The Hidden Man

E. W. Kenyon wrote extensively on faith and the deeper life. (This post is not intended to evaluate all his views, but to note his influence as an author and educator, and to observe his explicit belief in trichotomy.)

Wikipedia gives a summary of Kenyon’s life and ministry:

Essek William Kenyon (1867–1948) was a pastor of the New Covenant Baptist Church and founder and president of Bethel Bible Institute in Spencer, Massachusetts. It remained in operation until 1923. He was its president for twenty-five years. The school later moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and became Providence Bible Institute. It later became Barrington College and merged with Gordon College, which was named after one of Kenyon’s many mentors, A. J. Gordon. It is now known as Gordon College.

Essek William Kenyon (1867–1948) was a pastor of the New Covenant Baptist Church and founder and president of Bethel Bible Institute in Spencer, Massachusetts. It remained in operation until 1923. He was its president for twenty-five years.

The school later moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and became Providence Bible Institute. It later became Barrington College and merged with Gordon College, which was named after one of Kenyon’s many mentors, A. J. Gordon. It is now known as Gordon College.[1]

Here is an example of Kenyon’s view of the model of man.

The Spirit of Man

It is a remarkable fact that the church has never majored [on] man’s spirit, or that man is a spirit. Modern psychology denies that man is a spirit, and in the place of the spirit, he gives us the “subconscious mind”. What he has discovered, and calls the “sub-conscious mind,” is man’s spirit.

Man was created in the image and likeness of God. God is a spirit. Man was to be created so that he could become a partaker of God’s nature. If he were to be a partaker of God’s nature, he must be in the same class of being as God. In speaking of the Father and of worship, Jesus said, “God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” [John 4:24]. Only a spirit can worship in spirit.

[Kenyon observed that a person is governed primarily in one of three “realms” that correspond to body, soul, and spirit. He also noted that spirituality could be genuine or counterfeit.]

The natural man described in 1 Corinthians 2:14 is governed in one of three ways. The scholastic man is governed by his reason [soul], the sensuous man is governed by his body, and the spiritual man is governed by his spirit...

If a man is a spirit, and we know that he is, then his spirit should dominate him, but when he [Adam] fell in the Garden, reason took the supremacy. God’s purpose was that man’s spirit should dominate the whole man. Natural spirits can be developed. Spiritualism is the result of a highly developed spirit without God. The religious philosophies are very spiritual, but they are not spiritual in the sense of the New Testament. It is a spirituality of natural man...

A man can have his spirit developed by demons as the spiritualistic cults are developed. He can have his spirit developed by natural means until he becomes very spiritual. The real spirituality is the spirit that has been recreated [2 Cor. 5:17; Eph 4:24], received the life and nature of God, and has been cultivated and trained through the Word. The real food of the spirit is the Word of God. Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

The Bible is not the food for the brains primarily, not food for the body, but basically it is food which God planned to feed our spiritual natures upon.[2]


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._W._Kenyon

[2] The following is an excerpt from an article in Kenyon’s newsletter at his legacy web site, https://www.kenyons.org / These themes are developed in Kenyon’s book, The Hidden Man
https://www.whitakerhouse.com/

Bracketed content added – JBW