Spirit: the domain and dominion of spirit - Chambers, Oswald

Chapter XX  –  Spirit: the domain and dominion of spirit
Man’s Universe (continued)
         1 Corinthians 15:45
N.B. we deal here particularly with spirit in the spiritual man.

1. Spirit in its freedom from the flesh (extraordinary)

(a) ecstasy (acts 10:10; 22:17; 2 Corinthians 12:24; revelation 4:2; sometimes with the body: acts 8:39;

2 Corinthians 12:24; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; revelation 12:5; Matthew 4:1)

(b) emancipation

(1) death (Luke 16:25; 23:43; Hebrews 12:23)

(2) deliverance (Hebrews 4:12; Galatians 5:24; colossians 2:11; Romans 6:6; Galatians 6:8; john 3:8; 20:22)

2. Spirit operating in sense (exodus 6:9; proverbs 15:13; 2 Corinthians 2:13; acts 17:16; john 11:33)

3. Spirit operating inwardly (Luke 10:21; 1 Corinthians 2:4; 14:2, 1416)

4. Spirit operating morally (exodus 35:21; acts 19:21; 20:22; proverbs 16:18; Isaiah 11:2)

And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45) the contrast in 1 Corinthians 15:45.

Is not a contrast of moral worth, but of revelation. The phrase the first man Adam was made a living soul refers to the great fact of gods creation; the phrase the last Adam was made a quickening spirit, refers to gods regenerating work in the soul. Mans spirit has not life in itself, i. E. , man cannot will pure will, or love pure love. The holy spirit has life in himself, and when he comes in he energises our spirit and enables us to will and to do of his good pleasure. Adam does not mean the old man, but our human nature. Never confound the old man with adam, they are not synonymous terms: and never confound the old man with the devil.

1. Spirit in its freedom from the flesh (extraordinary)

We mean by extraordinary, away from the ordinary, not contrary to it or against it, but out of it. We have to bear in mind that there are facts revealed in gods book which are not common to our experience, and a great moment is reached in the mental life when our minds are opened to the fact that there are states of experience, either for good or bad, about which the majority of us know nothing. It is easy to ridicule these experiences, but ridicule may be a sign of ignorance; it may simply meani know everything that everybody can experience, and if a man says he has seen things i have not seen, then i take him to be a fool and laugh at him. It is i who am the fool. Paul uses this argument in 1 Corinthians 1, he says the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those that seek after wisdom. Again, in connection with the testimony to sanctification people will tell you point blank that no man ever was sanctified, and if you say that you are sanctified, you are a liar, or you suffer from hallucinations. It is quite possible that many of us may have this attitude to the extraordinary experiences recorded in gods book.

(a) ecstasy

And he [peter] became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance. (acts 10:10)

And it came to pass, that, when i was come again to Jerusalem, even while i prayed in the temple, i was in a trance. (acts 22:17)

And immediately i was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. (revelation 4:2)

I knew a man in christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, i cannot tell; or whether out of the body, i cannot tell: god knoweth; ) such an one caught up to the third heaven. . . . (2 Corinthians 12:2)

Ecstasy is a word applied to states of mind marked by temporary mental aberration and altered consciousness, a state in which a man is taken out of his ordinary setting into an extraordinary state where he sees and hears things apart from the bodily organs. Remember, this power may be for good or bad. A necromancer can take a mans personality right out of his bodily setting and put him into another setting where he sees and hears altogether apart from his body.

