For those of us who grew up Adventist, coming to terms with our immaterial self, our “spirit”, is sometimes a confusing process. Is our spirit our attitudes and mind? Is it our personality and thoughts? Our emotions and desires? Or is it something else altogether?
I do not have definitive answers to these questions; I can only say that Scripture helps us begin to “see” these realities as we learn to submit our decisions and desires to God’s word.
This week we received another email with questions about this subject. I share the question below, and then I share with you my answer. I admit I cannot perfectly explain how these things “work”, but I know I can trust every word of Scripture. It is in God’s word that I find assurance that, in spite of my limitations, I can be absolutely certain that God is bigger than my sin. I cannot scare God away nor defile the eternal life He gives me. He keeps me, and I am safe in His grip.
The question
In 1 Corinthians 7:1 it says, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
I asked someone about the word “spirit” in this verse, and they said in this case the word is referring to attitudes. In other words, “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit” would mean “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and attitudes”. Strong’s Concordance confirms that “attitudes” is one possible definition of the word. This understanding in this verse would make sense if believers have born again spirits that are sealed and righteous. Otherwise, wouldn’t this passage suggest that after God gives us a new spirit, we could contaminate it with sin?
My answer
Yes, of course “spirit” can include our attitudes! There are definitely different parts of ourselves, and we aren’t told exactly how they all overlap and function together. I find it helpful to think of “spirit” as the immaterial part of myself. The Bible doesn’t explain how our immaterial “selves” function, but they definitely inform our consciousness and desires. Sins of the flesh and of the spirit would not “undo” our new birth, however, because Scripture assures us that when we believe, we pass from death to life. We know, for example, that God told Ezekiel,
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules (Ezekiel 36:25–27).
When God gave this new covenant promise to Ezekiel, He said that he would give Israel a new heart, a new spirit, and His own Spirit. Importantly, there are two “spirits” mentioned here: the new spirit God gives His people, and His own Spirit.
Furthermore, He explained that giving His people new hearts would involve removing their original hearts of stone and giving them hearts of flesh. This promise foreshadows the more complete explanation Paul gives in 2 Corinthians 3 where he contrasts the covenant of the law written on stone with the new law of the Spirit.
In Scripture, the “heart” often refers to the emotions and attitudes: hard hearts, heart of flesh, and so forth. This prophecy in Ezekiel connects the spirit and the heart, and the reality of being born again and transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son realizes this connection. We do have new desires and new power and new purpose when we are born again—not because of any decision of ours, but because of Jesus who gives us a new heart and a new spirit and His own Spirit.
New spirit
Romans 8 also talks about the spirit God gives us. In verses 1–17 Paul explains that those who are “in the flesh” cannot please God, but those who are “in the Spirit” are alive because of righteousness. He even says in verse 10, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” Then he goes on to say, in verse 15, that as God’s children, we have “received a spirit of adoption”, and by this new spirit we cry out and call God, “Abba! Father!”
In this way Paul identifies the new spirit God gives us. It is real although intangible, but its effects are palpable. It is the spirit of adoption that is His promise to us—and this spirit of adoption is eternally alive. This new spirit He gives us is our new living spirit, no longer the spirit connected with a heart of stone. This is what happens when we believe and pass from death to life. This new spirit is eternally alive, and it is a completely new creation. Receiving this new spirit of adoption is what is meant by being “born of God” (Jn. 1:12). He Himself gives us His own life; we are no longer dead in sin. Furthermore, on top of receiving this new, living spirit of adoption that makes us God’s sons and daughters, He gives us His own Spirit and seals us with Himself, as explained in Ephesians 1:13-14!
Spirit vs. flesh
We learn in Romans 7 more details of what it means that we have new, living spirits that love God and His righteousness but that we still live in mortal flesh. Paul says in verse 23 that we have a “law of sin” in our “members”. We want to please God, but we don’t always please God. We have mortal flesh, and that flesh includes our brains. We have biochemical paths and habits that remain in our flesh even after we have been given new spirits.
