In this chapter, we want to continue our fellowship concerning the Lord’s transformation work within us. Let us read several verses that speak of the transformation of the soul.
And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:17-18)
And do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect. (Rom. 12:2)
And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind. (Eph. 4:23)
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. (Rom. 8:6)
But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually. But the spiritual man discerns all things, but he himself is discerned by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord and will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:14-16)
In these verses we should take notice of three terms. The first term is a soulish man. A soulish man is a man of the soul. Such a man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. The second term is the spiritual man. Hence, there are two kinds of men: the soulish and the spiritual. The third term is the mind of Christ.
Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. (2 Cor. 4:16)
In this verse, the word rendered “decaying” can be translated also as “being consumed.”
In the previous chapter, we saw that as God-created human beings we have three parts: a physical body, a soul, and a spirit (1 Thes. 5:23). The spirit is the innermost part of our entire created being, and the body is the outermost part. Between the spirit and the body is the soul, which consists of the mind, the emotion, and the will. With the mind we think, with the emotions we sense joy and sorrow as well as other feelings, and with the will we make decisions. Moreover, we also saw the function of each of the parts of our being—with the physical body we contact the physical world, with the soul we contact the psychological world, and with the spirit we contact the spiritual world. In order to touch any of these three worlds, we must use the corresponding organ. Because God is Spirit, if we want to worship God, we must worship Him with, in, and by our human spirit (John 4:24).
When the Lord Jesus came into us, He came into our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and as the Spirit He came into our human spirit. Now we are joined to the Lord and have become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). The divine Spirit and the human spirit are mingled and blended together to form one spirit. We are one with the Lord not in the body or in the mind; we are one with the Lord in our spirit. When the Lord came into our spirit, a reaction took place in our being. That reaction was our regeneration. Regeneration is the transformation of the spirit. At the moment we believed, our spirit was transformed by Christ as the divine life.
Because we have been regenerated, our spirit is fully transformed. Now we must undergo the continual transformation of the rest of our being, particularly of our soul (2 Cor. 3:17-18; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23). The soul is a very important part of our being. For our soul to be transformed means that our mind, emotion, and will are transformed. If we are transformed in our spirit but not in our soul, that means that although we have Christ as life in our spirit, we do not have much of Christ in our soul. Our need is for Christ to increase within us all the time, that is, to spread from our spirit into the three parts of our soul. When the Lord spreads fully into our mind, emotion, and will, we will be transformed into His image. When we are transformed into His image, we will think, feel, and decide just as Christ thinks, feels, and decides. When we consider matters, we will consider them as the Lord does; when we love or hate, we will love or hate as Christ does; and when we choose, we will choose as the Lord does and give up and reject what the Lord gives up and rejects. When our entire soul has been transformed into the image of Christ, we human beings will have the image of Christ in our daily life.