And the God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. I Thessalonians 5:23–24. In that order—spirit, soul, body.
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:20–27.
Let us describe briefly the condition that is in the world. Years ago there was an article; It involved a violent hippie leader, who is an absolute master over the lives of four women and two boys. He holds a control over them that is almost impossible to believe and in the interview he stated that he had even known one girl to commit suicide at his request—such a total power he wielded. What he said is very significant. “You say God is in nature and you see nature devouring, life living off of life. That’s the force of nature.” In this distorted picture you can see there are certain things existing in the world that he sees. All the time within his own body, he says, there are molecules that are destroying molecules. Life is destroying life. So if that is the whole law, what difference does it make if human being kills human being? How degraded is this thinking.
In the world today we speak a great deal of the law of the jungle wherein the stronger devour the weaker. Then you remember Isaiah’s prophecy, “They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. The wolf shall lie down with the lamb. The little child will play on the cockatrice den. The lion will eat straw like an ox.” (Isaiah 11) This indicates there would be a time when all of nature would return to a state that is quite living and different from what we now see and experience. Some say they would like to go out and commune with nature. Yes, but that thing of preying is there. So you go out on a nice summer evening, impressed with the beauty of nature, and soon the mosquitoes are eating you up. They want to live—off of you—and your one idea is to swat them. From the simplest operation of nature on up, preying is the law of the day: big fish looking for little fish to swallow; lions looking for something they can devour.
In the spirit world it is very similar. There’s the preying and spiritual vampirism, where people live and survive by drawing from another person’s spirit. They sometimes leave the victim quite ill. People can rid themselves of their problems by transferring them to someone else.
The apostle Paul explained this present situation in the world in the only way it can be explained, by divine revelation. In our text he explains it in this way: when man fell into sin at the beginning, God did not allow the human race to be the only thing fallen from a place of grace and righteousness before God. He took the whole creation and made it subject to futility or vanity too. But He did it with reason of hope, for they were waiting here for the glory of the children of God to come forth first. It refers back to the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible. When they sinned, they fell not only from the presence of God, but from the presence of a perfect world as well; for God could not allow a sinless world to be the habitat of this sinful man. He thus took the world, which is not in itself sinful, and made the whole thing subject to futility and vanity. When these human beings whom He had created finally arose through the centuries by His redeeming grace and His love and mercy, they would arise to such a place of glory and authority that they would turn to all of nature and free it, loose it from its cannibalistic tendencies, from its deadly preying, and literally transform the whole bloody cycle. And it will be the sons of God that will so arise. Paul says all creation is groaning, waiting, looking for the answer. But it cannot come out of it by itself; it’s waiting for what God is bringing forth even in this generation—the sons of God that are arising in newness of life, in power and authority—the children of God. Once God’s people are liberated, we will then turn to His handiwork, His creation and liberate it, loose it from the vanity and futility that it’s been under many thousands of years. He says creation is groaning to be delivered, and we also are groaning within ourselves, waiting for our redemption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
This ties in with our first Scripture, that God would sanctify the whole of a man—spirit, soul and body. We’ve known what it is to be liberated in our spirits. And every day it’s more so. We know what it is to see real release in our soul, (if you know the difference between your spirit and your soul); but our bodies are still waiting for redemption. We still get sick, so we pray for healing and we mind the rules and principles that are laid down for the health of our bodies, recognizing they are yet in quite a mortal state. But the last enemy to be destroyed is that which preys against the physical. If we would follow that through it would mean that everything that is going to come forth in the world or in our physical body, is going to start at the spirit, then work into the soul, and finally into the body. We are waiting for that last phase of redemption, the redemption of our body. This is something you have to understand.
Today in America there is quite a bit of materialism. People try to work their way up through the physical and financial, through the control of their environment, to attain to the spiritual. You can’t do it. You can’t reach the spiritual from the natural. You reach the natural plane from the spiritual plane. You start with God and it works down through every phase and aspect of your life. You don’t start here and work up to God. In the Bible that was the tower of Babel. They said, “We will build this tower and reach heaven,” and God brought it to confusion.
Things do not start with man working up to God, but with God reaching down to man. It begins with spirit and ends with the physical. This is what the Lord is trying to show us today more than anything else. It isn’t what your circumstances are that matters; it’s your relationship to God. The other things will come out of it. Your relationship with God will open up the door for your relationship and adjustment to the world, to your physical need, your financial need—everything will be taken care of because you have that relationship with God. So the prayer of Paul was that the Lord would sanctify, or make holy, the whole of man, that your whole spirit and soul and body come into this marvelous work of God. That is what the Lord is doing for us now, as we open our hearts. And it all begins with the spirit. That’s what Jesus meant when He laid down the very foundation of it.
I have met some people who were into self-realization, a false cult, those who wanted to know self-realization, understand themselves and know their potential. The trouble is that they are trying to develop the psychic, mental, and certain mystical qualities inherent in man, in the old nature, and refine them highly. But they don’t start with the new creation: they’re just trying to work the old one over. The whole purpose of Christ’s coming as a Savior was to open up a regeneration of the human spirit so that it would acquire divine qualities. What is the difference in what we believe right here and what a thousand other religions believe? Most religions refine the old nature. True Christianity reckons it dead. Much of Christianity isn’t Christian at all; but if it has any spark of reality, it doesn’t start reforming, refining and working up what you are to start with—it begins with the new birth, the regeneration of the human spirit.
One of the wisest leaders of the Jews came to Jesus by night because he was afraid of what the other Jews would think of him. Jesus just looked at him and said: “You must be born again.” “How can a man be born again? Can he enter into his mother’s womb the second time and be born?” “That which is born of the flesh is flesh but that which is born of spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you, you must be born again.” John 3:1–7. So what God is really bringing to us is not to work up and reform what you are until you have reached a high state of perfection, because at best you have only reformed something that never can make it anyway. You have to start with something else, with a brand new divine spark, a new spirit—that’s what becoming a Christian should mean to anyone. We start with that spirit made alive. Then when God has sanctified it wholly, it reaches down to the physical man and to all creation that is waiting and groaning for this generation of sons to come forth, spiritual beings who will begin loosing the whole creation from the futility and vanity that it’s under.