Who were we - Who are we - Who are we becoming - Part III
Vern Peterman · Jan 23, 2011
What God Is Doing in Believers, No. 04
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926224387839

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

As we take a look at this passage, I hope you've been finding that what we've been going through so far has been helpful in clarifying things. In other words, understanding that there is the old man, the new man, the old nature, the new nature. What has taken place last week?

Identification truth aspects of the change from the believer being in Christ, previously having been in Adam. We also made the point, and some questions even this morning underscore the need to make sure it's clear, what we're talking about is something that is true of us as church-age believers. The Jews, like we're going through the Jews wandering in the wilderness, they were not in Christ. They were baptized into who? into Moses, baptized into Moses. They were under the law, baptized into Moses.

So the things that we're talking about, about the anatomy of a believer, do not all fit with other believers of other times. Some of it may, but particularly we're focusing on what does the Bible say about us as believers who are a part of the church.

We want to take a look this morning at a different perspective on the same thing. We've made little mention of the distinction between what's physical and what is spiritual. And today we want to step into that realm and see some distinctions that are there as well. You have a four-page handout here. The top of it says physical realm and spiritual realm.

I want to move there onto the second paragraph, which says, as we have been examining things so far, we have made little mention of the physical body along the way, focusing mostly on the spiritual aspects of the believer. The one mention of the physical body we've talked about is that a believer still has to deal with the sin nature, because the sin nature is associated with this physical body. When we get new bodies, That sin nature will not be a part of the picture, will not be associated with our new body. Therefore we won't be walking in heaven's gates and struggling with the sin nature and what it says to do. But there's another perspective we want to look at. That is to gain insight into what is spiritual and what is physical in each individual whether a believer or an unbeliever There are some biblical passages that will help us gain these insights.

We particularly quote 1st Thessalonians 5 23 This is now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and So you get the impression reading that there are three parts to the human being, may your spirit and soul and body.

It turns out that there has been a rather long ongoing debate as to whether man is actually two parts and we have that as the first bullet. Mostly those of the reformed background hold that the body is one part and the soul and the spirit are basically synonyms, the same. so that man is two parts. Those mostly of the dispensational background, as Holly Hills is, hold that man is three parts, that is body, soul, and spirit, and that soul and spirit are not universally synonyms. At Holly Hills we hold this three-part view, typical of most dispensationalists, but would also add that the debate is largely one of misunderstanding.

When we say soul, we're not talking about some other kind of reality. There is still only physical and spiritual. And we would say, with certain exceptions, because the word soul is used with varying definitions, slightly different definitions, we would say that the soul is a spiritual aspect. of man. We have a couple of examples of where spirit and soul are used apparently interchangeably.

Job 7.11, I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Those appear to be used synonymously, right? Isaiah 26 9 at night my soul longs for you indeed my spirit within me seeks you diligently Even in the night, right? And so those are are used apparently as synonyms However, I believe the reason that they are is they both refer to different aspects of the spiritual Aspect of a person There are some poetic contexts that make even body and soul appear as synonyms.

And here's an example, Psalm 44, 25. For our soul has sunk down into the dust and our body cleaves to the earth. There is some usage, and let's go on to page two. There is some usage of the word soul that has more the idea of the body living. The body living, an example that shows up in Genesis 2.7, and I quote from the King James which brings out that word soul. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. The New American Standard just says living being. So we can understand the word soul and heart may have a definition that varies a little bit by the context. Embracing both the spiritual and the physical aspects, there is a place for understanding a difference in meaning between the word soul and spirit in some contexts.

Example, 1 Thessalonians 5.23, which we quoted above.

And here's another one, Hebrews 4.12. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." So does that passage appear to make a distinction between soul and spirit? Yes, it does. As a matter of fact, it says that there's a dividing line, there's a connecting point between those two aspects.

What we've done is to put an illustration in your handout similar to what's on the screen here. And the idea is this. On the physical realm, which we show on the left, you have the body and then the brain. Now let me ask you this. Is your brain a part of the body? Yes, yeah, I hope so. At any rate, your brain is actually a part of the body. So when we show the body, it isn't a separate thing from the brain. The brain is a part of the body. So you see the idea of the illustration here? We show a distinction, not to say that they're absolutely different, but to show that the brain is included in the body.

