Now we need to consider how we can be according to spirit. Although I don’t like the phrase, “how to,” I have to use it. How can we be according to spirit?
First of all, we have to realize that to be according to spirit is to mind the things of the spirit. Remember that in chapter seven, which may be considered as the background for chapter eight, there is no spirit. There is no human spirit, no Spirit of God, no Spirit of life, no Spirit of Christ, no indwelling Spirit, no witnessing Spirit, no leading Spirit, no Spirit of the firstfruit. There is no Spirit at all in chapter seven. What is in chapter seven? There is the will: “For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil I do not will, this I practice.” There is also the mind: “With the mind I myself serve as a slave the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” This is the situation of an unsaved person. Although you are saved, you may still be remaining in the situation of an unsaved person. Many Chinese Christians still remain in the ethical realization of Confucius. In name they are Christians, but in actuality they are Confucius’ disciples.
Christians are people with the spirit. I must repeat again and again to impress you that as a Christian the spirit which you have is not so simple. First you have the human spirit. Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God.” We do have a human spirit. Furthermore, our human spirit is not so primitive because it has been regenerated and renewed and reborn. Our spirit has been trained and taught and today is under the leading of another Spirit. And this other Spirit is so all-inclusive. It is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of life, the Spirit of the leading, the Spirit of witnessing, the Spirit of interceding, the Spirit of firstfruit. We have our human spirit as well as God’s divine Spirit. We have two spirits, and these two spirits are now just one. They two are one—living together, working together, and being together. We have such a spirit. Because we have such a spirit, we shouldn’t care so much for our will. We should no longer be persons walking, living, and being according to our will or according to our mind. No! Now we must be persons living, walking, and being in our spirit and according to our spirit. This is the mingled spirit—the enriched spirit, the uplifted spirit, the strengthened spirit, the spirit that is a mingling of the divine Spirit with the human spirit. We must learn to pick up all these new vocabulary words for our dictionary. When most Christians today come to the word Spirit, they just consider the Spirit as the “Holy Ghost,” as some kind of power of God, or as some kind of instrument. Among today’s Christians, there is also so much ignorance and blindness and darkness concerning the matter of the human spirit. Even many Christian teachers teach the dichotomy of man, not believing that we have a spirit. They say that our human spirit is just our soul. They consider the spirit and soul to be synonyms, referring to the invisible being of our person. Because of such ignorance, it is no wonder that Christians have not entered into Romans 8. It is impossible because in Romans 8 you have to set the mind upon the spirit. The mind, of course, is the leading part of the soul. If our spirit is a synonym for our soul, how could we set our mind upon our soul?
This is why many Christians today don’t understand Paul’s writings. They are short of vocabulary, they are short of knowledge, and they are altogether in the traditional ignorance. I would advise you to learn and to pick up all the new vocabulary such as the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the indwelling Spirit, the leading Spirit, the witnessing Spirit, the interceding Spirit, the Spirit of the firstfruit, and even the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead. You need to pick up all these phrases, expressions, terms, utterances, and new words to learn the spiritual things. Then you will be able to get into the spiritual things. If you don’t have the vocabulary, how could you understand the spiritual things? And if you don’t understand the spiritual things how could you get into those things? It’s impossible! We need to pick up all the terms in Romans 8 concerning the Spirit and concerning our spirit.
Before the recovery came to this country in 1962, few Christians talked about the human spirit. Wherever I went I ministered concerning the human spirit, and people told me that they had never heard that they have a spirit. You have to pick up the new words, the new vocabulary; then you will get the knowledge. Then you would be able to enter into the reality of the knowledge.