In these extraordinary conditions the body is sometimes taken with the spirit. And when they were come up out of the water, the spirit of the lord caught away philip, that the eunuch saw him no more (acts 8:39). In this phase of ecstasy the body is taken with the soul by extraordinary transportation, by a supernatural aeroplane, something absolutely unusual. First Thessalonians 4:17 (then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the lord) refers to the instantaneous change of a material body into a glorified body (cf. Revelation 12:5; Matthew 4:1). After the resurrection our lord appeared to his disciples during the forty days before he ascended; that is, he had power to materialise whenever he chose. He said unto them, have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them (Luke 24:4143). In the millennium we shall have exactly the same power as saints; we are to meet the lord in the air. Is that conceivable to you? If it is, it certainly is not conceivable to me. I do not know how i am going to stay up in the air with the lord; but that is no business of mine, all i know is that gods book reveals that we shall do so. The marvellous power which the glorified resurrection body will have is pictured in the lord Jesus Christ. He could materialise whenever he chose, he proved that he could, and he could disappear whenever he chose; and we shall do exactly the same. Just think of the time when our thinking will be in language as soon as we think it! If we have the idea that we are to be penned up for ever in a little physical temple, we are twisted away from the bible revelation. Just now in this order of things we are confined in this bodily temple for a particular reason, but at any second, in the twinkling of an eye, god can change this body into a glorified body. All we are arguing for is the need to have an open mind about things we can know nothing of as yet. If when an experience is recorded, i say it is nonsense because i have never had it, i put myself in the place of the superior person, an attitude i have no business to take.

The state of ecstasy, something that lifts a man right out of his ordinary setting, and the transportation at times of body as well as spirit, then is revealed in the bible. A miracle? Yes, but not more of a miracle than the fact that i am alive. Why should it be thought more of a miracle for god to transform me into the image of his son than for me to be alive now? How is it that i am alive now? How is it that the material wood of this table and the fleshly mate- rial of my hand are different? If we can explain the one, we can explain the other; god who has made the one made the other. The point we are emphasising is that we have to remember that at any moment god may turn a mans calculations upside down concerning what he will do and what he will not do. Scientists reached the conclusion long ago that they dare not produce their experimental curve into the inferential region beyond. They say, according to the record of common experience such and such is the case, and any isolated experience is put by itself. They do not say it cannot be, but that it does not come into their line of explanation. No true scientist says because the majority of human beings have never had a particular experience, therefore it is untrue.

All this is part and parcel of the subject of personality. As long as we are flippant and stupid and shallow and think that we know ourselves, we shall never give ourselves over to Jesus Christ; but when once we become conscious that we are infinitely more than we can fathom, and infinitely greater in possibility either for good or bad than we can know, we shall be only too glad to hand ourselves over to him.

Mystery there must be, but the remarkable thing about the mysteries which the bible reveals is that they never contradict human reason, they transcend it. The mysteries of other religions contradict human reason. The miracles which our lord performed (a miracle simply means the public power of god) transcend human reason, but not one of them contradicts human reason. For example, our lord turned water into wine, but the same thing is done every year all over the world in process of time: water is sucked up through the stem of the vine and turned into grapes. Why, should it be considered more of a miracle when it is done suddenly by the same being who does it gradually? When Jesus Christ raised a man from the dead, he simply did suddenly what we all believe implicitly he is going to do by and by. Have any of us a sealed mind about these facts in gods book which we have never experienced? Do we try and apologise for them, try to make out, for instance, that Philip was not caught away suddenly by the spirit; that the apostle Paul was not caught up to the third heaven; that peter did not fall into a trance and see the things he did see? There is always the danger of doing this. Accept these revelations as facts, and you will find your understanding illuminated as to how marvellously things can happen when the great mighty god is at work.

(b) Emancipation

(1) death

We are dealing here with the spirit in its freedom from the flesh. We mean by flesh, this body we are in, not the mind of the flesh. It is possible for the spirit to exist apart altogether from mans body.

And Jesus said unto him, verily i say unto thee, to day shalt thou be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43; see also Luke 16:25; Hebrews 12:23). These passages refer to the place where the body is not the unseen. The bible points out that mans spirit is immortal, whether or not he is energised by the spirit of god; that is, spirit never sleeps. Instead of the spirit sleeping at what we call death, at the breaking away of spirit from the body, the spirit is ten thousand-fold more awake. With the majority of us our spirits are half- concealed while we are in this body. Remember, spirit and personality are synonymous, but as long as a man is in the body his personality is obscured. Immediately he dies his spirit is no more obscured, it is absolutely awake; no limitations now, man is face to face with everything else that is of spirit son, remember. . . .