In the same way, In the same way, on the spiritual side, the soul is included in the spirit. It is not a thing apart. Yet there is, just like we say, well, if a person has a body, they also have a brain, we know that there is an identifiable part of a person that has a brain within their body. In the same way, soul is a part of the spirit of a person.

Clear so far? Make sense? Okay. There is a kind of a mirror image sort of idea in the physical realm and in the spiritual realm. Now, go to the next part. And that is, when we step into the area of mind, emotions, and will, what we find is that the brain and the soul each have an aspect of mind, emotions, and will. The brain and the soul are somewhat the interface, if you will, between the physical and the spiritual realm in a person. Let's think about that in our mind on the physical side. We have the thinking that goes on in our brain, right? But there is also a matter of spiritual thinking on the spiritual side of the soul. There is also emotions.

How are emotions possibly something that are influenced on the physical side? Does it make a difference, for example, if, like, let's say that we came here this morning and none of us had eaten for three days. Is that going to impact our emotions? Yes, and it's because there is a physical component or contribution to our emotions. There are things that have to do with people's hormones and blood sugar levels and things of that sort that impact our emotions.

Pardon? Pain. Physical pain will impact us emotionally. And so we see that there is a body side, a physical realm side to emotions. Then let's also look at this other side of it. Can people have emotional issues related to how they are doing spiritually? Yes. They most certainly can. There can be all sorts of emotional reactions to what is or isn't going on spiritually.

I once sat down with a PE instructor when I was in college, Coach Noonan. And this was just a, you know, go out and run the track for a certain period of time and, you know, you're done. So afterwards, because I tried to get done early because I'm lazy, right? So it's a run faster. At any rate, so I sat with Coach Noonan and I, you know, some of the guys started talking about different things and I kind of brought up death. And Coach Noonan, oh, he just had this real, you know, kind of saddened, thoughtful look on his face. You know, he said, I don't want to die.

So where's that coming from? That's a spiritual perspective that is impacting his emotions. So we can be impacted from both directions, can't we? We can have a mind about spiritual things or not. We can have emotions coming from either direction, and we can also have a will that comes from both directions. People will decide to do things based on what they see and feel and hear. People can also decide to do things based on what they understand spiritually as the truth, right? What they see going on spiritually will impact their decisions. So mind, emotions, and will have a commonality in both the physical side in the brain and on the spiritual side in the soul. Make sense? Okay so far. Alright.

Then as we step through this, Hebrews 4.12 that we just quoted, where does it touch?

Where does Hebrews 4.12 touch?

If you look at it, where does Hebrews 4.12 say that it touches? You've got the soul and the spirit. Where does it touch in there? It touches on that dividing line, that connecting point between the soul and the spirit, right? It goes that deep. It's interesting.

In the medical field, they will prescribe different things that will impact people from the physical side and will say, okay, let's give you this or that prescription in order to impact people on the physical side. Now, I'm not saying they shouldn't do so, but let me ask you this. Can anything that the doctor prescribes have direct contact in the spiritual realm? No. What does?

God's Word. God's Word gets to a depth that nothing else will ever reach. And here's the thing that's kind of interesting to think about. God's Word reaches a depth spiritually, but where does it come from? Where does God's Word come from in order to reach that spiritual depth?

It reaches the brain on the physical side. Isn't it interesting? Here's something. We have it here in the physical realm in our Purax. by God's Holy Spirit, it impacts us in the depths of our being in that area between the soul and the spirit. It impacts us deeply. That's an amazing thing. But then there's one more step to take.

Here is God's Word in the physical realm. Is that where it started? No. It didn't start in the physical realm. Where did it start? in the spiritual realm. Isn't that amazing? God begins in the spiritual realm to create a document that is in the physical realm to impact us deeply in the spiritual realm. That is amazing. Okay, so now we've gotten that far.

Now we've got one more thing to take a look at and that is in the same way that we have five senses in varying degrees of function in the physical realm, the Bible speaks in terms of those same five senses having an analog in the spiritual realm. In other words, we come here this morning, I'm looking at you, occasionally with the assistance of glasses, actually these are just readers, but I'm looking at you in the physical realm and yet, can you think of verses that talk about seeing in the spiritual realm? How about the unbeliever? Do they see or are they blind? Pardon? Blind. The unbelievers, and here's what's interesting, see the mind? The mind on the spiritual side, that is the soul, of the unbeliever has been blinded. You see that? That's right. Yeah, come and see. Here's Ephesians chapter 1. I pray that the eyes of... and I'll use the correct Greek grammar here. I pray that the eyes of your hearts haven't been opened. Okay? Ephesians chapter 1.

