The Holy Spirit Came Especially for the Purpose of Creating a Spiritual Order of Things
What shall we say about spiritual smelling? Do you know what spiritual smelling is? Well, you have only got to go into some atmospheres, no one has to say anything to you, but you sense that something is wrong; you sense that it is not life here, it is death. This is not the Lord, this is man. This is not the Spirit, this is the flesh. You sense this with your spiritual faculty of smell. You may meet another person. You do not have to speak, or they do not have to speak, but you know that there is suspicion in that person. There is prejudice in that person. There is a closed heart in that person. They are not open to you, they are tying to deceive you, they are holding something back from you. How do you know it? You smell it. It is a spiritual sense. But it is a very important faculty. By this faculty we sense what is of the Lord and what is not of the Lord. You see, the incense in the old dispensation was a sweet fragrance. It was something very pleasant. The corresponding spiritual faculty of smell is: this is very pleasant. This is something very pleasing to the Lord. This is an atmosphere of life.
Therefore, it is a guiding principle. When naturally you go into a place where there is a bad smell, you hold your nose and you say, let me out of this. This is unhealthy. Your nose may save your life from a fever. Your nose may save your life from one of the bad diseases. And that is very true in the spiritual life. If this spiritual sense of smell, or this faculty for spiritually discerning were really keen and alive, we would know what is life and what is death. We would know what is spiritually healthy and what is spiritually unhealthy. I am not going to follow this further. I am just saying that when we are born again, we are given a new set of spiritual faculties. And just as the physical faculties governed in the old dispensation, it is the spiritual faculties which are to govern in the new dispensation.
If you will read the First Letter to the Corinthians, you will see that that letter is built upon this very difference. The Corinthians Christians were living on the basis of natural things, and they were not living on the basis of spiritual discernment. So Paul said to them, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." The natural man cannot receive those things, because those things are only spiritually discerned. And then he adds, "He that is spiritual discerneth all things, yet he himself is discerned by no man." He is the mystery of the world. A spiritual man and woman is a mystery to the world, they just do not understand. Paul illustrates it in this way, "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" If you and I are going to understand one another as human beings, we have got to be human beings and have human nature. Other orders of creation do not understand the human order. Men understand one another simply because they are men. Now Paul says in the same way, "No one understandeth the things of God except the Spirit of God that is in him."
Now I must get to perhaps the most difficult part of it all. If you will look at the Letter to the Hebrews, we will come to it. Chapter four and verse twelve begins in this way, "For the Word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart". We can leave the second half of the verse for the present, and just note this, "The Word of God is quick and powerful, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." You notice how that statement begins. It begins with a conjunction. It relates to something. It connects with what the writer has just been saying. What has he been saying? He has been speaking about Israel in the wilderness, and Israel's failure to enter into the promised land. And it says, "If Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another rest." He is saying that Israel after the flesh failed to enter into God's rest. They failed to enter into that for which God had brought them out of Egypt. That whole generation with the exception of two men died in the wilderness. And they never did come into the purpose of God in their redemption. Now that is the statement, that is the background, and then you have this conjunction. For, or because, the Word of God is living and powerful, piercing to dividing asunder of soul and spirit. What does that mean? The Old Israel lived entirely upon the basis of the natural soul. They lived entirely upon the basis of these natural senses. Everything for them was a matter of what they could see and handle down here on this earth. Theirs was an entirely soul life. And the writer says, because of that they failed to enter in.
The Word of God cuts clear in between the soul and the spirit. The new dispensation and the new people who are going to enter into all the purpose of God must be a spiritual people, not a soulish people. They must be constituted on the basis of what is spiritual and NOT what is natural. This whole letter to the Hebrews is built upon the difference between the old and the new. It takes a lot of space to show how the old fails. The old law fails, the old priesthood fails, the old sacrifices fail, the old tabernacle fails,the old temple fails. It was complete failure, because it was built upon natural ground. The ground of the soul.
Now the new is not going to fail, the letter brings in the new order. A High Priest is in Heaven. The One Sacrifice has been offered forever, and so on. It is all a spiritual order. And the Word of God divides between those two. When you get to the end of that letter to the Hebrews, to chapter twelve, the writer is saying this, "We have had fathers after the flesh, they chastened us as it seemed right to them. And we gave them reverence." I wonder if that is true of all of us. When our fathers after the flesh gave us a good thrashing, did we revere them? We did not say, thank you, we felt very bad about our fathers after the flesh. When we grew up to be men, we said, "Father was right, that chastening was the best thing for us."
However, the apostle says, "We have fathers after the flesh, who chastened us as they thought was right and good. And we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of our spirits?" The natural is down on that level. The spiritual is so much higher, the Father of our spirits! Is that what happens when we are born again? Not our souls born again, but our spirits. That innermost part of our being which died with Adam, was separated from God in Adam's sin. So that by nature all the children of Adm are dead in that spiritual sense. Our spirits died with Adam.
In Christ they are made alive again. The new birth is not the new birth of our body. It is not the new birth of our soul, because we have got a soul. It is the new birth of our spirits. And God is the Father of our spirits! That is why I pointed out in the Letter to the Galatians - which marks the great divide - the word Spirit occurs twelve times. The Father of our spirits, then we are not the children of Abraham, we are children of God, and that is a very big difference. You see, this is what Paul is arguing in the Letter to the Galatians. He is saying to these Galatians, "Oh! foolish Galatians, how foolish you are! You began in the Spirit, and now you are going back to the flesh, you came out of the old dispensation and out of the old order, you came into the new life of the Spirit, and now you are going back, you are going to forfeit your rest, the very purpose of your redemption. Oh! foolish Galatians, how foolish a thing it is to live in the old dispensation!"
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 14)
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