Paul’s statement
“Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2Cor7:1
is ample proof that we can have defiled flesh and defiled spirit’s as Christians. This is why I am writing this mini book. Many believers today are not being taught these things and have swallowed a half truth concerning holiness. Holiness means to be totally set apart for the Saviour Jesus. He purchased you, your spirit, your soul and your body. He owns you. Paul says in the previous letter to the same church:
1Co 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
1Co 6:20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Holiness means we are not connected in any way to sin. We know that Jesus’ blood keeps us in a position of righteousness and justification before the Father but that does not mean we do nothing to eradicate sin from our members. We must take the land for Jesus to dwell fully in, not only our spirit, but also our soul AND our body.
Whenever a preacher attempts to address holiness regarding the body he/she may be accused of legalism. This may be a valid criticism for one can slip over into carnal ways mimicking holiness. Paul dealt with this in his letter to the Colossians.
Col 2:20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—
Col 2:21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,”
Col 2:22 which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
Col 2:23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
This kind of “holiness” where we make rules for ourselves to follow does not ever produce true holiness. As Paul said, it is of no value – USELESS – against the indulgence of the flesh. The flesh cannot transform itself. The outcome of Satan’s temptation in the garden of Eden was that Man’s flesh now ruled over his spirit. After that disaster the best mankind could do to produce holiness was to do what Paul said not to do to the Colossians.
“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle.”
Instead Paul pointed (Col 3) out that we died with Christ and have been raised up with Him to newness of life in the SPIRIT. That is why he says as though you are living in the world in Col 2:20. We live in the spirit now, in heavenly places. Now we are “no longer in the flesh but in the SPIRIT if indeed Christ dwells in you.” (Rom 8:9) So we set our minds on things above not on things on the earth. To make carnal rules for our body to abide by is setting our minds on things below not on things above where Christ is. Where is Christ?…..Not in heaven that one must go up to see Him…but in your spirit!! Christ in you the hope of glory. We are to learn to set our mind on the spirit for that is where Christ is. Of course that involves learning to discern what is soul and what is spirit in our lives. This takes time but the Lord is a patient teacher.
The Holy One of Israel is our Saviour – Jesus Christ. Please do not relegate Him and shut Him up in some heaven up there far away. He is the Ever present help in time of need! He is Emmanuel -God with us. He is Christ in you the hope of glory. He is the One who was with the disciples and said He would be in them.
Joh 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—
Joh 14:17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
Joh 14:18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
Joh 14:19 “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.
Joh 14:20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
When Jesus said “He dwells with you and will be in you” he was speaking of God’s Spirit, who was also in Him. When He says,”I will come to you”, He is not saying one day in the distant future, but 50 days after He was raised from the dead He came to them and at that day they knew that Jesus was in the Father and they were in Him and He was in them. That is why they began doing greater things than Jesus had done.(Jn14:12) Jesus in them by the Holy Spirit was doing the works and displaying His holiness.
All Holiness starts with Jesus Christ Himself. He is Holiness! He comes into the spirit of a child of God and lights up their lamp with His Shekinah glory-His Holy radiant light.(Pr 20:27;1Cor1:20) But as I said before in a previous writing Holiness needs to overflow to the soul and the body.
The body is servant to the soul which in turn should serve our spirit in humble submission. All three parts of us then work together in a wonderful display of God for we are made in His image -spirit, soul and body. The three within the Godhead are in perfect union at every moment. They are One God. It sounds strange to say that they (plural) are one God, but it is true.
Deu 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!
Deu 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
In Hebrew the meaning of the word “one” here is unity and union. God is a plurality of one. Man is made in His image therefore we are also a ‘plurality of one’ so God says through Moses in verse 5 we are to love God with all our heart(spirit), soul(mind)and strength(body). Paul prays that “…the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we could separate our 3 parts out to stand alongside each other we would still call them “us”…we would still call them me, or I even though there are 3! Yet when we look at someone all we see with our natural eyes and hear with our natural ears is one person. If we have the discernment of God’s spirit it is a different seeing that we see. We see that man is spirit, soul and body…yet he is one person. God is also spirit, soul and body, yet He is One person. Amazing!
Your body and soul are earthy, of the earth. Your spirit is heavenly, of God. In the beginning when God created Adam, He created him from the dust of the earth and breathed into him His own breath-spirit. Man became a living soul -(nephesh). When a man dies his spirit leaves his body but his soul dies along with the body and rests in the grave. The soul is said to be asleep. The spirit however never sleeps. Where the spirit of a man goes after death is another subject which I deal with elsewhere.
Your body is to be the outer tool or “member” under the direction of the soul which is coupled with the spirit. A non regenerated person’s spirit is said to be in a dead condition, devoid of the life of God. This is the case from birth. That is why we are to be born again so that our spirit receives Jesus Christ Who is the Life of God. When we receive Jesus the spirit is now strengthened to regain the place of lord in our life which is as I said- spirit, soul and body. Instead of the mind, will and emotions of the soul leading the way with the resulting outworking being addictions in the body and acts of sin….now the spirit leads the way.
Just because the spirit is now alive with God’s Spirit joined to us, our soul still must submit to this leadership. God begins doing this straight away as we commune with Him and read His word.
Eph 2:1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
Eph 2:2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
Eph 2:3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Holiness is Who Jesus is and it is His presence in our spirit that makes us acceptable to God even though we still have issues in soul and body. But the conquering and subduing process/journey has begun, not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit He does this WITH us, in conjunction with us. The body is neutral, it is the soul which stands in between the spirit man and the soul man. Whatever a person is seen to be doing with their body that is considered as sin, is not the body’s fault, but the soul which is in control. That is why Scripture says that the soul that sins shall die. (Ez18:4)
This is the whole point of my writing and of God. God desires to be seen and known and touched and handled but He is Spirit. Therefore He purposed before time to dwell in human flesh in our spirit in sweet communion. The end result is that we be fully conformed to Jesus Christ in character and deeds.
