In 3:16 Paul goes on to speak of the inner man: “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man.” The inner man is our regenerated spirit with God’s life as its life. In order to experience Christ as the embodiment of God, we need to be strengthened into our inner man. However, by nature the brothers are strong in the mind and in the will, whereas the sisters are strong in the emotion. May the Lord cause us to become strong in the spirit, in our inner man!
We all need to be strengthened into our inner man so that Christ will be able to make His home in our hearts. Our heart is composed of all the parts of the soul—the mind, emotion, and will—plus the conscience, the main part of our spirit. These are the inward parts of our being. Through regeneration, Christ came into our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). Subsequently, we should allow Him to spread Himself into every part of our heart. Since our heart is the totality of all our inward parts and the center of our inward being, when Christ makes His home in our heart, He is able to control our entire inner being and supplies and strengthens every inward part with Himself. The secret of Christ making His home in our heart is the strengthening of our inner man. Because Paul knew this secret, he prayed that the Father would grant us, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power into the inner man.
As we go on to chapter four, we see that the strengthened spirit must become the renewing spirit in our mind. In 4:23 Paul says, “And are renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Once again, the spirit here is the regenerated spirit of the believers mingled with the indwelling Spirit of God. Such a mingled spirit spreads into our mind and thereby becomes the spirit of our mind. It is in such a spirit that we are renewed for our transformation (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18).
Our strengthened spirit is the means for our entire being to be renewed. When our spirit has become strong, it will spread into our mind and cause it to be renewed. When our spirit renews our mind, it proceeds to renew our emotion and our will. By such a renewing spirit the church has the proper living as the one new man.
In 5:18 Paul goes on to speak about being filled in spirit. This verse says, “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled in spirit.” To be drunk with wine is to be filled in the body, whereas to be filled in our regenerated spirit is to be filled with Christ (1:23) unto all the fullness of God (3:19). To be drunk with wine in the body causes us to be dissipated, but to be filled with Christ causes us to overflow with Him in speaking, singing, psalming, and giving thanks to God (5:19-20). It also causes us to subject ourselves one to another (v. 21). What we need for the church life is not to be filled in our minds with objective knowledge, but to be filled in our spirit with the riches of Christ unto all the fullness of God.
The last reference in Ephesians to the regenerated human spirit indwelt by the Spirit of God is in 6:18. Here Paul charges us to pray “at every time in spirit,” that is, to pray in our spirit mingled with God’s Spirit. This reference to the spirit is in the context of spiritual warfare. When the church has become the new man with the normal functions and the proper daily living, and when the spots and wrinkles have been removed by the nourishing and cherishing of Christ, the church becomes a mighty warrior, a soldier to fight the battle for God’s interests. In order to engage in spiritual warfare, we need to pray in the mingled spirit.
I hope that we all are impressed with the place of the human spirit in the book of Ephesians. In chapter one we have the spirit of wisdom and revelation; in chapter two, the spirit as the place of God’s dwelling; in chapter three, the spirit as the means of receiving revelation and as the organ that needs to be strengthened; in chapter four, the renewing spirit that spreads into our mind to renew all our inward parts; in chapter five, the spirit being filled with Christ unto all the fullness of God; and in chapter six, the mingled spirit as the organ in which we pray to fight the battle for the Lord. As we consider all these references to the spirit in this short book, we see that the church life is altogether a matter in the spirit. In order to practice the church life, we need to turn to our spirit and remain there. The daily living of the corporate new man is absolutely in the spirit of the mind.