We must remember that God’s economy is to dispense Himself into us. This is also the mark of His economy. We were made with three parts: the body outwardly, the spirit inwardly, and the soul in between. God’s intention is to dispense Himself into the spirit of man and then work Himself into man’s soul.
Before God could fulfill His intention, Satan, the enemy of God, wrought himself into the body of man. Thus, in the members of the body there is sin, and this sin is personified. As an illegal king, it can rule over us and force us to do things against our will (Rom. 7:15-17). Satan himself, as the evil nature and as the law of sin, dwells in us to corrupt our body. The flesh is the body poisoned by Satan, and in us, that is in our flesh, nothing good dwells (v. 18). Our flesh serves the law of sin against our mind and against our will (vv. 15, 20, 25).
Satan came into our body as the law of sin, but praise the Lord, when we were saved, the Triune God came to dwell in our spirit as our life. Christ as our life is in our spirit (Col. 3:4; 2 Tim. 4:22). What then is in our soul? Our self is in our soul. We need to be impressed that all three beings—Adam, Satan, and God—are in us today. Thus, we are quite complicated. The man Adam is in us, the devil Satan is in us, and the Lord of life, God Himself, is in us. Hence, we have become a little garden of Eden. Adam, representing the human race, the tree of life, representing God, and the tree of knowledge, representing Satan, were the three parties in the garden of Eden, and now these three parties are all in us. Adam, the self, is in our soul; Satan, the devil, is in our body; and God, the Triune God, is in our spirit. But we are more than a little garden; we are a great battlefield. Satan is in us fighting against God, and God is in us fighting against Satan. Satan takes our body, which is the flesh, as the base for his fighting, and God takes our spirit as the base for His warfare.
Galatians 5:17 says, “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” According to the context of Galatians 5, the Spirit here must be the Holy Spirit, who dwells in and mingles with our regenerated spirit. This means that our flesh lusts against the indwelling Spirit, and the Spirit lusts against our flesh. These two oppose one another so that we would not do the things that we desire. The corrupted flesh fights against the Spirit in our spirit, and the Spirit fights against the flesh. These two parties are always warring with each other. Satan is in our flesh as sin, and the Triune God is in our spirit as life. Day by day there is a spiritual warfare raging between these two parties in the battlefield of our soul.
As we have seen, there are three parts in the soul—the mind, the emotion, and the will. The mind as the thinking organ of the soul represents the self. What we think and consider always precedes what we do; therefore, our mind represents our self. For this reason Romans 7, 8, and 12 deal with the mind. Romans 7 tells us that the mind stands with the law of God. My mind desires to keep the law of God and by itself desires to serve God (v. 25); however, my mind, representing my self, is too weak. I myself am too weak. Whenever I make up my mind to do good, there is something else stronger than my self, stronger than my mind. This stronger one is the sinful one in my flesh. Whenever I exercise my mind to do the will of God and keep the law of God, the evil one in my members rises up against me, defeats me and brings me into captivity (v. 23). My mind, representing my self, cannot keep the law of God; if my mind tries to do the will of God by itself, it is always defeated.
The mind in Romans 7 is an independent mind that tries to do good by itself. The apostle brings us into chapter 8 and tells us how the mind must be dependent. The independent mind, trying to do things under its own power, will be defeated. On what then must the mind be dependent? Romans 8:6 says, “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” There are two possibilities for the mind: it may depend either on the flesh or on the spirit. If it depends on the flesh, the result will be death, but if it depends on the spirit, there will be life and peace. Have we seen the difference between the independent mind in chapter 7 and the dependent mind in chapter 8? An independent mind will be defeated, but a mind dependent on the spirit will have victory. Since there are two parties within us—Satan in our members and the Triune God in our spirit—we can no longer be truly independent; thus, we should never try. If we do, we will surely be defeated. If we attempt to defeat the enemy, we will eventually be defeated by him. We must therefore turn in dependence to another One, to the Triune God within our spirit. The key to victory is to always set our mind on the spirit.
We must all be impressed with this clear picture: Satan is in us, Christ is in us, and the self stands in the middle. The enemy tempts us to do good by our own effort, and the usual response is, “I love the Lord and belong to the Lord; therefore, I want to do good to please Him.” This is the temptation. When we are independent and making up our mind to do good by our own strength, we are being tempted, and we will surely be defeated. We may be able to do good today, tomorrow, and possibly even for three days, but we certainly will not be able to keep it up for three and a half days. The lesson we need to learn is never to be independent and try to do things in our own strength, but always to depend on the Lord. Whenever we are tempted to do good by our own effort, we need to tell the enemy, “No, Satan! I cannot and will not go that way. I don’t know anything about doing good; I know only one thing—to depend on my Lord. I will not be drawn away from leaning on Him.” If we respond in this way, we will have the victory with life and peace. It is very simple. The Triune God has dispensed Himself into our spirit as our life and as everything to us; therefore, we must learn never to do anything independently or anything in our own strength.
Before we leave these two chapters of Romans, we must see something about laws. We have seen that sin is in the flesh, and with sin there is a law, the evil law of sin. We all know what a law is. If I pick up a book and throw it into the air, it will inevitably fall to the earth. This happens because of the law of gravity. But let me do something against this law, such as lifting a book with my hand and holding it in the air for two or three hours. I can sustain this for a while, but finally I will have to give up. Why? Because my own effort cannot stand against the law of gravity. Our personal effort cannot contradict the natural law. In the morning we may say to ourselves, “I need to be patient. I must not lose my temper. I must endure for a whole day.” Perhaps we can be patient for even two days, but on the third day we will lose our temper in a big way. Losing our temper is the result of the law of sin; not losing our the temper is the issue of our own effort. Being proud also is the result of a law operating within us. None of us has ever graduated from a “school of pride.” Nevertheless, even a little child knows how to be proud. Parents never teach their children to be proud. How then can they be proud? Pride comes from our nature, and this sinful nature is a law, the law of sin within us.
Let us go back to the illustration of holding a book in the air. If I see a table in front of me, it would be foolish for me to exert my effort to hold the book in the air. The table represents another law—the law of a solid support versus the law of gravity. I can lay the book on the table and shout Hallelujah. I can leave it there and be at peace. The book is perfectly safe on the table, because the law of a solid support overcomes the law of gravity. Who is the real support? It is Christ as the rock (2 Sam. 22:3; Matt. 16:18). And where is this Christ? He is in our spirit. Therefore, we can set our mind on the spirit and “leave the book on the table.” We can forget about our own effort. We should never make up our mind to do good. We should never say, “Before, I was cruel to my husband (or wife, or someone else); now, today, I determine to be kind.” We may be kind for a day or two, but we cannot last much longer than that. We should never try to make any resolutions. It does not work. Within us is Christ, the everlasting rock. He is in us as our “table,” as our rock. We should simply set our mind on Him all the time, leave ourselves on the rock, and go to sleep. This is the way of victory and release. When we set our mind on the spirit, we simply hand ourselves over to Christ. When we rely on Him, we simply say to Him, “Lord, here I am, hopeless and helpless. From now on I will never try to make up my mind to do anything. I give my mind to You. I set my mind on You.” By doing this, we hand ourselves over to the Lord. The Lord then has the ground and the opportunity to spread Himself through us and saturate us with Himself. How wonderful!