One of the saddest facts that we have to face today is that the sons of God, men with God in them, men with the very nature of God, are walking as mere men of the world.
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? (1 Corinthians 3:1–4)
Paul found it impossible to write about the deeply spiritual aspect of Christ’s substitution.
He found it impossible to write to them about the new creation because they lived in the realm of the senses.
They had never developed their recreated spirit.
You see, the believer, when born into the family, has a measure of faith, has a measure of love; the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit.
But unless he grows in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, unless he studies to show himself approved unto the Father, he remains unspiritual.
His spirit is never cultivated, never developed.
You can develop your spirit as you can develop your mind, as you can develop your physical muscles.
The average believer has never developed his spirit. Consequently his faith is weak, his love is weak, and his knowledge is often mixed with error.
You must remember that love does not come from the reasoning faculties; neither does faith.
Faith and love are both born in the recreated human spirit. The reason Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4) was not to cultivate man’s intellectual and reasoning faculties, but to cultivate his spirit.
In Ephesians 1:17–18, Paul had prayed that “the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.”
The heart is called, in Romans 7:22, “the inward man.”
In 1 Peter 3:4, it is “the hidden man of the heart.”
You see, man is a spirit being and the part of him that is spiritually dead is his spirit.
After he is recreated, then his spirit must be educated, trained, and developed.
As the spirit grows strong and vigorous in the Word, faith becomes strong and love becomes like the Master’s love.
As long as we walk in the senses and follow the inclinations of the senses, the spirit is not developed and we are walking as mere men.
We walk as though we had never received eternal life.
The believer has limitless possibilities in this divine life.
Ephesians 1:3 gives us a picture of the developed recreated spirit. It says, “Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.”
If we have those blessings, then the unsearchable riches of Christ really belong to us.
In Ephesians 3:8, Paul says he preached unto the Gentiles “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” In verse 12, he says, “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.”
There is no limit to this new life.
He says, in Ephesians 4:7, “Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.”
And in Ephesians 4:1, he says, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” We are to walk in love; to walk in the fullness of His fellowship.
We are to grow in grace and in the knowledge of it “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (verses 13–14).
He wants us to grow up into the full stature of the Jesus life.
It belongs to us.
You can understand that you have become a partaker of the very nature of the Father, and that everything Jesus purchased for you in His redemptive work is available to you.
There is no ground for a man to be weak.
There is no ground for a man to be always talking about his lack of faith and lack of this or that, for “of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).
In the mind of the Father, you are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power. You are complete in His completeness.
I shall never forget the thrill that Ephesians 1:22–23 gave to my heart:
And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
We are the body; we are the feet of Christ.
We are the part of the body that is running errands for the Master, and He has put all the forces of darkness under our feet.
One of us could chase a thousand, and two could put ten thousand to flight.
The ability of God that is within us is utterly limitless.
What are we going to do with a Scripture like this?:
And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament. (2 Corinthians 3:4–6)
The sixth verse doesn’t mean preachers only; that means every one of us.
We have His sufficiency; we have His ability.
How it staggers one when we get the right translation of Luke 24:49: “But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.”
This was Jesus’s message to the disciples before He ascended. He wanted them clothed with power. The correct word for power means “ability.”
Now He says, in effect, “I want you clothed with ability from on high—the Father’s ability.”
You can hear Him say, “Now you will be able to understand the messages that I have given to you.
“You will have ability to know what the new creation means. You will have ability to enter into the fullness of this divine life. You will have ability to be My witness, to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and to use My name against all the forces of darkness.”
You will know what Mark 16:17 means when He says, “In my name shall they cast out devils.”
Also, John 16:23: “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.”
You see, until our hearts take in these truths, we are going to walk “as mere men.”
You remember Samson, that mighty covenant man.
There never was a man like him, and yet when he ignored his covenant rights, the Philistines captured him, put out his eyes, and made a slave of him.
The eyes of the heart of most believers are like Samson’s eyes. They have lost their ability to enjoy the fullness of their rights in Christ.
John 10:29–30 has never meant anything to many of them. Let me read it to you:
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.
They have never learned to say:
My Father is greater than all;
My Father is greater than all.
‘Mid life’s bitter tears,
Temptations and fears,
My Father is greater than all.
They have never realized they had a Father. He has only been God to them.
They have never whispered, “My Father, I love you.”