Anybody here recognize the name Fanny Crosby? Fanny Crosby was a lady living during the 1800s for the most part. who, because of some mistakes from a doctor, lost her eyesight at just something like six weeks, as I recall. She went the rest of her life writing thousands of hymns, and in many of those hymns she included sight. And she says, the next time I see will be when I see the Lord face to face. So she was one who was blind on the physical side for all but those first six weeks of her life, but had her eyes open on the spiritual side.

Let's think of another one. We studied in, when we were studying 1st and 2nd Corinthians, a passage about an aroma from life to life and death to death. Is that a physical aroma? It's a spiritual aroma, isn't it? How about taste and see that the Lord is good? I remember when your words were sweet as honey.

Yeah, there is in fact one or more, and in most cases more, passages addressing the spiritual aspect of the senses, that is an equivalent or an analog to each of the five senses is reflected in scripture. Every single one. Yes? Where would the heart be in this picture? Because on the previous page it says thoughts and intentions, but many translations will also say bowels. So it's kind of like the essence.

One of the things that you will see, and we've seen it in one of these passages already, joints and marrow, heart, used there in Hebrews 4.12. One of the interesting things is several pieces of physical anatomy are used as illustrations, as word pictures, of the deepest part of a human being. And it's everything from bowels to actually kidneys, to the heart, to the joints and marrow. All those terms are terms used to refer to the depths of a person.

And when you use the word heart, there again is some slight variation in what that describes. But in general, I'll say it's the spiritual side, and sometimes including the physical side, including the brain. That's a good question. I haven't checked into that. I'll look into that and let you know.

What's interesting is that the tendency of scripture, and I'll say at least as a tendency, the tendency of scripture is to use other parts of our anatomy to talk about the inner part of our being. the heart, the kidneys, the intestines even, joints and marrow as we see there in Hebrews 4.12. So along with that, since it doesn't use the word brain specifically, it does talk about mind, like the mind of Christ, well that has to do with thoughts and intentions as well.

Yes. So does that kind of interrelate with heart? Yes, yes it does. The heart encompasses everything in the spirit and the soul that is everything on that of a person on the spiritual side and in some context includes also the physical side of thinking and emotions and will. But would it be similar to mind? No, mind is too restrictive because the mind particularly has to do with memory and thought process and it might also include my emotions and the will And it includes also other aspects in the spiritual realm aside from those. So the heart encompasses the soul, the spirit, and possibly into the physical side of the brain in some contexts.

What about the heart is deceitful above all things? Okay, yeah. And let's think about that. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. What is it referring to? Is the new man deceitful above all things? No. Is the new nature deceitful above all things? No. So what this is referring to is certainly on the unbeliever's side, the old man and the old nature.

So there's the heart. And then if it has any reference to us as believers, the sin nature as it is continued and carried over associated with this body. Is the sin nature in the believer deceitful? Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's what it's describing. The heart, we can say for the unbeliever, it's the old man, it's everything he is in Adam, and it's the nature, the inclination to act. Yes. But it's not necessarily saying that the heart is bad, but that sin that affects the heart and in conjunction with the will they become together then, right?

Well, I think what you have to look at is, we're looking at the physical realm, spiritual realm aspects of it. Notice that we aren't particularly using the terms old man, new man, that sort of thing. So we're kind of looking at the same set of truths from a different perspective here. And we're going to be making some distinctions. A part of it is, let's look at this diagram right here.

The spirit, in other words, an unbeliever and a believer have all these things true. What is true of the spirit of the unbeliever with respect to God? Is he joined to or separated from? Separated from, and we said that death is separation, therefore the spirit of the unbeliever is And what we mean by that is not that he doesn't have a spirit, he does. But that spirit is separated from God.

Does that make sense? Right? And the same thing is true with the soul, which is the mind, emotion, and will aspect of that person's spirit. Right? Make sense? The same thing is true of the soul. The souls are not joined to God. for the unbeliever, right? The soul of the unbeliever is separated from God and is therefore like the spirit of which it's a part, spiritually dead. That's all of what is true on the spiritual side. Here's something else.

Can the unbeliever claim anything from Hebrews 4.12? Does the unbeliever understand what the Word of God says? No. He's reading somebody else's mail. Right? He's reading somebody else's mail. Why doesn't the unbeliever understand the depths and the truths of the Word of God?

