the ability to use that knowledge.
Jesus told the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they received power from on high. (See Luke 24:49.) That word power means ability. They were to receive ability to use the name of Jesus with its mighty, supernatural power.
They were to have the wisdom or ability to witness about all that they had seen and the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
The Spirit came according to the promise and they received the ability. The world was startled by the incoming of a new force, a new life, into the human consciousness.
The newborn church immediately became a mighty institution in the Jewish country. Then it spread throughout the Roman Empire.
It was the ability of God given to uneducated men to understand something of what happened from the time that Christ died on the cross until He sat down on the throne at the right hand of the Father.
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17–18)
Here we get God’s new man. He is a new spirit. He is a recreated spirit. His mind is then renewed by this incoming life, as he meditates in the Word.
His body is rejuvenated, healed of its diseases, so that the entire man stands complete before the Father.
The most deeply spiritual men and women I know are people who have given much time to meditation. You cannot develop spiritual wisdom without meditation.
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua 1:8)
This means that you will be able to deal wisely in the things of life.
Take time to meditate on the Word. Shut yourself in alone with your own spirit where the clamor of the world is shut out.
If you are ambitious to do something worthwhile, I would suggest that you take ten or fifteen minutes daily for meditation. Learn to do it. In other words, begin the development of your own spirit.
You may develop any gift that you wish to develop. The most important gift that God has given to you is the spirit. It is the development of this spirit that is going to mean more to your life than any other thing.
The great majority of men do not think. They live in the realm of the senses. The senses have limitations. Your spirit has practically no limitations.
You can develop spirit life until you dominate circumstances. Your spirit can come into vital union with the Deity, become a partaker of the divine nature. That spirit, with God’s nature in it, can fellowship on terms of absolute equality with God Himself.
Do you see your limitless possibilities?
Jesus brings us into contact with spiritual things, not mental things. Spiritual things are as real as physical things. Your spirit can come to the point where the things in His Word will become as real to you, and Jesus will become as real to you, as any loved one.
You can see the necessity of taking time to meditate, to get quiet with the Lord. You must take time to sit with His Word and let the Spirit unveil His Word to your spirit.
If you will it, you will know Him in reality.
How to Develop the Recreated Spirit
I think that I have found the answer to the problem of how the recreated human spirit can be developed. First Corinthians 13 has the answer to it.
The last clause of the twelfth chapter is also striking in this connection. Paul says, “And yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.” Then he proceeds to tell us the new kind of love way. This is the love that Jesus brought to the world.
He compares it with linguistic ability: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1 ASV).
How greatly we have appreciated linguistic abilities. And yet with one stroke, he has shown us how empty it all is without love, which the King James Version translates as charity.
Next, he tells us, “And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2 ASV).
Here Paul is showing us how empty sense knowledge achievements and gifts are without agape.
The next verse takes us still further into the picture: “And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing” (ASV).
These pictures are of natural man in his highest development in comparison with agape.
How humble and lowly is this choicest of all gifts. It wears the garments of apparent weakness.
Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own. (1 Corinthians 13:4–5 ASV)
The biggest struggle of natural man is to get something, and he is not so careful how he gets it, or from whom he gets it.
Love “is not easily provoked” (1 Corinthians 13:5). It does not lose its temper easily.
He continues that love “taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:5–6 ASV).
Notice the next verse: “Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). “Beareth all things” might be translated “covers all things.” It does not repeat the unseemly things that are said in scandal, but covers them up.
Love acts contrary to every law of the senses.
“Believeth all things” means all things of the Father. The Word is acted upon with simplicity and unconscious faith.
“Hopeth all things” because, you see, believing is now, and hope is future. If we believe all things of the Word, we face the future with quiet rest.
“Endureth all things” for what endurance was manifested in the Master! How He endured the scoffing and slandering of those who crucified Him!
But the next sentence thrills one: “Love never faileth” (1 Corinthians 13:8 ASV).
We cannot depend upon our senses for they may fail us. Our eyes may be injured, and our sense of sight is gone. Our sense of hearing or feeling may be destroyed. Agape is not like that, for it springs from the recreated spirit, the hidden man of the heart.
It is that hidden man, that unseen man, who has the divine life.
In Galatians, we have the contrast between agape and the senses. The fruits of the senses are recorded in Galatians 5:19–21, and the fruits of the recreated spirit are recorded in verses 22 and 23.
The senses have always been a traitor to the spirit. They are ever seeking their own. They are hungry, and yet they are never satisfied. They are always seeking and never finding that for which they seek.
