Soul: the essence, existence and expression - Chambers, Oswald
Chapter VI Soul: the essence, existence and expression
Fundamental Powers of the Soul
1. Contraction
(a) first power. Self-comprehending (Deuteronomy 13:67; 1 Samuel 18:1) (b) second power. Stretching beyond itself (psalm 27:12)
2. Expansion
(c) third power. Self-living ( job 2:6; john 10:11)
(d) fourth power. Spirit-penetrated (Isaiah 26:9; Jude 19)
3. Rotation
(e) fifth power. Stirred sensually or spiritually (exodus 23:9; 1 peter 2:11)
(f ) sixth power. Speaking the spirits thoughts (genesis 41:40)
(g) seventh power. Sum total in unity ( Jeremiah 38:16)
1. Contraction
We mean by fundamental, the powers that work in the interior of the soul. The souls existence has its origin in the spirit and in its struggle to realise itself. This is the counterpart of the statement made in the last chapter, viz. , that the soul is the holder of the body and spirit together. By contraction, we mean that the soul has power to contract into itself.
By expansion, we mean that the soul has power to strive away from itself, reaching beyond itself; and by rotation we mean that the soul has the power of expressing itself by the restlessness of becoming. This mechanical division is merely an arbitrary way of presenting a complex truth. All scientific laws exist in mens heads and are simply attempts to explain observed facts. For instance it is a dangerous mistake to talk about the law of gravitation as if it were a thing. The law of gravitation is the explanation given by scientific men of certain observed facts, and to say that Jesus Christ broke the law of gravitation when he walked on the sea, and when he ascended, is a misstatement. He brought in a new series of facts for which the law of gravitation, so-called, could not account.
(a) first power. Self-comprehending
if. . . Thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known . . . (Deuteronomy 13:67; see also 1 Samuel 18:1)
These verses indicate the power of the soul to comprehend itself as an individual separate from every other individual. Watch your own experience, and you will recognise this soul power at once. When a child begins to be self-conscious, it is this power that is awakening, the power to contract into itself and to realise that it is different from its father and mother and from all other children, and the tendency to shut up the life to itself increases. This power shows itself in feelings of isolation and separation, alternating between pride and shyness. Self-consciousness drags down the harmony of the soul. In some people it lasts a long time; some never get beyond the manifestation of this power of soul, viz. , the power to contract into themselves, the power to be different from every body else; they have not gone on to realise that they have the power to expand, that is, to come into contact with other souls without being afraid or timid. That is the first power in a natural soul. Now take it in a soul born again of the spirit of god, how does this power of the soul express itself ? The power of self-comprehension in a born-again soul shows itself in opposition to sinfulness. Watch the swing of the pendulum, as it were, in your own life, and in the life of anybody newly born again of the spirit; the life goes to the opposite extreme of the way it lived when in the world, e. G. , if it was given to finery and dress when in the world, it will go to the opposite extreme on its introduction to the new life. This is the first recognisable power of an individual soul.
(b) Second power. Stretching beyond itself
Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. (psalm 27:12)
This power of the soul causes a person to find out first not the forces in agreement with it, but those that are different from it. Other souls seem to be in opposition to it. The boy who has become self-conscious always imagines every other boy is his enemy, and he suspects any boy who wants to become his friend. This power of the soul also makes a man realise that he can do pretty well what he likes with his body a dangerous moment in a human life. Or again it makes a man realise he is able to deceive everyone else. There is no restriction at all when this power first dawns. I realise i can satisfy my bodily appetites as i choose; i can also cunningly deceive everyone else. If i am a servant, i can easily defraud my master or mistress; if i am a business man, i can easily defraud the public. This power of the soul can be seen worked out to its complete issue in the life of the world.
In a spiritual nature this power of the soul shows itself in opposition to sinful craving. Jesus Christ says, in effect: if you are my disciple, you will easily be defrauded, but you will not allow yourself to be defrauded from the simplicity of the gospel. Knowledge of evil broadens a mans mind, makes him tolerant, but paralyses his action. Knowledge of good broadens a mans mind, makes him intolerant of all sin, and shows itself in intense activity. A bad man, an evil-minded man, is amazingly tolerant of every- thing and everyone, no matter whether they are good or bad, christian or not, but his power of action is paralysed entirely. He is tolerant of every thing the devil, the flesh, the world, sin, and everything else. Jesus Christ never tolerated sin for one moment, and when his nature is getting its way in a soul the same intolerance is shown, and it manifests itself not with eye service. If i am a servant i wont serve my master or mistress with this power of my soul realising i have power to deceive. I will use it to show that i belong to jesus christ. Neither shall i use this power of my soul to do what i like with my body. Not with eye-service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of god from the heart (Ephesians 6:6). Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing god (colossi ans 3:22).
In a spiritual soul this power of the soul will show itself in intense opposition to all sinful cravings. A soul that is born again does everything, from sweeping a room to preaching the gospel, from cleaning streets to governing a nation, for the glory of god. This second power of the soul enables it to stretch beyond itself; the whole mainspring of the souls life is altered.
