Hence, the man whom God created has three parts. The first part, the outermost part, is the body, which is visible, tangible, and physical. The second part is the soul, which is psychological, mental, and metaphysical. It can be divided into the mind, the emotion, and the will. The feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, and delight are all in the sphere of the soul. The third part, the innermost part of a person, is the spirit that God created for man. According to the revelation of the Scriptures, the conscience is a part of our human spirit.
All the peoples of the world, whether civilized or barbarian, have the inclination and thought to worship God. While a person is in high school, owing to his youth, he may be very proud of himself and may never confess that there is God. After he goes to college, he may have an even higher opinion of himself, thinking that scholarship and knowledge are God. When he starts working, he may become more conceited, considering capability and reputation to be everything and absolutely neglecting God. However, when he has achieved success and acquired fame, there will be a change in his inner being. He will begin to feel that knowledge, capability, and reputation cannot satisfy him. There will also be a sense of emptiness within him that will become increasingly intense.
At this time, he may try to probe deeply into human life and to study human philosophy and religious ideology. Gradually, the inclination to worship God in his inmost being will become more pronounced. Some may worship a piece of stone, some may worship a piece of wood, and some may even worship a piece of paper. It seems that everything can be worshipped. Do not think that only uneducated people worship these things. In actuality, knowledgeable and highly educated people also do the same thing. Those who are thoughtful, knowledgeable, successful, and famous have an even greater need to worship God because although they have already reached the peak of their human life, they are still empty. The human spirit cannot be satisfied with knowledge, money, success, or reputation. Our body needs food and drink, our soul needs entertainment and enjoyment, and our spirit needs satisfaction. The human spirit needs nothing other than God Himself. God alone can be the unique satisfaction for the human spirit because it was created for the purpose of containing God.
The human spirit is the center of man, the genuineness of man, and the origin of all good in man. Man’s heart of filial piety, sympathy, and compassion, man’s conscience, and man’s human virtues all come out of the spirit of man. The more a person cultivates and nurtures his spirit, the better and more virtuous he will be. If a person takes care only of his physical and psychological needs but overlooks his spiritual need, even though he may be a capable and knowledgeable person, he will most likely be a person who is short in morality. The spirit of man was created by God, who is the Father of lights, from whom are all good things (James 1:17). If a person gives his spirit its proper place in him, then he will be a person of supreme morality and will have the possibility to be a man above all men.
Man has a spirit which was created for God. God desires to put Himself into man, but sadly, man fell. Consequently, he does not know God and God’s desire. Furthermore, he does not know that man was created for the purpose of receiving, containing, and mingling with God. So for the accomplishment of His eternal purpose, God decided to become flesh. This is the reason the Lord Jesus became a man. What is incarnation? John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (v. 1). The Word’s becoming flesh (v. 14) is God’s becoming flesh. The Lord Jesus is God who became flesh—God who is Spirit became flesh. Spirit is like electricity—unsubstantial, intangible, and abstract. Without electric lamps or electric fans, we would not be able to see electricity. When we see an electric lamp shining, we can say that we see the electricity in the shining. We can also say that the shining of the electric lamp is the “incarnation” of the electricity. Through the shining of the lamp, the electricity becomes something visible.
What is Christ? Christ is God becoming flesh. No one has ever seen God, but God became flesh—Christ. Christ is God becoming flesh, the embodiment of God. When He was among the disciples, outwardly He was almost the same as them, but inwardly there was a big difference. The difference was that the Spirit of God was in Him (cf. Luke 1:35; Matt. 12:28). The very Spirit of God was in Christ. Because God is Spirit, when God became flesh, it was the Spirit who became flesh. Hence, Christ is the Spirit who became flesh.
How can the Spirit who was in Christ enter into man? When Christ was on the earth, Peter, James, and John were always with Him, but He could not enter into them. Although they had seen His glory, tasted His love, and listened to His prayers and teaching, He could not enter into them. Thus, the Lord Jesus had to pass through death. Through death, the Lord came out of the constraint of His flesh and became the life-giving Spirit. Today Christ is the Spirit who is omnipresent. In every place, when He touches man, His Spirit touches and enlivens the human spirit. His touching man is His Spirit contacting the human spirit. Just like a radio receives the electric waves from the radio station, we all have the experience of contacting the Lord’s Spirit with our human spirit.
No one can experience this for us. One day in the deepest part of our being—deeper than our mind, emotion, and will— something happened that made us feel unpeaceful and caused us to desire to kneel down to pray and confess, “O Lord, I am a sinner. I have offended my parents because I said something that I should not have said, and I have offended my colleague because I took something that I should not have taken. O Lord, I have sinned.” At that time our tears came down, and we felt that our conscience within us was accusing us and forcing us to confess our sins and ask for the Lord’s forgiveness. This is the experience of the pneumatic Christ entering into us, touching our spirit, and having such an effect on us. This effect was not something of our mind, emotion, or will but of the faith in our spirit. From that time on, this faith has become a genuine and living faith.
Therefore, we can see that spiritual reality is the God who is Spirit contacting our created spirit. The uncreated Spirit contacts the created spirit, and the two spirits fellowship with one another. This is spiritual reality.