What is Man? By T.A. Sparks
...God is Light and in him is no darkness at all...
For various walks in life, please use the word EnergySource, Universe or TheGreatSpirit
for God. We are ...Living Stones... a Spiritual House...the Temple of God...
~ 1 Peter 2:5, 1 Cor 3:16. All truth goes through three stages ...ridiculed...violently rejected...third, accepted as self-evident.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer.
Our ego must be regulated. This is a conscious denial of our me-me-me-impulse.
...head knowledge will tell us about God, but only heart knowledge will give us God....Spiritual knowledge is love. Love is life, and with this love we are able to discern what is of God and what is not of God.
~ Stephen Kaung
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Modernity is in great confusion about the difference between soul and spirit.
As the soul is a trinity of reason, affection (emotion) and volition (will), so is the spirit a trinity. Its attributes are conscience, communion (worship) and intuition.
[pg. 50 ~ What is Man? by TA Sparks]
When we cry out to our Heavenly Father and are re-created because of the atoning blood of the Lamb of God, Messiah Christ, what part of us is re-created or re-generated? It is not the physical body. Nicodemus realized this. It is not the soul; the reason, affection, volition. It is our spirit that is re-born.
God is Spirit (John 4:24, Heb 12:9, I Cor 2:9-11). It is the spirit in man that must be re-generated / re-created / re-born from above, from the Spirit of God. The new nature in Messiah is from above. ...I am from above...no man comes to Me except the Father draw him...
Christ is pointing out the difference between natural life and divine life. We cannot present our own natural ego (self-worship) to God.
Soul as Servant of Our Re-born Spirit:
What is it that is born again? This experience is said by Christ to be imperative (John 3:3, 5 ect.) Nicodemus
stumbled over the physical question, but was soon told that
[pg. 31-32] And this is the point of concern where many are confused.
...that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the Spirit is Spirit
. Firstly, then, and obviously, it is not the body that is born again. But neither
is it the soul!
The problem in a nutshell: our soul wants independence from the life of God. This means our reason, emotion and will want to run the show. Our ego (self-worship) desires to gratify itself. It does not want to please God.
The intellectual side of the soul runs toward legalism, while the emotive side runs toward manifestations and desire.
This [emotional side of the soul] demands experiences, evidences, manifestations...along the line of intense
desire...A forceful, dominating [controlling ego], assertive soul, not under the govenment of the Holy Spirit [Spirit of God], is a terrible menace
to the interests of God. Decisions will be made, coures adopted, objectives secured, positions occupied, in the name of devotion to God, which will be Towers of Babel...
[pg. 65]
The Scriptural prescription before the Lord of Hosts is the soul in proper order, listening to the re-created / re-generated spirit (conscience, communion, intuition) enlivened by the breath of God because of the atoning blood of the Lamb.
Christ purchased my soul by his subsituionary death on the cross. I am no longer a slave to satan but I have been adopted into the Family of God. This is symbolized in water baptism.
Our souls are amazing and wonderful. We can find our greatest satisfaction and happiness when we train our self-life [internal structure] to focus on the Life of God. This is a life-long training process.
...do not live a life of suppressing your soul, nor despising it; but be strong in spirit, so that your soul may be won, saved and made to serve your fullest joy. The Lord Jesus desires that we should find rest unto our
souls, and this, He says, comes by way of His yoke - the symbol of union and service.
[pg. 36-37] See Luke 21:19, 1 Peter 1:22 and 1 peter 1:9.
Our intellect, emotion and will (soul power) are a gift to be discipled (trained and instructed) and regulated for God. It is vital that they be harnessed to the Engine of Life, the yoke of Christ Messiah.
Spirituality is not a life of suppression. That is negative. Spirituality is positive. It is a new and extra life, not the old one striving to get mastery of itself...
....what joy and strength there is when, the soul having been constrained to yield to the spirit, the higher wisdom and glory is perceived in its vindication...
[pg. 36-37]
It is important to realize that although Adam, when created, was sinless and innocent, he was not perfect
[mature, complete], as
God intended he should be. There was something to be added if he was to attain to all that God meant, in his nature
and destiny. This link with God through his human spirit carried with it a potentiality or a possibility,
not an absolute and final one-ness.
[pg. 22]
The ancient scriptures and words of Christ instruct us that our soul must be won over to a new energy source through the training of our life.
...The Nature of Sanctification. The soul remains prone to evil to the end [Fallen]. This fact constitutes the basis for the whole doctrine of sanctification, inasmuch as the New Testament is one big exhortation to spiritual progress by spiritual ascendancy.
[pg. 38]
How do I become more spiritual? More like God? Is spiritual ascendency my own life? Is spiritual ascendency Life from God?
The Real Key to Sanctification (spiritual ascendency) ...We therefore submit that the key to this dilemma is the difference between soul and spirit [spiritual]....The carry-over of the atonement as a santifying power is thus: there is in the born again spirit a striving after holiness as well as a new desire for the Lord [God]...
...When the spirit is renewed and quickened, something happens. That
spirit itself is that in man which is the image or likeness of God (spirit). It has been dead - that is, it has been
severed from its life in God, and has ceased to function in any Divine way. The Holy Spirit, in virtue of the atonement, first renews it by cleansing and quickening,
and also imparts Divine Life (eternal life) in Christ to it, thus making it one in nature and fellowship with God.
[pg. 44-45]
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God does not want, and the Bible does not teach, that the
[pg. 16-17] old man
[old ego-nature after the flesh, the ego-life] should be consecrated to Him.
The old man
has to be crucified [denied], not consecrated. The soul must be won in patient listening to the enlivened
intuition and conscience...
...The old, fallen, Adamic [Ego] nature demanding its own way is denied, it goes to its death, it goes to the cross....
...if any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me...
[Matthew 16:24] Here Christ is talking about the fallen nature, the self-life, the ego-life.
What have we said and inferred as to the soul? We have indicated that it was with his soul that Adam sinned. The
result of this was that it is with the soul that the evil powers have become allied. Further, a consequence is that man
has become pre-eminently a soulical being as against a spiritual; that is, soul dominates. Thus man is in a
disrupted state, and represents an upsetting of a Divine order.
[pg. 31-32]
Can we find truth and wisdom in ourselves, in our own soul?
...The soul of man is a complex and dangerous thing and is capable of extraordinary things. It can entirely mislead us and
play us many tricks, as we shall see. Man is now a disrupted and disordered creature, and we must remember that the
creation, including man, because of this disruption has been deliberately subjected to vanity.
[pg. 22]
[Continued from above]
That is, it has been rendered incapable of realizing its original intended destiny, or coming to full fruitage. For the unregenerate man, life is indeed a mockery, for he can never reach his intended objective. This is God's answer to his assaying to have all in himself in independence (Rom 8:10-23).
[pg. 22]
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