In this message we come to Romans 8:10 once again: “And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is life because of righteousness.” According to what we covered in the last message, this verse has three facts: Christ is in us, our body is dead, and our spirit is life. You have to realize that these three facts are too great, too profound, too all-inclusive. Regardless of what the scientists and scholars have found out scientifically concerning man, they are much inferior to Paul because they don’t know the things of man as Paul did. This phrase, “the things of man,” comes from 1 Corinthians 2:11, where Paul points out that no one among men can know the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him. Paul knew the things of man because he exercised his spirit.
Recently, I pointed out to some that in the Far East Confucius was and still is considered a very wise man. His writings became a kind of controlling factor or influence over all the Far East people. His writings in the Far East are like the Bible in the Western World. The Western World has been kept ethically and morally mainly because of the influence of the Bible. Although he was wise humanly speaking, according to Paul’s words Confucius didn’t know the things of man. For example, in Confucius’ writings he indicated that if you were to offend God, you would have no way to be forgiven. But Paul not only tells you how you can be forgiven, but how you can be justified and sanctified, and even how your body can be redeemed in the future. Paul pointed out so many of the things of man in the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians, and then he said you have to exercise your spirit to know these things (v. 11). For Confucius to say that if you offend the heavens you have no way to be forgiven indicates that he didn’t really know the real things of man. He didn’t know man’s position, man’s source, and man’s destiny. The real things of man are not the daily necessities such as a wife or a husband or children or parents or a house or a car. The real things of man are your source, where you came from, and your position, your standing before God. Furthermore, the real things of man are your destiny and your destination, the meaning of your life.
If you are going to know the things of man you have to come to the Bible. But although many Christians do have the Bible, many of them do not know the things of man because they do not exercise their spirit. They only exercise their mentality. After they were born, they were taught by their parents and by their teachers to exercise their mentality. Actually, they were not taught the things of man. Only the Bible teaches the real things of man, telling your source, your condition, your position, your standing, your future, your destiny, your destination, and the meaning of your life. The Bible tells us these things, but when many Christians come to the Bible, they don’t pick up these things. Rather, they bring a lot of things into the Bible. They re-write the Bible according to their concept. What is really in the Bible, they don’t have the eyes to see because they don’t use their spirit.
The Corinthians were too philosophical. They knew a lot, but Paul said they didn’t know the things of man. Paul indicated that only by the spirit of man can we know the things of man. What Paul wrote to them did not need their Greek mentality and their philosophical mind with their philosophizing wisdom; it needed their spirit. They needed to exercise their spirit. Only the spirit of man knows the things of man. What a pity that today even among some Christian teachers there is a kind of school called the school of dichotomy which says that man is of two parts. They say that the human spirit is just the human soul. So they simply exercise their mind, neglecting their spirit. This is a big mistake made by many Christians today. They consider that the human spirit is the human soul, that the human soul is the human heart, that the human heart is the human mind. So as long as they exercise their mind, they feel they are right. That was exactly what the Corinthians practiced. They exercised their mind. This is why in 1 Corinthians 1:10, Paul was trying to attune them to the same opinion, to the same mind. Then in chapter two he encouraged them to take care of their spirit by asking them, “For who among men knows the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him?” In 4:21 Paul asked whether they wanted him to come to them with a rod or in love and a spirit of meekness. Paul was one really living in the human spirit.
Furthermore, in chapter five Paul even attended their meeting by his spirit. Verse 3 reads: “For I, being absent in the body, but present in the spirit, have already judged as being present him who so did this.” In chapter six Paul points out that he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. He does not say one mind, but one spirit. Finally, in 16:18 Paul said that some brothers refreshed his spirit and others’. He said you have to acknowledge, that is, to regard and respect such a one. From these verses you can see that the wonderful book of 1 Corinthians is a book very much on the spirit of man.