In Revelation, John saw four great visions. The first one is concerning the church (Rev. 1:10—3:22). The second one is concerning the world situation (4:2—16:21). The third one is concerning Babylon the great and her termination by Christ’s coming back to set up His kingdom for one thousand years and to destroy Antichrist and Satan (17:3—20:15). The fourth vision is of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth (21:1—22:5). In order to see these four great visions, the human spirit is needed. Every time John saw one of these visions he told us he was in spirit. The four verses in Revelation that show that John was in spirit to see these visions are 1:10; 4:2; 17:3; and 21:10.
We all have to realize that to be a genuine believer as a God-man, to live a life for the church as the Body of Christ so that Christ can come back to consummate the New Jerusalem, our human spirit is needed. Most Christians speak only of the Holy Spirit, but nearly no one talks about the human spirit. The story of God becoming a man that man might become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to produce a Body which consummates in the New Jerusalem is altogether a story of two spirits. First, there is the divine Spirit as the Spirit of God, and then as the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the life-giving Spirit, the compound Spirit, and the consummated Spirit. Then the divine Spirit needs the human spirit to match Him, to be His counterpart, that they could be mingled together as one entity (1 Cor. 6:17). In the whole universe, that mingling is consummated in the New Jerusalem. Today if we do not see our human spirit, we have no way to be a believer up to the standard of God’s calling. The spirit of John the apostle in seeing the four great visions, as the contents of the last book of the Bible, concludes the holy Scripture in the consummation of the New Jerusalem for the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy. This shows that in order for us to be a God-chosen believer, a God-man, for the producing of the church, we need to be absolutely in the spirit, our human regenerated spirit.
There is the need of the discernment of the human spirit from the human soul. God created man with a body and with a spirit to produce a soul (Gen. 2:7). But this man fell, and his spirit became deadened. So the fallen man pays attention mainly to his soul plus his body to take care of his physical and psychological needs. Nearly no one would pay attention to his spirit; even nearly no one knows that he has a spirit. The people in the world know only that they are a psychological person with a physical part as their body. They do not know the spirit.
Man’s spirit was deadened because of the fall. But the believers have been resurrected from that deadened situation to become regenerated persons. Regeneration transpires mainly in the believer’s spirit (John 3:6). Today we have to discern our spirit from our soul. Regretfully, very few Christians know that they have a spirit, so for them there is no need to have any discernment. But for those of us who have been enlightened, we realize that in order to be a God-man, we must know our spirit. If we do not know our spirit, there is no way to be a Christian up to the standard of God’s calling.
The spirit and the soul of man are not synonyms of the same one thing; they are two distinct parts of man’s composition and can be distinctly divided from each other. First Thessalonians 5:23 confirms this fact, and Luke 1:46-47 strengthens such a teaching. In Luke 1:46-47 Mary said that her spirit had exulted in God her Savior and her soul magnified the Lord. Her word shows clearly that her two parts, the spirit and the soul, performed two different actions, her exulting in God and her magnifying the Lord.
For the New Testament believers to experience Christ for the producing and building up of His organic Body in the consummation of the New Jerusalem for the accomplishment of the eternal economy of God, they need to discern their spirit from their soul (Heb. 4:12).
In God’s old creation, the spirit of man was the reality of man, and the soul of man was the person of man. In God’s new creation, the spirit of the believers becomes their person, and their soul becomes their inner organ, as their body is their outer organ; they are a spiritual man according to their regenerated spirit with their soul as their inner organ, which is considered as the psychological part of man, and with their body as their outer organ, which is considered as the physical part of man. This is a believer in God’s new creation. Our person today is the spirit, and this person has two organs, the soul as the inward organ and the body as the outward organ.
In God’s New Testament economy, the believers should live, walk, and have their being according to their spirit, which is mingled with the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:4b, 2) and only use their soul as their inner organ for them to live as a human being, as they use their body as their outer organ for them to do things outwardly, but they should deny and reject their soul as their person (Matt. 16:24-25; Luke 9:23-24). Today all the fallen people still consider their soul as their person. Even many Christians do not know this point. Our soul is no longer our person. Our regenerated spirit has become our person. The soul should remain only as an organ.