When speaking of how God has put His law within us and has inscribed it upon our hearts, we must start from regeneration, for regeneration means that the Holy Spirit has put the uncreated life of God into man’s spirit. Regeneration is a new thing that takes place in man’s spirit; therefore regeneration is not a matter of behavior but a matter of life.
Before we can speak adequately of regeneration we must say something regarding the creation of man. We read in Genesis 2:7 that “Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The breath of life mentioned here is the spirit, the source of man’s life. The Lord said, “It is the Spirit Who gives life” (John 6:63a). Job also said, “The breath of the Almighty giveth me life” (Job 33:4). In this verse the word “life” in Hebrew is in the plural form. When God so breathed into man He produced two lives, one spiritual and one soulish. When God breathed the breath of life into man’s body, it became the spirit; and at the same time, when this spirit came into contact with the body, it produced the soul. This is the way in which the spiritual life and the soulish life originated in man. It becomes clear, then, that man is composed of three parts: the spirit, the soul, and the body.
The New Testament also shows that man is tripartite. For example, there is a verse which says, “May your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire” (1 Thes. 5:23). There is another verse which says, “...even to the dividing of soul and spirit, both of joints and marrow...” (Heb. 4:12). These verses show us that man is of three parts: spirit and soul and body.
The body is the seat of world-consciousness; the soul is the seat of self-consciousness; and the spirit is the seat of God-consciousness. Through the physical body we have communication with the physical world by means of the five senses. For this reason it is called the sense of the world. The soul, including the mind, emotion, and will, constitutes man’s self, man’s personality. Hence, we call the soul the sense of the self. The spirit, which includes the faculties of the conscience, intuition, and fellowship, knows how to worship God, how to serve God, and how to enter into relationship with God. Therefore, the function of the spirit is to have the sense of God.
Through the soul, the spirit controls man’s whole being. Whenever the spirit wants to do something, it passes its intention on to the soul, and the soul exercises the body to obey the command from the spirit. According to God’s arrangement, the human spirit is the highest part of man and should rule his whole being. Yet, the will is the most prominent part of man’s personality and belongs to the soul. The will of man is also able to make its own choice. It can choose whether to be ruled by the spirit, by the body, or by the self. Because the soul is so powerful and occupies the seat of personality, the Scriptures call man “a living soul.”
We have said repeatedly that God has an eternal purpose, which is to dispense Himself into man. His delight is to enter into man and become one with man so that man may have His life and nature. He created man, Adam, and put him into the Garden of Eden. In the midst of that garden the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9). Those two trees were the most conspicuous and drew man’s attention. Concerning the trees in the garden God said, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). On the other hand He implied that the fruit of the tree of life could be eaten. Had man eaten of the fruit of the tree of life, he would have chosen God, for the tree of life signifies God Himself. Oh, the God of creation—His purpose toward man is so wonderful and good!
Originally man was made by God (Gen. 2:7); man’s original life was made by God also. As far as man’s original created life was concerned, it was upright (Eccl. 7:29) and it was good (Gen. 1:31). But as far as God’s eternal purpose, man had not yet received the uncreated life of God. Therefore man still needed to choose God and God’s life. In Greek there are three different words, all of which translate into the one English word, life. One of these words is bios. It refers to life in the flesh. The Lord Jesus spoke of the widow who put all her living into the treasury (Luke 21:4); the word translated living is from the word bios. The second Greek word is the word psuche. Psuche refers to man’s natural life, which is the soul-life. When the Scriptures speak specifically of man’s life, this is the word used (Matt. 16:26; Luke 9:24). The third word for life is zoe. Zoe is the highest life, the spiritual life, and the uncreated life. When the Scriptures speak of eternal life, as in John 3:16, the word used is zoe.
However, the man Adam did not choose life. He sinned and became fallen by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which God forbade him to eat. Before that time it was possible for man’s spirit to have fellowship with God, but after man fell, his spirit became estranged from God (Eph. 4:18) and dead to God (Col. 2:13; Eph. 2:1). God told Adam from the beginning that the day he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he would surely die (Gen. 2:17). As far as Adam’s flesh was concerned, after he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he lived for several hundred years (Gen. 5:3-5). Therefore, the death spoken of here implies that the spirit will die before the flesh expires. Death simply means to be estranged from life, and, as we know, God is a God of life. By being estranged from God, Adam was estranged from life. We know that Adam’s spirit died. This does not mean that his spirit disappeared, but that his spirit lost its fellowship with God; it lost its keen sense. When Adam’s spirit died it was still there but it was dead to God. Adam had lost the function of his spirit. After man fell, he became dominated by his soul and was fleshly (Rom. 7:14). He could no longer understand the things of God (1 Cor. 2:14). Man also was not subject to the law of God, neither could he be. Furthermore, according to Romans 8:7-8, man in the flesh cannot please God.
Taking these facts into account, does this mean that God’s eternal purpose will not be accomplished? No! God is God! He has planned according to His good pleasure and He will accomplish His eternal will and fulfill His eternal purpose. He still desires to dispense His own life to man, enter into man, and be one with man. To do this He has to solve the problem of man’s sin and redeem fallen man; He has to release His life through His Son, and He has to regenerate man through the Holy Spirit.