Now we come to see the matter of dealing with self. This experience is very closely related to dealing with the flesh. This is an important experience in the stage of the cross.
If we desire to deal with self, we need firstly to define what self is. There are many spiritual terms which we use quite often, but when we press for the real meaning, it is difficult to explain them. So it is with self. We often hear people speak about self, but few can define it. What, really, is self? Simply, self is the soul life with the emphasis on human thoughts and human opinions. We can discover this from the Bible, where self is clearly mentioned.
Let us first read Matthew 16:21-25, “From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples, that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, (or, Pity thyself), Lord: this shall never be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
In this passage the Lord showed His disciples in verse 21 how He must suffer, be killed, and raised up again. All that the Lord said here is the will of God, because the cross of the Lord is the will of God ordained in eternity. But in verse 22 Peter had an opinion, and he voiced it to the Lord: “Be it far from thee, Lord.” Therefore, the Lord in verse 23 rebuked him, saying that he minded not the things of God, but those of men. The things of God are the will of God, or the cross. The things of men are to pity yourself and receive not the cross. What the Lord desired was the will of God, but what Peter cared about was the human thought. Therefore in verse 24 the Lord asked the disciples to deny themselves, take up the cross and follow Him. When we compare this word with the preceding verse, we comprehend that this self which the Lord asked us to deny is the human thought. The Lord asked the disciples to deny and forsake self, which meant to lay aside their own thought. When the Lord asked the disciples to receive the cross, this meant that they should receive the mind of God or the will of God. Therefore, the Lord was asking the disciples here to put aside their own thought and receive the cross, which is the will of God.
From this we see that self has much to do with human thought. Yet self is not human thought, and human thought is not self itself. Therefore in verse 25 the Lord goes on to say that whoever would save his life shall lose it, and whoever shall lose his life for the Lord’s sake shall find it. The word “life” in the original is soul, or soul life. The denying of self mentioned in the preceding verse was followed immediately by the losing of the soul life. This indicates that the self that was mentioned is the soul life spoken of directly following. Soul life is self itself.
In this passage the word of the Lord follows step by step. In verse 22 Peter admonished the Lord to pity Himself; in verse 23 the Lord pointed out that this is human thought or human opinion; in verse 24 the Lord traced this to the root by saying that this opinion is self. Therefore we need to forsake and deny it. Then in verse 25 the Lord goes to the root of self by showing us that the very self is the soul life. If the soul life is being put to death, which means that self is being denied, there will be no more human opinion. In this passage, verse 23 speaks about the opinion, verse 24 about self, and verse 25 about the soul life. Each verse mentions one matter, step by step, very clearly.
Therefore, we can find here a definition for self: self in essence is the soul life, while the expression of self is opinion. Self, soul life, and opinion are three aspects of one thing. This may be likened to Christ Himself as the very God, and the expression of Christ as the Holy Spirit. The three are one. God incarnated and expressed is Christ, while the soul life expressed is self. When Christ is expressed before men and touched by men, He is the Holy Spirit. Likewise, self is expressed before men and touched by men in the form of human opinion and human viewpoint. Just as when we touch the Holy Spirit, we touch Christ; so when we touch human opinion and viewpoint, we touch self as well as the soul life.
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