The unrenewed mind is always waging war against unbelief, ever praying for faith but never arriving; always talking unbelief yet struggling to get faith; ever confessing failure, but at the same time confessing faith in the Word and denying it in actions; trying to believe, yet never acting on the Word.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
This describes this type of spiritual infant in Christ: “But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (verse 5).
Wisdom really belongs to you. The adult believer unconsciously turns to 1 Corinthians 1:30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption
This is where Jesus is made unto us wisdom; but the babe in Christ, the undeveloped believer, has not yet learned the secret of trusting the Word. He feels that he must do something in order to enjoy his privileges in Christ.
Verses 6–8 describes him: “But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways.”
This physical sense-ruled mind is the companion of a recreated spirit, but the mind has never been renewed, so there is no real fellowship between the recreated spirit and the mind that is in contact with the world and largely ruled by it.
This believer does not know anything about Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
Here the believer is blessed with every spiritual blessing—wisdom, divine ability, strength, love, and every other thing that is necessary to make the believer’s life beautiful, helpful, and victorious.
THE TWO CONFESSIONS OF THE DOUBLE-MINDED
1 Kings 18:21 gives us a graphic description of that kind of a believer. 21 And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word
“And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, how long go ye limping between the two sides? if Jehovah be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”
Elijah was confronted with the problem of dealing with double-minded men. In the modern church, we have the same problem.
John 20:24 Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
Christ Appears to the Disciples (Thomas Present)
1 Cor. 15:5
26 And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
This gives us a picture of the physical sense-ruled Thomas. You remember that after the resurrection, Jesus had appeared to a number of disciples. Thomas had not been with them and he cried, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
He was a sense knowledge believer. He had to see in order to believe. His senses had to be satisfied. He could not take the Word of God independent of his senses.
We are confronted continually with that type of believer.
Now God in His great grace came down into the realm of the senses in the person of Christ. Then Christ arose from the dead and appeared among the disciples—let them see Him, hear Him, and feel Him.
John 1:1–3 That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
You notice that “that which we have seen and heard declare,” is sense knowledge evidence. That was all right in the early church. During the first fifteen years, the early church lived very largely in the realm of sense knowledge faith. We have many today that cannot believe beyond what their senses register.
God let them see signs and wonders on the day of Pentecost because they were babes, just newborn. They knew nothing of the finished work of Christ. None of them believed or knew about His substitutionary work. That was to come later through the Pauline Revelation.
THE LAW OF THE SENSES
Galatians 5:16 gives us a very graphic picture of the senses and of the spirit: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the [Physical senses].”
This Scripture will be of infinite value to you, for the senses war against the recreated spirit, and the recreated spirit is warring against the senses.
“For these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would” (Galatians 5:17).
The word, “flesh,” should have been translated, “senses.” Then we could have understood it. You see, the five senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting—are all physical doors that lead to the brain. I know a thing is sweet because I tasted it. I know a thing is fragrant because I smelled it. I know it is hard because I struck it. What we call the sins of the flesh are sins of the senses. They are sins connected with the physical body, and this body of ours is the laboratory where we have learned all we know of secular knowledge.
The eighteenth verse goes further: “But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”
The Mosaic covenant had to do only with the senses. The new law that Jesus gave in John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
This has to do altogether with our recreated spirits.
So, Paul continues in Galatians 5:19: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest.” And he gives a long list of them. We are all familiar with it.
The battle that we fight in our daily walk is with our senses. I want the thing that I see. I may want to drink it. I may want to eat it. I may want to feel it. My spirit must govern my senses. My mind must be so renewed by knowing the Word and acting on the Word that I can easily conquer my senses.
Romans 12:1-I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Here He is asking that our senses be turned over to Him.
You see, our bodies are really our universities, and our technical schools. How do I know anything about metallurgy except through the senses? How do I know anything about mechanics except through the senses?
If a man is totally blind, he cannot be a mechanic. If you go a step beyond that and rob him of his hearing, now he is locked up to his senses of taste, smell, and feeling because sight and hearing are gone. Suppose you go a step beyond that, and he is paralyzed so that he has no feeling in his body. Now he is helpless. You see how utterly we are dependent on our senses and how all the knowledge we have comes through the senses.
THE NEW KIND OF KNOWLEDGE
We have a new kind of knowledge—revelation knowledge. It is spiritual knowledge. It is knowledge that has come to use through the recreated spirit by acting on the Word and living in it.