Our spirits are immaterial, and obviously they interact with our flesh. We don’t know how, exactly, but we know that they do. So, even though we have new desires, our old desires and habits and patterns and inherent flaws still assert themselves, and this is the front on which our sanctification is worked out. It is in this place where our new love for the Lord bumps into our old habits and patterns that we experience the “defilement of flesh and spirit”. In other words, we become aware that we have internal temptations and desires that oppose our new life and love for God. We may never act on these sinful desires, but we become painfully aware that they exist in our attitudes and thoughts.
These internal conflicts do not mean we lose our salvation or that our new, living spirits are “defiled”. Rather, these conflicts simply mean that we now have God Himself revealing our sins in ways we never experienced when we were not believers. We become conscious of them and aware that they oppose God’s will, and as believers, we are to choose to trust God and turn from those inner sinful desires. In fact, as born-again believers, we have the freedom for the first time to decide to turn from our sin and to trust God instead.
Sin in our flesh, even sin that we do willfully, doesn’t change the fact that we are born again and have new spirits of adoption—nor does it change the fact that we have God’s Spirit in us. Sin doesn’t defile our new spirits, but it puts us out of intimate “sync” with our Father. Even in our mortal flesh we know, when we are born again, that we have sinned, but now our sin grieves us. Before we were born again we might have felt guilt or frustration, but we tended to resort to willpower to squash our sinful urges. Of course, this willpower didn’t change our desires or attitudes. It just modified our behavior temporarily.
Now we can turn to our Father when we have sinful desires or behaviors. We can submit to Him and ask Him to forgive us, to change us and to give us the ability to respond to Him with integrity instead of bargaining with “sin”.
Sanctified by the word
I am convinced that sanctification doesn’t happen unless we submit to God’s word. Our correctives are found in it…not in habituated old teachings and legalism. Scripture teaches us what is real and true, and there we learn what sorts of behaviors are from God. There we learn to trust Him and to relax our controlling grip on our circumstances, allowing the Lord to care for us and show us how to stand strong in His care.
We don’t fall out of salvation when we sin; the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave us when we sin. As Adventists many of us felt that He left us when we sinned, and that leaving us was what Paul referred to as “grieving the Spirit”. In context, however (Eph. 4:30), grieving the Holy Spirit literally means He is grieved when we hold onto immorality, wrath, bitterness, and so forth. He doesn’t leave us, though, nor does our sin defile Him.
He teaches us to say no to immorality and to self-serving and self-protective behaviors. He lets us know when we have grieved Him because we are now alive with His life and indwelled by Him!
Our sanctification, therefore, is a fruit of being made alive and given a new spirit and also the Holy Spirit. We still inhabit sinful flesh with a law of sin in our members, but our new life and God Himself teaches us to see reality as God reveals it to us in His word, and He gives us new convictions of our own sin and new convictions of how we are to live according to His will.
I recommend reading Romans 8—better yet, copy it into a notebook. Take time with each word, and ask God to show you what He knows He wants you to learn from it.
Our new life is spiritual. We literally move from death to life and are transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of the Beloved Son when we trust Jesus. This new spirit is alive with the resurrection life of Jesus (Romans 8:11). It cannot die nor be defiled. Somehow our born again “self” informs our flesh and our brains. It changes our attitudes and feelings and reactions.
Our spirits are either dead in sin or alive in Christ. Because we are still in mortal bodies, we will still sin, both internally and externally, but our sin cannot overpower the life of God when we are born again. God is stronger than our sin, and He is faithful to convict us and teach us and change us throughout our lives.
Along with being born again and given new spirits that are eternally alive, God also imputes Christ’s righteousness to us, so that at the same time we are learning to trust God and His word and to say No to our old sinful behaviors, we are credited with Jesus’ own righteousness. All of this battle between our flesh and our new spirits that we experience (as per Romans 7) occurs under the banner of eternal life. We are living citizens of the Kingdom of the Beloved Son, and our Father is growing us and changing us by His power at work in us!
There is mystery here that we cannot explain, but the reality is amazing. Our eternal life is God’s greatest miracle! †
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