Solomon said a wise thing in Ecclesiastes when he said, “The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing” (Ecclesiastes 1:8).
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He was God’s love way. He is the only way of life, and the only way to the Father.
He is love’s way. He lived it in His earth walk, and He imparted to us His nature so that we might live this love life.
In Ephesians 5:1–2, we are told that as children of love, we are to walk the love life way and bear the fruits of love.
Now we can understand how we are to develop our spirits; it is done by walking in love, and meditating in love.
We have come to know that the recreated human spirit is the fountain out of which spring love, faith, peace, joy, and all of the other beautiful products that belong to the love life.
Faith is not a product of the reasoning faculties; it is a product of the spirit.
Now we can understand this fact, that to develop this recreated spirit, it is necessary that we practice love and walk by faith.
We must feed on the bread of heaven: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Jesus put it in a new way: “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood” (John 6:54). The body was the Word made flesh. We must feed upon the living Word. Blood is life, so we are to drink deeply of the life that He wrought.
He said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). It is that abundance of life that makes us overflow with love.
I have never desired anything more than I have desired to know how to develop the recreated human spirit. I believe I have some suggestions that will teach us how to use wisdom, how to appropriate it in Christ, how to make it our own, and teach us how to walk in love so that our conduct will be Jesus-like.
The Love Walk
If we could learn to walk in love and make it the business of our lives, we would solve many problems of human relationships that we thought were impossible.
Jesus lived in love. He lived in the realm of love. He spoke love. His words were love-filled. His acts and deeds grew out of love. He could not help healing the sick. Love drove Him. He could not help feeding the multitudes. Love compelled Him.
If we could have our spirits developed in love like that, then we could live like the Master; we could maintain a real, beautiful fellowship with the Father, with the Word, and with one another.
Jesus promised He would send a comforter, the Holy Spirit:
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (John 14:16–17)
This “Comforter,” whom He calls the “Spirit of truth” or reality, is to guide us into all truth or reality. He is to take the things of Jesus and the Father and unveil them to us. That is what our hearts are craving.
He is not going to guide us into sense knowledge, but into revelation knowledge. He is going to take those wonderful truths of the Pauline revelation and make them a reality to us. In order to do this, it will be necessary that we have quiet hours, a little while each day set apart for meditation.
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua 1:8)
That was for Israel under the law, under the first covenant.
Under the new covenant, we are to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly; we are to abide in the Word and the Word is to abide in us. This will lead us into the prayer life, into prayer conquests.
Philippians 4:6–7 offers another suggestion: “In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus” (ASV).
In nothing are we to allow anxiety to govern us, but in everything by prayer and supplication, along with thanksgiving, we are to make our requests known to the Father. Then we leave them there, and He declares that His peace will come, like a garrison of soldiers into a turbulent county, and quiet us.
In the eighth verse, He tells us the things we are to think about. Read it over carefully.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (ASV)
We cannot feed on scandal, nonsense, or stories that are unseemly and expect to develop in grace. The Spirit will not help us to do that. There must be times when we can sit quietly with the Lord and the Word, and meditate upon it until the Word absorbs us and we absorb the Word, until the Word is built into our mental processes, as well as our spirit lives, until it absolutely governs our thinking.
Do you see what that implies? It implies the renewing of our minds. The average believer’s mind is not renewed.
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 by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:1–2)
How is that transformation going to take place? By the renewing of our minds. How does that come? By meditation on the Word and by practicing the Word.
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. (Colossians 3:9–10)
Our minds are renewed after the image of Him who created us. That means the Jesus image is going to be reproduced in us, until after a while, it will be no longer we who live, but Christ living in us. Or, as Paul tells us in Galatians 4:19, “until Christ be formed in you.”
It is possible to build the Jesus life into us with the Word. The Word never becomes a part of our lives until we act on it.
Share your heart life with Him as you would with a lover, a roommate, a husband, or a wife, until you cry out, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20 ASV), until the vine life becomes consciously your life.
Ephesians 3:19 says, “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” God’s fullness takes us over and dominates us. His fullness of love, grace, wisdom, healing, and ability has displaced all of the weaknesses and failures that exist in our lives.
Jesus has come on the scene to take over our lives. He is able to do “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).
He does it according to the ability, His ability, that is at work within us.
The Faith Walk
Before the fall, man had perfect fellowship with God. He lived in the realm of the spirit, but when he committed high treason, he was driven from the presence of God. He became dependent upon his senses for his protection and his life.