The Father has never been able to make Himself real to their hearts because sense knowledge has so completely governed them. He is a Father God and He loves you.
Hebrews 7:25 has never been in the background of their consciousness as a great living force:
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
The harder circumstances may press upon you, the more fully does He uphold you.
His intercession for you means there isn’t power enough in the world to take you captive if you are in fellowship with the Father. He ever lives for your benefit. He loves you.
He gave Himself up for you. He is longing for you to respond to that love.
He is longing for you to look up and whisper, “Jesus, I love you.”
REDEMPTION-MINDED
The Father would like you to become redemption-minded. I do not see how you can act as a mere man any longer. Don’t cause His heart to ache over you because you have become circumstance-minded, sickness-minded, failure-minded.
He never created a failure; He made us for victory. You have the use of Jesus’s name. Use it. It gives you access into the Father’s very presence. It gives you victory over disease, over circumstances, over the forces of darkness.
You have the same great, mighty Holy Spirit that Jesus and the apostles had in their walk.
Jesus is your wisdom.
He is today the very strength of your life.
You are now blessed with every spiritual blessing.
You don’t need to cry for faith, nor pray for strength.
You have it all; it belongs to you.
You have been blessed with everything that redemption could give.
I would that you might become so conscious of the presence of the Master, that “Lo, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20) will become just an unconscious fact, so that no matter what happens, you know He is there.
“Forgetteth what manner of man he was” (James 1:24). Here, James is describing the “doer of the Word.” He is more than a teacher of the Word.
He is more than an admirer of the Word.
He is more than a student of the Word.
The Word is living in him.
He is living so that Word is a part of his very being.
He walks in love. His whole conduct is governed by the new law of the new creation.
He doesn’t permit his lips to sin against his spirit.
He has learned to weigh carefully the value of words.
So James 1:22–25 has become a very serious section of the Word to him: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (verse 22).
How many good people have deluded themselves?
They believe in the teachings of their church.
They don’t study the Word much.
They are very careful about what man says and often deny themselves much and put themselves under bondage because of man’s word.
James is bringing us face to face with the Father Himself. He says, “Be ye doers of the word,” and so I study the Word to find out what it says and then I do it.
The love law was given to govern our conduct toward each other, and so I study it diligently.
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. (James 1:23–24)
Let us see what manner of men we are, what the Father says about us.
We should take account of stock and find what we are in the mind of the Father.
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14), or they become sons of God.
If a man is willing to be led by the Spirit, he will be led into sonship.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:15–17)
That is what the Father says we are.
We are in His family; a part of the body of Christ.
We are what the Spirit calls the new creation man.
We have passed out of the realm of satanic relationship into the family of the Father God, “who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13).
If that is true (and it is true), then we are a new type, a new class of men.
We should study the Word that we might know what the Father expects of us and what the world has a right to expect from us. We are a supernatural people.
We have the ability of God, the wisdom of God. We have the mind of God in His Word.
We should never forget “what manner of persons” we are. (See 2 Peter 3:11.)
No matter what the crisis may be; no matter what testings may come to us, we do not forget what manner of men we are.
You see, we belong to a new order. We belong to the class of people that have a legal right to enter the Father’s presence anytime, anywhere. Not only have we a right, but we have a standing invitation to come boldly to the throne of grace.
We are the righteous men.
We have been made righteous by the nature of the Father that was imparted to us when we became new creations. That righteousness of God makes us masters of every force outside of God.
We are in league with heaven and have the backing of heaven. We can hear Paul saying, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). He is for us; He is on our side.
In Romans 8:31–39, Paul goes over all of the forces that may antagonize us, that may come against us, and he shows us that we can be masters of everything that Satan can possibly bring against us. There isn’t a weapon that Satan has, but what we are proof against it.
You see, our combat is not with flesh and blood; it is not with sense knowledge things; it is with spiritual forces, and in all these things, we are more than masters.
They cannot separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. If they could separate us from His love, they could defeat us; but He loves us and it causes Him to succor us, care for us, watch over us, shield us.
We must not forget for one moment that the great mighty Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, the Person who gave to the world its vegetation, that Mighty One, is living in us, for it is God who is at work within us willing and working His own good pleasure.
If one accustomed themselves to trust in Him as we trust in the money that is in our pocketbook, as we trust in our car when it is filled with oil and gas, what mighty men and women would walk the earth.
The Father would be so real to them; the name would be so real; there would be a consciousness of the fact that Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18).