They don't have the mind of Christ. They don't have the mind of Christ? Because that's the other thing. When you talk about the mind, which mind is it for the believer? It's the mind of Christ. Otherwise, you've got the mind of the flesh. Otherwise, you have a mind that simply is blinded and doesn't see. how we don't really have a will. It's more, it's a will to choose whether or not we believe, but then it's more of just, it seems like choices that seem more associated with the mind. Okay, you know, you say that was a Bible study or? The Bible says we do have a will, both as a believer and as an unbeliever. Both believers and unbelievers have a will.

That's simply true. Every imperative in the New Testament, that is, for example, whether it's to the unbeliever, here's Paul to the Philippian jailer. He says, believe, right? That is an appeal to the will. That's fundamental to Greek grammar. That's right. And for the unbeliever, that is the basic choice. Then when a person becomes a believer, every imperative is an appeal to the will. Walk by means of the Spirit. That's an imperative. And it's an appeal to the will to choose to walk by means of the Spirit.

So we do have a will. No question about it. We do have a will. That's clear in scripture all the way through. The will is not spoken of as much directly, although it is, as much as it is appealed to by imperatives. And there's also another. I urge you to walk in a manner worthy. There is a choice being made. Yeah, but when we say choices, there is a will, there is an appeal to the will, that's fundamental to Greek grammar. The whole New Testament is written hundreds of times as an appeal to the will.

We use the term free will. Yeah, now that term free will I think is, I tend not to use it and it's not because I don't believe we have the latitude to choose. I tend not to use it because it's commonly poorly understood. In other words, people mean different things by it.

Our will is limited to the choices that we can make. In other words, I can choose to walk in the spirit or walk in the flesh, right? I cannot choose to suddenly begin living on the planet Neptune. That's not a choice I can make. I use that as a physical illustration, but there's also another set of restrictions.

We can only make choices within our nature. And the believer has two natures to pick from. They are opposite but not equal. So when we say, do we have free will, we have freedom to make choices within the realm that we have choices to legitimately make. We cannot make choices that are outside of the realm of what we can choose.

At the end of Romans 7 and in Galatians, half of Galatians 5.17, It says that we cannot independently will to do this or that. All of our choices of willing are within our dependence. Are we walking in dependence upon the sin nature or are we walking in dependence upon the new nature and the Holy Spirits?

No, I beg to differ. And the reason is, even within those, and we do have a choice to make, even within those, if I'm abiding, the imperatives are still given in terms of our Let me put it in another way. I don't have the assistance of circles. What I will typically do when I talk about God's will is show three circles.

The outer will is God's sovereign will. God chooses and we will have no choice in those things. God has chosen certain things to take place and those will take place. Even once you're a believer, will you be conformed to the image of his son ultimately? Yes, that is God's sovereign will. However, there is God's moral will, and he does give us a choice in that.

That is why Paul would write to the Corinthians, to the Ephesians, to the Thessalonians, and appeal to do this and not that. Why? Because even though the primary choice Is am I going to depend upon the spirit or depend upon the flesh? There is a willing that takes place all the time.

We do have a will and God does not determine what we do. God does not determine. He makes clear what he desires that we do. He makes clear what behavior is characteristic of the new man and the new nature. But He does, even within dependence upon a new man, new nature, have us exercise our will.

Yeah. If that wasn't the case, it would make no sense for the beam of judgment. Because if we... No responsibility. Right. If we didn't have any choice or any will over the matter, then what would be the sense of reward or... you know, wood, hay, or stubble.

And what you're talking about is unique to the Christian faith, the way that God functions. Because every other error out there has God, either one pendulum swings, either determinism, or God's out of control. He doesn't have any control. So this unique place that you're discussing right now, these three circles of God's will, is specific to Christianity alone.

Otherwise, you'd have to, you know, Islam, where you have God determining it, or Allah determining actually every single move that we make, every other tie we put on, God choosing. Yeah. Well, and in fact, some hardline Calvinism tends towards Islam. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You start to say something? Do we derail your thoughts? I'm sorry. Yeah, if you think of it, let me know. Yes?

I think this, in the beginning, we were talking about what can we do? There are several related words to will. In other words, we talk about the will as a noun, but there is also to will, which is a verb, and to will, to choose. We have another word, volition, and we have another word, choose, and those are kind of related words.