2. Expansion
(c) third power. Self-living
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. ( john 10:11) and the lord said unto Satan, behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. ( job 2:6)
These passages refer to the one power in a man that neither god nor the devil can touch without the mans sanction. The devil has power up to a certain point, but he cannot touch a mans life, and whenever Jesus Christ presents the gospel of god to a soul, it is always on the line of are you willing? There is never any coercion. God has so constituted us that there must be a free willingness on our part. This power is at once the most fearful and the most glorious power. A human soul can withstand the devil successfully, and it can also withstand god successfully. This self- living power is the essence of the human spirit, which is as immortal as gods spirit and as indestructible; whether the human spirit be good or bad, it is as immortal as god. This power of the soul enables it to put itself on a par with god; this is the very essence of Satan. The power that can make a man either a com- peer of the lord or a compeer of the devil is the most terrible power of the soul. Jesus Christ is referring to this power when he says, i lay down my life. . . . No man taketh it from me, but i lay it down of myself. When the soul is born again and lifted into the domain our lord lives in, this power shows itself in opposition to sinful passionateness. Passionate means something that carries everything before it. The prince of this world is intense, and the spirit of god is intense.
When Paul talks about the flesh and the spirit working in a mans soul, he expresses the intensity by using the word lust. The spirit lusts, passionately desires the whole life for god; and the mind of the flesh lusts, passionately longs, for the whole life back again in the service of the world. In the spiritual realm passionateness also means something that overcomes every obstacle. When the writer to the Hebrews talks
About perfection, he means this overwhelming passion which carries a soul right on to all god has for it. Be filled with the spirit, this is the key word of life. The bible indicates that we overcome the world not by pas- sionlessness, not by the patience of exhaustion, but by passion, the passion of an intense and all-consuming love for god. This is the characteristic in a born-again soulopposition to every sinful passionateness. Do insist in your own mind that god does not work in vague, gentle impressions in a human soul, but in vio- lent oppositions which rend and tear the soul, making it, instead of a place of harmonious happiness, exactly the opposite for a season. This experience is true in every soul that is going on with god. When we are first introduced to the life of god there is violent opposition to everything that used to be prevalent, and that it is so is not a mistake, it is what god intends, because there is the force of a totally new life.
(d) fourth power. Spirit-penetrated
With my soul have i desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will i seek thee early. (Isaiah 26:9; see also Jude 19)
We mean by spirit-penetrated the spiritual power in man which struggles to express itself in soul. The spirit of man in an unregenerate nature is the power of mind not energised by the holy spirit which has no life in itself. It proves utterly futile in lifting the body, and produces a great divorce between the ideal and the real. Every kind of intellectual excellence is a snare of Satan unless the spirit of the man has been renewed by the incoming of the spirit of god. A mans intellect may give him noble ideas and power to express them through his soul in language but it does not give him power to carry them into action. The charge of idolatry is very apt here. We are apt to ridicule, or pass over with a smile, the descriptions given of idolatry in, say, the book of Isaiah, where the writer refers to a tree being taken and one part of it used to cook the mans food and the other part carved into an idol before which the man bows and worships; yet this is exactly what men do with their ideas. The intellect forms ideas for guiding a mans physical life, and then takes other ideas and worships them as god, and if a man has made his own ideas his god, he is greater than his own god. This is not such a terrible power, perhaps, as the self-living power of the soul, but it is a power that will work havoc unless the soul is right with god. It is the power that produces internal hypocrisy, the power that makes me able to think good thoughts while i live a bad life, unconvicted. How does this power show itself in those who are born again of the spirit of god? This power shows itself in opposition to secularity. Take your own expe- rience, those of you who are spiritual spiritual in the bible sense, identified with the lord Jesus Christ in a practical way you cannot make a distinction now between secular and sacred, it is all sacred; but in the first realisation of this power the line is drawn clearly and strongly between what is called secular and what is called sacred. In the life of Jesus Christ there was no division into secular and sacred, but with us when this power begins to be realised it always manifests itself in a line of cleavage. There are certain things we wont do; certain things we wont look at; certain things we wont eat; certain hours we wont sleep. It is not wrong, it is the spirit of god in a soul beginning to utilise the powers of the soul for god; and as the soul goes on it comes to a fullorbed condition, where it manifests itself as in the life of the lord Jesus and all is sacred.
If you obey the spirit of god and practise in your physical life all that god has put in your heart by his spirit, when the crisis comes you will find your nature will stand by you. So many people misunderstand why they fall. It comes from this idea, now i have received the grace of god, i am all right. Paul says he did not frustrate the grace of god, i. E. , receive it in vain. If we do not go on practising day by day and week by week, working out what god has worked in, when a crisis comes gods grace is there right enough, but our nature is not. Our nature has not been brought into line by practise and consequently does not stand by us, and down we go and then we blame god. We must bring our bodily life into line by practise day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, then when the crisis comes we shall find not only gods grace but our own nature will stand by us, and the crisis will pass without any disaster at all, but exactly the opposite will happen, the soul will be built up into a stronger attitude towards god.