Rom 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
This conforming to Jesus image is not something that happens “up yonder in the sweet bye and bye” BUT HERE ON EARTH IN THIS LIFE. That is why the Spirit in us yearns jealously over us to yield ourselves to HIs working that we might obey Him in everything. His inner promptings and teachings take place in our heart/spirit and need to be acknowledged by our mind and agreed with. But unfortunately for most of us we have a lot of trouble doing this and instead we resist the Holy One and grieve Him.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his first epistle he addressed the issue of fornication with Temple prostitutes. The Corinthian culture was such that it was considered normal and even commendable to fornicate with temple protitutes to gain the favour of the gods. Paul instructed and warned them that by joining their body with a person who had been devoted to gods(demons)they were joining themselves to those demons. This defiled their flesh and their spirit. Paul had to teach their soul that this was the reality they were engaged in so that the soul could agree with the S/spirit not to do it.
Paul provided the “word of the Lord” to their soul in much the same way as the Law was given under the old covenant by Moses. An outer command given by a thrid party, or second hand from God. But God comes to dwell in your spirit so that the word of the Lord will comes from within your spirit directly to your soul. Anyone who says He has Jesus has this inner Teacher but are we obeying Him or rejecting Him? In obeying Him we move forward in Holiness. For the Corinthians obedience meant no more fornicating, no more trusting in demon gods, no more satisfying of their fleshly lusts to have a different sexual partner regularly.
As anyone who has been addicted knows the addiction is not just in the mind. The body itself begins to need the drug or sex or whatever the addiction is. For instance if you are a heavy coffee drinker(10+ cups per day) and you go without for 24 hours you will almost certainly develop a head ache and pain behind the eyes that lasts for about 3 days. The body has gotten used to the caffeine and it has become a necessary chemical which in my estimation has links with the nerves and muscles attached between the brain and eyes. So even though the soul has determined to not ingest caffeine, the body itself resists by producing pain. The soul receives the pain signals and begins to want to give in and have a double shot of caffeine directly into the veins! Is caffeine sin? Of course not. But if the Lord has told you on the inside to limit your intake and you ignore Him, then to you it is sin to continue in that way.
In the case of fornication and sexual immorality the body is defiled. If the sexual partner has been devoted in anyway to demonic entities or has witchcraft in their ancestry, then demons have been able to transfer and legally defile your body irregardless of having Jesus in your spirit. Listen to Paul explain:
1Co 6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
1Co 6:10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
1Co 6:11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
These Corinthians had been saved out of immorality and all the other sins listed above. They were washed clean by the Spirit of God at conversion now he is warning them not to get reinfected.
1Co 6:12 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
1Co 6:13 Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
Paul warns and teaches that we are not allow ourselves to be brought UNDER THE POWER of anything. The word here is exousiazō
From G1849; to control: – exercise authority upon, bring under the (have) power of. It comes from a root word “exousia” which means: magistrate, superhuman, potentate, token of control), delegated influence: – authority, jurisdiction. This word is used elsewhere by Paul to speak of demonic powers.
“…by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” Eph 3:10b
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Eph 6:12
Any area of our lives that is in any way subject to addiction or compulsiveness shows that we are UNDER THE POWERS OF DEMON SPIRITS. The flesh must be cleansed of these attachments to demons. It is like driving in a car with Jesus and you in the front seat, but in the trunk is a demon tagging along for a ride. You may be alarmed by this, it is a reality that the church has mostly denied.
But FEAR NOT my dear friend, the God Who loves you has not abandoned you and never will. He will deliver you because He is more for you, than you are for your self! We must come to Him desiring to be free and for Him to show us what to do about it.
We gave demons legal permission to dwell in our flesh and exert control over us, so now we must genuinely desire to walk in holiness. If we draw near to God He will draw near to us and when HE does He will give you that desire to be clean. It comes up from your spirit. You want to be like Jesus in every area. You want to be free, to be clean, to be pure. That is what your true inner self wants my friend despite the depravity that may float around in your mind at times…or all the time! Many hide what is really happening in their lives afraid to tell anyone. The first step is to tell God. He may give you someone with skin on to tell also. You must recognise that you are in bondage having been brought under a power.
We get with the person or with God alone and we sincerely repent for what we did. We ask forgiveness for that particular sin, we name it. We acknowledge that it is sin and that God was just in giving demons legal right to invade our body. BUT–we bring that sin under the blood of Jesus that was shed for us. We thank the Lord that the blood covers that sin. We then address the soul ties that are connected to whatever body parts were involved, the eyes, ears, mouth, private parts etc etc. We cut these soul ties to the person or people by declaring just that. We rebuke the spirit of control and the spirit of lust and whatever other spirit that we joined with, be it fornication, adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism, incest etc. We rebuke it and tell it to leave our body, name the parts, and to never return in Jesus name.
It is good to dedicate each part of your body to God in prayer at this time. In your own words just tell God that you give every part of your body inside and outside to Him for HIs Spirit to dwell in. Tell Him that your body is for Him and He is for your body.
Thank Him for the victory and the cleansing you and He just brought about and did together because of Jesus blood.
If you would like prayer on this I am here as a brother to stand with you in it.
May His grace be with your spirit.
Dennis Rhodes