The self life is just the soul life. The self is our personality and everything contained in our personality. Out of the self grow our personal opinion, taste, thought, longing, bias, love, and hatred. The self life is the power by which one lives. We must keep in mind that the self is just ourselves plus our likes and dislikes. Its life is the natural power by which we perform good and do work. The self is a life, because it lives in the believers whose self has not been removed. Even in the believers who have died to their self, it often attempts to rise up. The self life is a life that centers on one's own self.
After the believers receive the dealing of the cross with respect to sin, the body of sin will be paralyzed and will not be able to act anymore. However, because no attention has yet been paid to the self life, the latter still lives. At this stage, the self life is like the life of Adam before the fall. It was not spiritual because it was not transformed by the fruit of the tree of life; and it was not fleshly because it had not sinned. It belonged to itself, and as such it could sin if it wanted to sin, and it could be spiritual if it wanted to be spiritual. The believers' life at this time is very similar to this. It is not spiritual because his spirit is still not free and it has not reached a walk according to God's higher life. It is not fleshly because the person has received the accomplishment of the cross and has reckoned himself dead to sin. He is of the self, soulish, natural, and untransformed. If he is not careful, he will fall and will be contaminated by the sin of the flesh. If he goes forward and claims the accomplishment of the cross, he will become completely spiritual. Nevertheless, if believers stay in the realm of the self, they will mostly fall and will many times become fleshly.
At this time believers are in a most vulnerable condition in their Christian life. On the one hand, they must protect themselves from falling; on the other hand, they must resolve to have some practical righteous works. The danger then is to do good by self effort. It may not necessarily be obvious; sometimes it can be very obscure and hidden. Sometimes it takes God a long time to show the believers that they are still in the self and are still trying to carry out God's will by their self effort.
The self includes many things. Our will, emotions, love, and intelligence are within its domain. The self is our ego. The life of the self is the power by which we live. The self is also the soul; it is an organ. The life of the self is the life of the soul; it is the power that motivates this organ. When a man is in the self, the life of the self will impart power, that is, the self's own power, into the various parts of the man—the will, the emotions, the love, the intelligence, etc., and will cause the man to do good and to work. Its will is strong enough to resist the outward temptations. Its emotions make one happy and cause one to think that God is very close to him. Its love to the Lord is deep and sincere. Its intelligence causes him to come up with many wonderful Bible teachings and many methods for doing God's work. But, after all, these are done by the self and not by the spiritual life of God. During this time, God often gives special grace to the believers so that they receive many wonderful gifts. By realizing that all these gifts are from God, it is hoped that a man will turn completely away from himself to God. However, in experience, what a believer does is completely opposite to what God intends. Not only does he not turn completely to God, he takes advantage of these gifts for his own use. As a result, these gifts become a help for prolonging the life of his self. Therefore, God has to work many days and years before such a person will give up himself and turn to Him completely.
After a believer is brought by God to a deep realization of the evil of the self, he will be willing to put his self to death. But what is the way for the self to die? There is no other way but by the cross. We have to read two passages of Scripture to understand the relationship between the cross and the self.
"I have been crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20).
"If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).