His spirit became the slave of his senses. However, for many generations, you can see the spirit’s influence upon the mind. This is seen in the architecture before and after the flood.
They have uncovered five cities built one upon the other in Mesopotamia, and the last one discovered, which was evidently built before the flood, shows the finest type of architecture.
Anthropology proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the farther back we go in Babylonia and Egypt, the higher is the state of civilization.
When the senses gained the supremacy, man lost all real knowledge of spiritual things.
Senses absolutely controlled man at the time of the first covenant with Abraham. Abraham was evidently the only one of his age who had any spiritual discernment. He believed God’s Word in the face of the testimony of his senses.
Abraham’s faith is the true type of the faith of a believer today.
When Jesus came, all men lived in the realm of the senses. If you read the four Gospels carefully, you will notice that they had only sense knowledge faith. They believed what they could see, hear, and feel. Their spirit had no place in their daily lives.
Until the believer recognizes the two kinds of faith, he will never be able to enjoy his privileges in Christ.
You remember Thomas as the outstanding exponent of sense knowledge faith. After the resurrection, before he met Jesus, he said to those who had seen the Risen One, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).
Jesus suddenly appeared and said to Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing” (verse 27).
Thomas fell at His feet and cried, “My LORD and my God” (John 20:28).
Jesus said, “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed” (verse 29).
We can imagine our Lord’s tears mixed with reproof. Can’t you hear the pathos in Jesus’s voice when He said, “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed.”
Oh, it is so hard for the sense knowledge folk to believe! Everywhere they are struggling and praying and crying for faith, but faith does not come that way.
Faith comes by getting acquainted with the Father through the Word. Not in studying the Word alone, but by actually living the Word, doing the Word, practicing the Word, and letting the Word live in us.
The multitude said, “What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?” (John 6:30). Jesus said, “This is an evil generation: they seek a sign” (Luke 11:29).
That generation did not seek a sign any more than our generation does. Let any man who has spectacular manifestations be advertised to speak, and he will fill the house. Why? Because this generation does not believe the Word, but it does believe in signs and wonders, something that thrills the senses.
On the day of Pentecost, a new era began. We call it the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. That is only half the truth. It is the dispensation of the recreated human spirit.
The part of man that is recreated is his spirit. The sense-ruled mind is renewed by the Holy Spirit through the Word, so that the renewed mind can have fellowship with the recreated human spirit.
The cultivation of our spirits comes through our giving this spirit right of way in our daily walk.
You remember that Jesus, quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3, said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
God’s Word is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it is the food of the recreated human spirit. As we meditate in the Word and become doers of the Word, our spirits slowly but surely gain the ascendancy over our sense-ruled mind.
You remember that in Romans, the Spirit says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof” (Romans 6:12).
Sin reigns in the senses. There is nothing wrong with the physical body; the wrongness lies in the senses gaining control of our bodies and causing us to do the things we should not do.
Our spirits are brought into subjection to the senses when the members of our bodies, governed by the senses, gain control.
Your conscience is the voice of your human spirit, or the recreated spirit. As the spirit is educated in the Word, the conscience, or voice, becomes more and more authoritative.
I have come to believe that if one fellowships with the Word, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, after a bit, the human spirit can become a perfect guide. What we have called a hunch is simply our spirit speaking to us.
The mind of the spirit is in fellowship with God. The Word is the food and life of the spirit. If we walk in love, the spirit has perfect freedom to guide us.
You understand that faith and love both come from the recreated human spirit. Faith grows as we practice love.
As we practice love, the Father becomes more and more real to us. The Word becomes more and more precious. Its hidden assets are revealed to us.
First Corinthians 2:12 declares, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
Our spirits, which have received their life from God, are able to know the things of God, while the natural minds, dominated by the senses, are unable to know the things that are freely given to us in the redemptive work of Christ.
The natural man cannot understand the expression in Christ or what it means, but the God-taught, recreated spirit grasps it with eager joy.
We can see now that the greatest need of the present-day church is the renewing of the minds of the believers and the education and development of the recreated spirit.
The average Christians today are carnal or sense-ruled. They are babes in Christ. They walk after the manner of men, or the senses. They have never learned the way of love.
They are full of talk, but they are not doers of the Word. Their wisdom is the wisdom of natural men. They are ever striving, but never arriving.
There is only one way to help these people and that is to teach them how to take their place in Christ, to become doers of the Word and not hearers only.