01.15. The Spiritual Man And The "Spiritual Body"

The " spiritual " body, referred to in 1 Corinthians 15:44, with which the believer will be clothed in the resurrection, is a logical outcome of the spiritual stage we have been considering. " That is not first which is spiritual," writes the Apostle, " but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual " (1 Corinthians 15:46). The babe in Christ is " yet carnal ", but by his apprehension of Romans vi. he ceases to walk after the flesh, and walks after the Spirit. Then he apprehends the " dividing of soul and spirit", and becomes a " spiritual man ", with mind renewed, and his soul and body a vehicle for God to express Himself through him. Now the original order of the tripartite man is restored, in the sense of:

1. The Holy Spirit ruling in the liberated spirit (the seat of the God-consciousness), with 2. The Soul-or personality-as the vessel (the seat of the self-consciousness), and 3. The Body as the slave (the seat of sense-consciousness).

Now the man is truly " spiritual ", or, to put it more crudely, we might say he is a " spirit " dwelling in the vessel of the " soul ", and this again encased in a physical mortal body. The language of Paul clearly shows that the full redemption of the body awaits the appearing of the Lord from heaven. " We ourselves groan," he writes, " waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body " (Romans 8:23); " We wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory" (Php 3:20-21); " We would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life " (2 Corinthians 5:4). The body is, therefore, still a " natural " body; a mortal body; a vessel of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7) and not until sown in the earth at death-or changed in the twinkling of an eye at the Lord’s coming-is it raised " a spiritual body ". But the " spiritual " man who lives under the rule of the Holy Spirit day by day, may have an increasing " earnest " of the coming redemption of the body, for as he walks in the spirit, his body shares in the life-giving power of the Spirit, according to Romans 8:11, where the Apostle declares, " If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you " (R.V. margin). The power of the reality of this " quickening of the mortal body ", by the very same Spirit of the Father, which " raised up Jesus from the dead ", can be known only as far as the soul-life of nature is continuously " lost " by the power of the Cross (Matthew 16:24-26), for the mortal body can only be quickened by the Holy Spirit when the Life-giving Spirit is free to energise soul and body. The Apostle’s suggestive words in 2 Corinthians 4:10-12, have to do with this stage of the believer’s life. Just as the soul-life has to be " lost " to find the Spiritlife inflowing from the Holy Spirit, using the soul-capacity and faculties; so the same principle of "loss" for " gain " must work in the mortal body. Therefore, it is written : " Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body ". The loss of the carnal-life animating the soul was gradual, giving place to the inflow of the Spirit-life as the believer yielded to the dividing of soul and spirit, brought about by the wielding of the sword of the Spirit by the Heavenly High Priest; and so is the " dying of Jesus " in the mortal body inwrought continuously, as the believer follows on in the way of the Cross, " pressed, perplexed, pursued, smitten down "-yea, " pressed above measure, despairing even of life " (2 Corinthians 1:8-9), so as to cast him upon the God Who raiseth the dead, that he may prove the " life of Jesus " manifested in the sustaining and quickening of the mortal body. This " losing " of life, to " gain " the life of Jesus, is brought about by the Holy Spirit as the believer follows on to know the Lord. " We who live," writes the Apostle, " are always delivered to death ... that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us but life in you...."

Painful as it is to the " mortal flesh ", the " spiritual " man, able to " examine " these deep things of God, can see that the inworking of death and life means two results of vital importance to the Lord and His people : (I) That when the life of Jesus can freely flow from the sanctuary of the spirit through the soul faculties, quickening the " mortal body " with unhindered power, it means life to others, as well as to the believer himself-a quickening life to the whole Church of Christ, as depicted by the Lord in His promise of rivers of living water. (2) That this quickening of the mortal body is the " earnest of the Spirit ", whereby the body itself is being prepared for the hour when " what is mortal may be swallowed up of life ", even as the Apostle writes, " . . . He that wrought us for this very thing is God, who gave unto us the earnest of the Spirit " (2 Corinthians 5:4-5).