Soul and body depend upon each other, spirit does not, spirit is immortal. Soul is simply the spirit expressing itself in the body. Immediately the body goes, the soul is gone, but the moment the body is brought back, soul is brought back, and spirit, soul and body will again be together. Spirit has never died, can never die, in the sense in which the body dies; the spirit is immortal, either in immortal life or in immortal death. There is no such thing as annihilation taught in the bible. The separation of spirit from body and soul is temporary. The resurrection is the resurrection of the body.

Our lord never speaks of the resurrection of spirit the spirit does not need resurrecting; he speaks of a resurrection body for glorification and a resurrection body for damnation. The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation ( john 5:2829). We know what the resurrection body for glorification will be like: it will be like his glorious body; but

All we know about the resurrection of the bad is that Jesus Christ (who ought to know what he is talking about) says that there will be a resurrection to damnation. The question of eternal punishment is a fearful one, but let no one say that Jesus Christ did not say anything about it, he did. He said it in language we cannot begin to understand and the least thing we can do is to be reverent with what we do not understand.

(2) deliverance

for the word of god is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

Many teachers make spirit and soul one and the same; when the word of god comes into my heart it instantly divides between the two, that is how the spirit of god convicts of sin. And they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts (Galatians 5:24). What is flesh? Paul is not talking to disembodied spirits, to a lot of corpses, he is talking to living men and women, so he certainly does not mean mortal flesh; he is referring to a disposition within which he calls the flesh. When Paul speaks of the body, he speaks of it as mortal flesh; when he refers to the old disposition, he calls it the flesh. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ (colossi ans 2:11; see also Romans 6:6; Galatians 6:8; john 3:8). Emancipation means deliverance while i am in the flesh, not counteraction or suppression; it may begin in counteraction, but blessed be god, emancipation is possible here and now. According to the apostle Paul, and according to the whole of the teaching of the new testament, we can be delivered from the old disposition knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. . . . Crucifixion means death. The majority of testimonies contradict what the new testament reveals. With whom are we going to side? Let god be true, but every man a liar (Romans 3:4) emancipation does not remove the possibility of disobedience; if it did, we should cease to be human beings. To make the removal of the wrong disposition mean that god removes our human nature is absurd. God does remove the wrong disposition, but he does not alter our human nature. We have the same body, the same eyes, the same imperfect brain and nervous system, but Paul argues you used to use this body as an obedient slave to the wrong dis- position, now use it as an obedient slave to the new disposition. . . . For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness (Romans 6:19).

2. Spirit operating in sense

We have been dealing with the emancipation of spirit from slavery of sin, now we come to the bible teaching that the spirit can operate through our senses, so that we can express in our lives that we are delivered: no reckoning or hoodwinking ourselves, no pretending we are emancipated when we are not, but the manifestation through every cell of our bodies that god has done what we testify with our mouth he has done.

The children of Israel . . . Hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage. (exodus 6:9)