Ultimately, how do we make choices? What we do is we make choices in terms of our physical and spiritual perception of things. We make choices in view of our spiritual and physical perception of things. The will does not choose in a vacuum. We don't have a will that just goes off into a corner and decides things. the will is acted upon in connection with all the other perceived inputs. If I have no biblical inputs, if I have no spiritual inputs from God's Word, then I will exercise my will on the basis of my physical side understanding alone. One of the reasons that we gather together here is so that people can look at God's Word, we can examine through teaching what is the whole set of... I'm kind of painting, so to speak, the spiritual panorama out there with words.

That's what we're doing when we're gathering here. We're saying, what's the landscape? On the basis of that landscape, what choices am I going to make? You come to an intersection. And if the intersection has a red light, hopefully you're going to stop. And you will not make the choice to proceed until the light is green. And you make those choices based on what you see in front of you physically.

We do something similar spiritually. We make choices spiritually. I'm not going to do this or I am going to do that. based on the spiritual panorama that we see in front of us. And we will make choices to do or not do things in the physical realm based on how we perceive things spiritually. This guy did this to me, therefore I'm gonna go punch his lights out, right?

In the physical realm, that may make plenty of sense. In the spiritual realm, with that perspective, we may see things quite differently and therefore choose not to do it. So our exercise of will is all done in connection with how we see things, which is why we're urged to see the power and living character of God's Word, which is why we're told to look to God's Word for truth, which is why we're given insights inspired by the Holy Spirit so that we can see things as they are and therefore make choices, exercise our wills, have volition that is in connection with how we see things. So the will is not a thing that's in a vacuum, though it is clearly a part of a person. Yeah? That really falls into this five senses that the spiritual has. That's right, exactly.

As Christians, we have senses the world does not have. The world looks into the spiritual realm and they say, I don't see anything. You guys are nuts. I don't see a thing. And we're saying, don't you see it? What's the matter with you? You blind? We see things, you're correct.

We see things and hear things and taste things and even smell things and sense things spiritually that the world does not get. It is a part of our panorama in the spiritual realm that gives us an understanding and is the basis on which we exercise our will. We will exercise our will differently than the worldling does who doesn't see, smell, taste, touch anything in the spiritual realm. This five senses thing, it's a biggie. Yes.

That's why when you get into a situation where there's fewer believers, you have more chaos and you have more disorder and you have more disharmony. Yeah, but the more you either have fewer believers or maybe more believers but fewer of them exercising the insight that they ought to have, the more society will be governed based on blindness of what is taking place or has taken place or will take place in the spiritual realm. Right? Hence the reason for Jeremiah and Isaiah talking to the nation of Israel before they got exiled.

Yeah. You guys need to have the spiritual insight. You are making decisions without the spiritual panorama in front of you. You're exercising your will without the proper perspective as to what's happening out there in the spiritual realm. Do you get it?

Yeah? Just to kind of return to this question about the heart. Yes. It's one of the areas that I also have a hard time identifying confidence. Right. And so, to understand what you said, you said the heart encompasses the spirit and the soul. Right. And can, in some contexts, include the brain side of it?

So when you think about the idea of the famous heart being hardened, can you speak to that in light of what we see here? The heart is a big thing and it comes up in the Jewish side of things and the Greek side of things and I get a little confused. Yeah, well one of the reasons why it can be confusing is because the definition of what is meant by heart can vary in context. And so what you have to do is say, in this context, what portion of the person is being referred to? So by context, you will know. Let me make a comparison.

The word flesh, it means different things in different contexts, doesn't it? The flesh sometimes means this thing. Sometimes it means all humanity. And sometimes it means the sin nature is exercised through this human body. different meanings for the word flesh.

In the same way, the word heart is sometimes used in different ways, or other equivalent anatomical terms. Joint and marrow, kidneys, intestines, all those different aspects of human physical anatomy are oftentimes used as an expression for the depths of a person. and exactly what that encompasses will vary by passage.

What you can do is look at the passage and say how much of this is intended to be included based on what you see in the context. For instance, you brought up the passage, the heart of man is desperately wicked, right? It's deceitful above all things. the heart of man. Now what that says is that's either the unbeliever in all of who he is in Adam, the old man, the old nature. So the heart is referring to his physical, excuse me, his spiritual aspect, soul and spirit, and also looking at the five senses being diminished or not present in capacity.