3. Rotation
(e) fifth power. Stirred sensually or spiritually also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. (exodus 23:9)
dearly beloved, i beseech you as strangers and pil- grims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. (1 peter 2:11)
Remember that the soul is manifested as the spirit struggles to make itself expressed. Exodus 23:19 is a magnificent passage; it is intensely, movingly practical in every detail, and there this power of the soul is clearly recognisable. It fits itself on with the second power, viz. , the power we have to deceive everybody else, to do cunning things, to defraud, to utilise other people for our own ends; and the warning is, be careful not to be stirred in your soul by the wrong spirit. If the soul can be stirred by its own cunning, the cunning of a mans own inner nature, it can be stirred by vileness and abominable sensuality through the senses (1 peter 2:11)
How does this power show itself in a regenerate soul? It shows itself in opposition to worldly bond- age. You will find in your own experience, and in all recorded experiences, that when the life is going on along gods line, god puts the fear of you on those who are on the outside because of the scorn you have of worldly bondages. The spirit of god in you will not allow you to bow your neck to any yoke but the yoke of the lord Jesus christ. When you stand on this platform of gods grace, you see instantly that the bondage is in the world. The etiquette and standards of the world are an absolute bondage, and those who live in them are abject slaves, and yet the extraordinary thing is that when a worldly person sees anyone emancipated and under the yoke of the lord Jesus Christ, he says they are in bond- age, whereas exactly the opposite is true. True liberty exists only when the soul has this holy scorn in it, i will bow my neck to no yoke but the yoke of the lord Jesus Christ. Our lord was meek to all that his father did, but intolerant to all the devil did; he would not suffer compromise with the devil in any shape or form. This power of the soul, then, when the soul is born again, manifests itself in opposition to all worldly bondage.
(f ) sixth power. Speaking the spirits thoughts
Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will i be greater than thou. (genesis 41:40)
We are now dealing with rotation, the restlessness of becoming. That is how all these powers are going to manifest themselves in a fully matured soul. Genesis 41:40 is a picture of a soul right with god; but remember there is a corresponding picture. A man in whom all the powers of the soul are developing will come to a place where he shows literally, not only with his mouth, but with his eyes and every power of his body, who is on the throne of his life. If it is the prince of this world, the man is prime minister of his own body under the devil. When the full powers of the soul are developed i am obliged to carry out the behests of the ruling monarch. How does this power show itself when a soul is born again of the spirit of god? It shows itself in opposition to worldly thoughts and customs. Only in the throne will i be greater than thou. Take pharaoh as a picture of Jesus Christ; the soul that is born again and is going on with god, who has been identified with Jesus Christ in practical sanctification and has the full powers of the soul developed and manifested, that soul is prime minister of his own body under Jesus Christs dominion. That is the ideal, and it is not an ideal only, but an ideal which Jesus Christ expects us to carry out all the powers of the soul working through the body in an express personality, revealing the ruler to be the lord Jesus Christ.
(g) Seventh power. Sum total in unity
As the lord liveth, that made us this soul, i will not put thee to death, neither will i give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life. ( Jeremiah 38:16)
The sum total is a perfect unity of badness or a perfect unity of goodness. All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt . . . (genesis 46:26 RV). The word soul there refers to the full maturity of the powers manifested in the bodily life. This is the description of a full-grown man, whether he is a bad man or a good man, and when a soul gets into full maturity of expression, the chances are he will never alter. In Jeremiah 38:16, soul is mentioned in the same way. This is not the soul in its beginnings, in its chaotic state; but the soul absolutely mastered by the ruling spirit and expressing itself through the body. How does this perfection of soul life show itself in a born-again man who is living the life god wants him to live? It shows itself in opposition to all other powers, and manifests itself in its bodily life in the wisdom that is from above. It is literally the uncrushable loveliness of a soul manifesting gods rule, all its powers now in harmony. This is not in heaven, but on earth. It is not mental perfection, nor bodily perfection: it is the perfection of a souls attitude when all its powers are under the control of the spirit of god. All the corners have been chipped away; all the extreme swinging of the pendulum has been regulated; all the chaotic turmoil has become ordered, and the life is now manifesting the life of the lord Jesus in its mortal flesh. By way of revision, we find that these powers of the soul show themselves in every one of us more or less. For instance, we would never think of judging a boy or girl by the same standard of judgement we would pass on them when they are mature, because a boy or a girl is not in full grip of a character; but when once a soul is matured, the character which is manifested meets with severe judgement. There is no excuse to be made for it now; all its powers are consolidated and the wrong it does is not the wrong of an impulse, it is the wrong of a dead set. When the soul is consolidated and is right with god, the whole character manifests something which bears a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ. There is, however, a chaotic period in christian experience. Read the apostle pauls earnest, almost mother like, solicitation over his young converts; he almost seems to croon over them, to use an old scotch word, to agonise in heart over them, because of the chaotic state of their souls. Jesus Christ commissioned peter, and the other disciples through him to feed my lambs.