Personality—I - Chambers, Oswald

Personality is the perplexing fact of my self which is continually changing and yet remains the same. Personality is an enigma; its only answer is god. Never confound personality with consciousness; all that can be dealt with psychologically is consciousness, but a mans salvation is not limited to his consciousness.

1. The disposition of darkness

The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of god: for they are foolishness unto him. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

The word disposition is used here in the sense of the mainspring that moves me. Apart from a knowledge of Jesus Christ, and apart from being crumpled up by conviction of sin, men have a disposition which keeps them perfectly happy and peaceful. The natural man is not in distress, not conscious of any dis- harmony in himself; he is not in trouble as other men, and is quite content with being once-born; the things Jesus Christ stands for have no meaning for the natural man. The bible refers to this disposition as one of darkness. . . Being darkened in their understanding (Ephesians 4:18 RV ). We preach to men as if they were conscious of being dying sinners, they are not, they are having a good time, and all our talk about the need to be born again is from a domain they know nothing about; because some men try to drown unhappiness in worldly pleasures it does not follow all are like that. There is nothing attractive about the gospel to the natural man; the only man who finds the gospel attractive is the man who is convicted of sin. Conviction of sin and being guilty of sins are not the same thing. Conviction of sin is produced by the incoming of the holy spirit because conscience is promptly made to look at gods demands and the whole nature cries out, in some form or other. What must i do to be saved? For a man to be undisturbed and in unity with him- self is a good condition, not a bad one, because a united personality means freedom from self-consciousness; but if his peace is without any consideration of Jesus Christ it is simply the outcome of this disposition of darkness which keeps men alienated from the life of god. When Jesus Christ comes in he upsets this false unity; he comes not as a comforter, but as a thorough disturber. If i had not come . . . , they had not had sin then why did he come? If i was peaceful and happy, living a clean upright life, why should Jesus Christ come with a standard of holiness i never dreamt of ? Simply because that peace was the peace of death, a peace altogether apart from god. The coming of Jesus Christ to the natural man means the destruction of all peace that is not based on a personal relationship to himself.

2. The disposition divided

For we know that the law is spiritual: but i am carnal, sold under sin. For that which i do i allow not: for what i would, that do i not; but what i hate, that do i. (Romans 7:1415)

Romans 7 is the classic for all time of the conflict a man experiences whose mind is awakened by the incoming of the light of god. Never say we must get out of the 7th of Romans, some of us will never get into it; if we did, we would be in hell in two minutes. The 7th of Romans represents the profound conflict which goes on in the consciousness of a man without the spirit of god, facing the demands of god. Only to one in a thousand can god lift the veil to show what the 7th of Romans means. It is the presentation by a man who stands now as a saint, looking back on the terrific conflict produced by his conscience having been awakened to the law of god, but with no power to do what his mind assigns he should. A lot of tawdry stuff has been written on this chapter simply because Christians so misunderstand what conviction of sin really is. Conviction of sin such as the apostle Paul is describing does not come when a man is born again, nor even when he is sanctified, but long after, and then only to a few. It came to Paul as an apostle and saint, and he could diagnose sin as no other. Knowledge of what sin is is in inverse ratio to its presence; only as sin goes do you realise what it is; when it is present you do not realise what it is because the nature of sin is that it destroys the capacity to know you sin.

The problem in practical experience is not to know what is right, but to do it. My natural spirit may know there are a great many things i ought to do, but i never can do what i know i should until i receive the life which is life indeed, viz. , holy spirit. For the good that i would i do not: but the evil which i would not, that i do (Romans 7:19). That is the picture of a man conscious of a dislocation within himself. O wretched man that i am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The consciousness of a personality at this stage is that of a house divided against itself; it is the stage technically known as conviction of sin. For i was alive without the law once at peace till i saw what Jesus Christ was driving at, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and i died (Romans 7:9). If all god can do for me is to destroy the unity i once had, make me a divided personality, give me light that makes me morally insane with longing to do what i cannot do, i would rather be without his salvation, rather remain happy and peaceful without him. But if this experience is only a stage towards a life of union with god, it is a different matter. 3. The disposition divorced for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Galatians 5:17) after being born again a man experiences peace, but it is a militant peace, a peace maintained at the point of war. The wrong disposition is no longer in the ascendant, but it is there, and the man knows it is. He is conscious of an alternating experience, sometimes he is in ecstasy, sometimes in the dumps; there is no stability, no real spiritual triumph. To take this as the experience of full salvation is to prove god not justified in the atonement. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. The spirit of god entering into a man wars against the flesh, not flesh and blood, but the disposition of sin. Paul calls the product of this friction between the spirit and the flesh, carnality. A worldly man has no carnality; he is not conscious of any conflict between the spirit and his flesh; when he is born again the conflict begins, and there is a disclosure of the carnal mind, which is enmity against god. No man knows he has that enemy on the inside until he receives the holy spirit. The carnal mind is not something which has to be removed: it either is, or is not. Immediately you agree to the dethronement of the disposition which lusts against the spirit, the carnal mind is not. The flesh and the spirit are daggers drawn, so to speak, and i have to decide which shall rule. If i am going to decide for the spirit, i will crucify the flesh; god cannot do it, i must do it myself. To crucify means to put to death, not counteract, not sit on, not white- wash, but kill. If i do not put to death the things in me which are not of god, they will put to death the things that are of god. To belong to Christ means i have deliberately chosen to depose the disposition of the flesh and be identified with Christ yes, i agree with the spirit, and go to the death of the old disposi- tion; i agree with gods condemnation in the cross of self-interest and self-realisation, though these things have been dearer to me than life. Jesus Christ is merciless to self-realisation, to self-indulgence, pride, unchastity, to everything that has to do with the dis- position you did not know you had till you met him. The redemption does not tinker with the externals of a mans life; it deals with the disposition. And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof (Galatians 5:24 RV). No one is really Christs till that is done.

4. The disposition divine

. . . That by these [exceeding great and precious promises] ye might be partakers of the divine nature. (2 peter 1:4)

At this stage a mans personality is again united into peace. Jesus Christs one aim is to bring us back into oneness with god. The whole purpose of the redemption is to give back to man the original source of life, and in a regenerated man this means Christ . . . Formed in you. Am i willing that the old disposition should be crucified with Christ? If i am, Jesus Christ will take possession of me and will baptise me into his life until i bear a strong family likeness to him. It is a lonely path, a path of death, but it means ultimately being presenced with divinity. The christian life does not take its pattern from good men, but from god himself, that is why it is an absolutely super normal life all through. Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.