He said, in effect, “Go, as my representatives. I will give you a legal right to the use of My name. In My name, you are the master of demons, of diseases, of the laws of nature that would in any wise hinder you from doing My will.”
You see, we are empowered representatives of the heavenly kingdom.
We should never forget what manner of men we are.
We send our ambassador to England.
He must never forget that he is not a mere man now. He is a representative of our government. Our government is behind him. He is saying the words that our government has instructed him to say. He is not acting on his own initiative. He is not a mere man. He is an ambassador on the behalf of our government.
I must not forget what manner of man I am.
I am an ambassador on behalf of Christ. As an ambassador, I have the backing of the supreme court of the universe. I have the backing of my Father God, of Jesus, of the great, mighty Holy Spirit, and all the angels of God.
You see, I can’t be a failure unless I forget what manner of man I am.
I don’t know whether you ever noticed 1 Corinthians 3:1: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.”
It is just as though Paul said, “I wish I could speak to you as to men who realized who they were, what they were, and what they could do, but I cannot because you are living in the sense realm.”
You have no confidence in the great spiritual realities to which you are united.
You are living just like babes.
You don’t seem to grasp the reality of your unity with deity.
Paul cries, “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able” (1 Corinthians 3:2).
What a pathetic confession.
What a humiliating confession, when by reason of time they ought to take advantage of what they were in Christ but they haven’t done it.
They have been content to listen to the voices of men, to read the literature of men, but have ignored the literature of heaven, the voice of Him who raised Jesus from the dead.
The next verse throws light on it:
For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? (1 Corinthians 3:3)
Or, as another puts it, “Your conduct is the conduct of mere men when you might walk as the sons of God.”
You might be masters instead of slaves.
Every one of you could be a leader. Instead of that, you are being led, but not led by God. You are led by sense knowledge; consequently, your whole life is disfigured.
You have lost the consciousness of being what you are, and when sickness comes, you are in a quandary; you don’t know what to do; your heart is filled with fear.
You have never taken your place in Christ.
You have never taken advantage of your rights and privileges in Christ.
You have never asserted your rights as a son in the family.
You have unconsciously relegated yourself to the place of a servant.
You are depending upon other people, and when the problem of faith comes, you talk about your unbelief and your lack.
You are a spiritual hitchhiker. You have the ability of God, but you do not use it.
You have this living Word of God.
You are eligible to take advantage of all the privileges that belong to the sons of God, and yet you are living as a mere man. You have forgotten what manner of man you are.
Hebrews 5:12–14 describes this type of believer:
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. (verse 12)
This is plain speaking. It is the heart of the Father reaching out to his careless, thoughtless children, and He says, “You had plenty of time.
“You could have taken courses in the study of the Word.
“It wouldn’t be necessary for you to go away to a Bible school; you could have correspondence courses.
“You could attend Bible classes very likely in your own church or in your own community.
“You have even forgotten the teachings, the first principles of the new creation.
“You have forgotten that you have passed out of death unto life. You have forgotten that you are a new creation created in Christ Jesus.
“You have forgotten that you are tied up with God, that you are a partaker of the divine nature.
“You have forgotten that you have within you the very life of God Himself, and you have at your side the great Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.”
He is ready to come in and take possession of you and to be your Teacher and your Guide and your Comforter.
It has been easier for you to read about the Bible than it has to become a student of the Bible and to study to show yourself approved unto God in this living Word.
You have reached a place where you have need of milk. You need baby treatment and baby care. That is an unhappy thing.
And then He says, “For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe” (Hebrews 5:13).
You have never exercised yourself to discern between good and evil. That doesn’t mean between sin and righteousness, but between the forces of God and the evil forces that may come disguised to you.
You have lived on the borderland between right and wrong.
You have been asking yourself, Is it wrong to do this? Should I do that? These are questions of the babe in Christ.
There has been no growth, no development, and if anyone should ask, “Are you a believer?” it is likely you would answer, “Well, I am trying to be.”
You see, there isn’t any such thing as a believer trying to be a believer, any more than for a boy to try to be a boy. He is a boy. He may decide to be a better boy.
If you say you are trying to be a believer, then you are not a believer. You are outside.
You have never received eternal life.
Your spirit has never been recreated.
So it is vitally important that you study the Word to find what manner of man you are, how the Father looks upon you, and what He expects from you.