Their anguish of spirit had so distorted their senses that they could not listen. A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken (proverbs 15:13). When a man is happy, he cannot pull a long face, he may try to, but it is the face of a clown; when he is happy inside he shows it on the outside. If you hear a christian with a sad face saying, oh, i am so full of the joy of the lord, well, you know it is not true. If i am full of the joy of the lord, it will pour out of every cell of my body. I had no rest in my spirit, because i found not Titus my brother . . . (2 Corinthians 2:13). While Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry (acts 17:16). When Jesus therefore saw her weeping . . . He was moved with indignation in the spirit and troubled himself ( john 11:33 RV mg). All these passages refer to spirit showing itself instantly in the flesh. The spirit of wrong shows itself in the flesh, and, thank god, the spirit of god does the same. As soon as we become rightly related to god, the prince of this world has his last stake in the flesh, he will suck every bit of your physical life out of you if he can. Many christian workers do not know this, and Satan will seek to wear them out to the last cell; but if they know this trick of his and also know gods grace, every time they are exhausted in work for god, they will get supernatural physical recuperation, and the proof that it is gods work is the experience of this supernatural recuperation. If you become exhausted in doing work in the world, what have you to do? You have to take an iron tonic and have a holiday, but if you are exhausted in gods work, all the iron tonics in the world will never touch you, the only thing that will recuperate you is god himself. Paul said he did not count his life dear unto himself so that he might finish his course with joy; and when the dear sisters and brothers say to you, you must not work so hard, simply say, get thee behind me, Satan! Remember, satans last stake is in the flesh, and when once you know that all your fresh springs are in god, you will draw on him. Beware of laying off before god tells you to; if you lay off before god tells you to, you will rust, and that leads to dry rot always.

3. Spirit operating inwardly

The spirit operates outwardly through our senses, and operates inwardly towards god.

In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, i thank thee, o father, lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. (Luke 10:21)

Our lord was talking to god inwardly by his spirit. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power (1 Corinthians 2:4). If you have the spirit of god in you, the preaching of the cross is according to the wisdom of god: if you have not the spirit of god in you, the preaching of christ crucified is foolishness.

For if i pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful . . . (1 Corinthians 14:14). The question of tongues here is not a question of foreign languages, but what is called glossalalia, i. E. , spiritual gibberish, nothing intelligible in it. Such phrases as hallelujah! And glory be to god! Come about in this way. Just as a baby blethers for expression before its human spirit has worked through its soul, so a soul when being born of the holy ghost is apt to be carried away with emotional ecstasy. Try and understand a babys blether, you cannot, unless you are its mother, then possibly you may. In dealing with the Corinthians, Paul tells them to form a spiritual nous, an understanding whereby the spirit can be expressed. When a soul is first introduced to the heavenly domain by the spirit of god, there is a tremendous bursting up of new life in the soul and there is no language for it. Paul urges the Corinthians to form a spiritual nous as soon as they can, to come to the point of understanding whereby the spirit can be expressed. If you don’t watch what you are doing, this will produce disgraceful mockery among the nations. If they come into your meetings and see you jabbering, you will give an occasion to the enemy to blaspheme (see 1 Corinthians 14:23). In the modern tongues movement the responsibility is with the teachers. May god have mercy on them! When we are introduced by the spirit of god into a new domain, we have no language; we are in a phase of spiritual babyhood; we have sighings and groanings and tears, but no language. Paul counsels us to be instructed, and one of the wisest ways of instruction is to let the psalms express for you. When you are worked up to a pitch emotionally, read some of the psalms, and the spirit of god will gradually teach you how to form a spiritual nous, a mind whereby you will not only understand but will slowly and surely get to the place where you can express your spirit, you will have a totally new language. We read that when the day of pentecost was fully come . . . They were all filled with the holy ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit gave them utterance (acts 2:1, 4). This was not glossolalia, it was the gift of new language.

4. Spirit operating morally

And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the lords offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation, and for all his service, and for the holy garments. (exodus 35:21; see also acts 19:21; 20:22; proverbs 16:18; Isaiah 11:2)

The spirit working through the senses and working inwardly to god, produces a morality and an uprightness just like Jesus Christs. The worthiness of our lord Jesus Christ is moral worth in the divine and in the human sphere, and our moral worth is to be of the same order. God grant we may ever walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. This book ends abruptly, but we leave it so.

The whole book is merely a verbatim report of lectures given at the bible training college, and we have decided to let it go for what it is worth a mere effort to rouse up the average christian worker to study the wealth of the scriptures, and thus become better equipped for rightly dividing the word of truth. God bless all who care to read the book!