To know the spirit is to know it by the sense of the spirit. Even up until this day, no one has ever seen electricity itself. The light of a lamp is not the electricity, but an expression, a sign of electricity. We can know electricity by its signs and expressions. Also, no one has ever seen the physical life of a person’s being, but we can know the physical life by its expression and by certain senses. In the same principle, the spirit is very mysterious. You can’t see it, but you can sense it. You can’t see electricity, but when you touch it, you can sense it. In like manner, you can know the spirit by sensing the spirit. To sense the spirit is the way to know the spirit.
Because of the fall, man’s body was corrupted by sin. The physical body plus sin equals the flesh. God created a body for man, but God didn’t create the sinful flesh. What God created was a pure body. When Adam took of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he took it into his body. We know it was taken into his body because it was eaten (Gen. 3:6). Whatever you eat is taken into your body. In nature, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is sin, because it is the tree not only of good but of evil. Since Adam took this tree into his body, Romans 7 tells us clearly that sin is in the members of the body (vv. 20, 23). Sin is in the members of the body because sin came into the body; therefore, the body is corrupted. After being corrupted the body became the flesh. All the fleshly lusts are in the body.
Romans 8:6 says, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.” The mind is the leading part of the soul, and the soul is our very being, our self. The body is not the self or our being, but an outward organ. The spirit isn’t the self or our being either, but an inward organ. We are a being, a human being, a soul. The soul is a being with two organs-the outward organ of the body and the inward organ of the spirit. Our being, our self, is the soul. This is why the Scripture reveals that the soul is the self in Matthew 16:24-26 and Luke 9:23-25 and that a human being, a person, is called a soul (Exo. 1:5). If I call you a body, that is wrong. If I call you a spirit, this is also wrong. A man is not a body or a spirit, but a soul. The soul is your self, your being, and the mind is the leading part of your being representing your self. The mind represents the self, the body is the flesh, and our spirit contains the Spirit (Rom. 8:16). In our spirit is the Triune God (Eph. 4:6; Gal. 2:20; John 14:17) as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17; 2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17). Within us there are three parties: Satan as sin is in our flesh (Rom. 7:17, 18, 20), God is in our spirit, and the self is in our soul represented by our mind. To set the mind on the flesh means to take sides with the flesh, to cooperate with the flesh, to stand with the flesh. To set the mind on the flesh is death. To set the mind on the spirit means to take sides with the spirit, to cooperate with the spirit, to stand with the spirit. To set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
The way to know life and peace is by sensing life and peace. When you take sides with the spirit, cooperate with the spirit, walk in the spirit, and do things by the spirit, you sense life and peace.
An example may help to illustrate what the sense of life is. When I was a young boy, I attended a feast. On the table there were two kinds of white, fine powder: refined sugar and refined salt. I put a lot of salt on a certain food, thinking that I was using sugar. When I put the food into my mouth I suffered. I sensed that the powder I used was not sugar, but salt. Though my eyes could not discern the difference between the sugar and salt, my taste could. This is the way to discern the spirit-by sensing.
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