In other cases, We have the instance, if the heart of a person, let's look at the Christian context. If I said that Christ is in my heart, what part of me is included in that? Does that mean my soul? Does that mean my spirit? Yes. Soul and spirit. If Christ is in my heart, also I have been joined to God and joined to Christ. There's the death and separation issue. And the unbeliever doesn't have that.

So, when we look at this and we use a word like heart or soul or spirit, we have to look in each context and say what part is intended to be included based on the context. It's always context, just like the word flesh has different meanings in different contexts. Is there anything more all-inclusive than the word heart, other than just man? Well, I think the thing is, what you look at is is human beings have a physical aspect and a spiritual aspect, both. And you will find passages that address both. And ultimately all-encompassing is all of who you are as a person.

We're going to be getting into an issue next week about image, made in the image of God. Why is it, and I'm jumping ahead a little bit but on purpose, Why is it that we were made in the image of God, and even as we go through the various passages that make reference to the image and likeness, man being made in the image and likeness of God, why is it that we're not being conformed to the image of God, but we're being conformed to the image of Christ? Why is it we're being transformed, growing transformed into the image of Christ, and not God. What's different there? Yeah.

I mean, it's something to do with the fact that in Philippians 2.5 where Christ came in the likeness of man, so there's that progression from a God who is totally spiritual to Christ his Son who is partially... When human beings were made in God's image, Did any person of the Godhead have a physical human aspect? No. Now that Christ has come, do we have a different answer to that? Yes. Has God changed? No. But the one person of the Godhead, Christ, has added to his person the physical aspect.

We're going to be getting into that whole thing. So what we're doing is we're stepping in. We've got one part here that we've been looking at. We're looking at body, soul, and spirit here and getting some insight there. And then we're going to be looking at image and seeing how that impacts what God's doing in the life of the believer.

I was just going back to art. Back then, art kind of looked like a more impressive organ than the brain, because like pump the blood, and if you didn't have the heart pumping, you know, then everything else just kind of didn't work. Yeah. So like even just the physical part of it.

Here's something interesting. I think it was you that asked the question earlier, you know, does the Bible talk about the brain? And that's something we'll have to ponder. I don't know immediately the answer to that one. Although we can certainly look it up. What's interesting is, for example, the Egyptians, and of course the Israelites spent some time with the Egyptians.

The Egyptians, when they would preserve the pharaoh's body for him to go on in the afterlife, guess what they pulled out? The brain. The brains! They pulled the brains out through the nostrils. And they'd suck those out. It's like, what do you think makes this guy tick? So yeah, they just, they pulled the brains out. Pulled it out, like just got rid of them, like they weren't a big deal? They pull them out, of course they preserve everything they pull out, so yeah.

I was going to say, it would be impossible to preserve it. Yes. Surrounded by bone. Uh huh. I mean, they couldn't get to its core. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they can't do much with it. And you got this big, big mass of material that's gonna, you know, head south. So yeah, they've got to do something. Yeah. that you don't do blood transfusions.

Yes. Life is in the blood. Right. And so blood becomes one of the most important things within the body. And so obviously the organ that deals predominantly with the blood is the heart. Right. So I think, I mean, that's way back with the law. I mean, that came directly from God. Yeah. Yeah.

I think the part that you notice your heart responding to all your emotions It changes function a little because of what you're feeling? Yeah, if you look at the heart, like I said, it ultimately includes everything on the spiritual side and possibly the brain part, the physical part that encompasses the brain in some contexts. I think somebody asked a question earlier and we got questions popping around. What about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart? Let's think about that. Let's think about it. Here's Pharaoh.

Is Pharaoh joined to God? No. Pharaoh is not joined to God. His heart is deceitful and wicked. And Pharaoh believes in 700 gods and none of them is the God of the Bible. None of them is the God that Moses is talking to and listening to, right? So he has no place to include God's input. He's going to shut it out. Hardening the heart, it meant that spiritually is he seeing hearing what God's inputs are. No. The way that Ephesians puts it is, the unbeliever is callous, unfeeling in the spiritual realm. And this is Pharaoh. Pharaoh is just not responding at all. Pharaoh doesn't even respond to his own people going through suffering. Pharaoh doesn't even respond to all of his gods being shown to be powerless.

And it's about the fourth or fifth time that he changes his mind. Remember he says, you guys go ahead and go? Then what does he do? He changes his mind. So the hardening was one aspect. The other thing is he had an unstable will and therefore changes his mind. We say change your mind. It's an act of will. Right? Yes.