You understand that the mind cannot be renewed by the study of the Word. There must be a continual practice of the Word. The Word must live in me so that it becomes part of me. Just as my blood is a part of me, just as my muscles are a part of me, the Word must become a part of my very being.
Romans 8:1–2 gives us a contrast: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus” (verse 1).
Why? “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death” (verse 2).
The Ten Commandments were the law of sin and of death. The law had to do with spiritually dead men. The recreated man, this new man in Christ, has a new law, which is the law of the spirit of life.
That is love. He is governed by love. The other man is governed by fear. If you will read carefully the Old Testament, you will find that God says, again and again, in essence, “There is no fear of Jehovah before you.” He does not say “love.”
Malachi 3:16: “Then they that feared Jehovah spake one with another.”
16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another,
And the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him For those who fear the LORD
And who meditate on His name.
And in Malachi 4:2 But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves.
“But unto you that fear my name.”
And in verse 6, He says, “And if I am a master, where is my fear? saith Jehovah of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name.”
The law of Moses begat fear in spiritually dead men. The law of the new covenant begets love, faith, and confidence in the new creation. So, the law of the spirit of life is the law of love.
Romans 8:6–8 For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace: because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God [that is the reason that it is death]; for it is not subject to the law of God [as is the new law of love], neither indeed can it be: and they that are in the flesh cannot please God [that is, they that are ruled and governed by the senses cannot please God]. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.
Then He says the most remarkable thing, “But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (verse 9).
In other words, if he is not ruled by the spirit that dominated Jesus—not the Holy Spirit—he does not have a part with Him. That spirit was love. That spirit drove Jesus to the cross, and no man that does not walk in love and live the love life and who is not governed by love has any knowledge of the things of the new creation.
You want evidence for it? 1 John 4:7–8: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
The new creation is a love creation, and the man that is not born again can’t understand this love life.
1 Corinthians 2:14: “Now the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.”
And in verse 12: “But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God.”
And you cannot know the things that are freely given to us of the Father until you are recreated and the law of the new creation becomes a part of your very being. That law of love becomes instinctive in you so that you do it just as a hungry man eats, as a thirsty man drinks. So, you live the love life.
THE DARKNESS OF THE SENSE-RULED MIND
1 John 2:9–11 He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother, is in the darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.
Here is the condition of the believer whose mind has never been renewed. He is walking according to the senses.
John 8:12 is utterly unknown to him: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life.”
The light of life is love. God is light. In Him is no darkness at all because God is love. We love now; we have received the love nature, and love is to dominate us. When it does, the mind becomes renewed, comes into harmony with the recreated spirit.
Sense knowledge governs the recreated man whose mind is renewed. He walks in love.
THE NEW CREATION
The new creation man is described in Ephesians 3:20: “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power [or ability] that worketh in us.”
It is the ability of God that is at work in the new creation, building into him the love nature of the Father, the wisdom of Jesus, the grace and beauty of the Man of Galilee.
In our daily walk, the Holy Spirit is building into us a fearless confidence in the Word. We require no physical evidence to prove that we are healed. When He says, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4), that settles it for us, for we are governed by the Word—not by the five senses.
When He tells us in 1 Peter 5:7: “Casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you,” with loving joy we throw off our burdens upon the Lord as one lays down a heavy load from his shoulder. We say, “Thank you father, for bearing this load. Thank you for carrying it for me.” Anxiety has stopped and we rest with quiet confidence in that living Word.
You see, this renewed mind understands John 15:7–8: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so, shall ye be my disciples.”
A disciple means a student—one that sits at the feet of a master. So, He says, “If my words are a part of your daily life so that you are acting them and living them, then you will be able to ask what you will.”
You see, the renewed mind realizes that John 15:5 is absolutely true, in essence, “I am the Vine and you are the fruit-bearing part of Me. I am seated up here at the Father’s right hand, meeting your every need, and you are down there on the earth bearing love fruit in your ministry of helping men and women.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU REMEMBER?
- Why is there no fellowship between the unrenewed mind and the recreated spirit?
- What are the two confessions of the double-minded man?
- Why is the old covenant law called the law of the senses?
- What should be the relation between the senses and the renewed mind of an adult Christian?
- Explain Romans 12:1.
- What is the difference between “sense knowledge” and “revelation knowledge”?
- What was the nature of the spirit that dominated Christ?
- What is the work of the Spirit in the walk of the new creation?
- What are some of the advantages of prayer for the new creation?
- Explain John 15:5 in the light of the ministry of the new creation.