So then the quenching of the spirit would be similar to a Christian hardening their heart. Yeah, let's think about this. There is the quenching of the spirit. And is that the only kind of negative thing regarding the Holy Spirit that the Christians warned about? grieving the Holy Spirit. Very interesting. The Holy Spirit who indwells the spiritual side of a believer, the Holy Spirit can be quenched and grieved. Now, this is interesting. How do you quench something? You put out the fire. And that's actually the way it's written in the original. You put out the fire. of the Holy Spirit.

So there is a continual energy source, if you will, the energizing of the Holy Spirit. His ministry of energizing is subdued, which we can do as an act of will, because the do-not is an imperative. do not quench, do not grieve. These are acts of will on the part of the believer. The believer who is painting an untruthful panorama and therefore making decisions on that basis.

See that? Okay. Here are the five senses in physical realm, and of course we have the same senses in the spiritual realm. You have a diagram on your handout that's similar to this. We're also going to be looking at what is God doing in the life of the believer in the same way that we on the physical side have food, we also have food on the spiritual side. Isn't that interesting? We have food on the physical side, we have food on the spiritual side. We have senses on the physical side, we have senses on the spiritual side, we have food on the spiritual side as well as the physical side.

Very interesting about the way things are. Could it be that all the realities on the spiritual side, the Lord put into the spiritual side and the real basis for these things comes from the spiritual aspect and not the physical aspect? Hmm. We'll be looking at image and likeness next week.

Notice that the word image and likeness is used together first in Genesis 1.26, and then it more or less alternates between the terms, and by the way, doesn't seem to make a distinction between saved and unsaved.

Here's what's interesting. The unbeliever and the believer are both in the image and likeness of God. Only the believer is going to be conformed to the image of Christ. Isn't that interesting? A very curious distinction. We'll look at why that is. Conformed and transformed into the image of the Son. How is this different from having been made in God's image? So we'll be looking at that this next week.

Some 30 odd years ago, there was a fellow by the name of Michael O'Martian who made an album called Adam Again. And I kind of enjoyed the album, but then as I think about it, are we being made Adam Again? No. Are you being put back in the garden? Are you being told, look, you're going to go back in the garden and don't you dare eat of that fruit? That's not what's happening, is it? God is doing something different. We're not being made Adam again.

So anyway, I think those are interesting things. We'll be looking at those more in detail this next Sunday. And hopefully this has been helpful. You may indeed still have questions. Feel free to send more questions my way if that raises any. But we'll move on to this likeness and image subject next week. OK? Questions? Ponderings? Exasperations. Inspirations. Yes.

What's the center of that circle you're talking about? You said the sovereignty? The morality? The first one is God's sovereign will. And you are not going to thwart God's sovereign will. You do not have a choice to thwart that. God reveals His moral will, and you do have a choice in that.

The primary choice has to do with your area of dependence, but even for those who are dependent upon the new nature, who are walking in the Spirit, even those who are doing those things are called upon to choose. They are still given imperatives and the appeal. I urge you to do this or that. So there's still an appeal to the will there. The middle part, the part you're asking about, is the individual will. It is God's will for every believer in this room to continue to walk by means of the Spirit. But apart from that, there is an individual will for each person. What is true for one person is not true for another. I married Nancy and I don't suggest anybody else do that. That's just not a good idea. Why?

Because God has a moral will, but that moral will also has specifics to it. Within God's moral will, there's one person who goes this way and one person who goes that way. The differences in God's individual will for each person does not mean that one person or the other is outside of God's moral will. It means that there is a third will, an individual will, regarding each person. There is that aspect that God's going to work all things for good, but also, and we'll be taking a look, actually a whole month, taking a look at what that means. And when he says good, what's the good? And that particular verse is also ultimately a part of God's sovereign will. We can make, in time, the wrong choice. we can pick the wrong path, sometimes badly. Nonetheless, every believer will ultimately be conformed to the image of Christ.

Other questions? Thoughts? Ponderings? Jubilations? Okay, let's pray. As we look at these passages, as we seek to gain insight, we pray that you would indeed give us insight into your word, that you'd give us understanding about our own lives, about the lives of others that you've put us in contact with, whether believers or unbelievers. We pray that we would understand why some people get it and others don't in the spiritual realm. why some people have such understanding and insight and others seem to have none. And we pray as we seek to gain understanding of what you are doing in our lives. We pray for insight into these things. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.