Tag Archives: biblical-psychology

Oswald Chambers on Biblical Psychology

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One of the most respected devotional writers of the last century is Oswald Chambers. Although best known for his daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, The Complete Works edition of his writings contains more than 40 titles.[1] In 1911 Chambers founded and was principal of the Bible Training College in London, England.

In his book, Biblical Psychology, Chambers presents a detailed biblical study of the nature of man. The Discovery House edition gives this description: “In this pioneering work, Chambers looks deeply at the theology of the soul. Basing his teaching on the foundation that God created people as relational creatures, Chambers looks at the psychology of man’s inner life and how he relates to God, to others, and to himself. He explores the moral dilemmas and emotional complexities Christians face as they try to reconcile their faith with a world full of fear, anger, shame, and selfishness; and he offers scriptural answers for these struggles. Here we see Chambers’ acute mind at work, sorting through Scripture and what God reveals there about the heart, soul, and spirit of people, and the effect redemption has on us and our relationship to God.” [2]

Throughout this study Chambers identifies three essential aspects of human design: spirit, soul, and body. In other words, the author of the best selling devotional book of all time was a trichotomist. Here are sample excerpts.

In reference to the creation account in Genesis

“God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life [Genesis 2:7] which became man’s spirit… Thus in man, degenerate or regenerate, there are three aspects, spirit, soul and body.” (p.14)

The distinct aspects and functions of man

“So man’s soul is not his body or his spirit, but is that creation which holds his spirit and his body together, and is the medium of expressing his spirit in his body … it is his spirit that
moulds his body, and his soul is the medium the spirit uses to express itself.” (p.15)

Before and after the fall:

The more you meditate on the verse, [Genesis 3:7 “nakedness” before the fall] the more will you find in it, and there is quite sufficient to indicate this — that when Adam’s spirit, soul and body were in perfect faith and love to God, united to God, his soul was the medium which brought down the marvelous life of the Spirit of God, the very image of God, into his material body and clothed it in inconceivable splendor of light, until the whole man was the likeness of God. Instantly he disobeyed, that went, the connection with God was shut off, and spirit, soul and body tumbled into death… ” (p. 25)

The nature of regeneration

What does regeneration mean? The Holy Spirit lifting man straight back again out of the slough he has got into by death and sin, into a totally new realm, and by sudden intuitions and impulses that new life is able to lift soul and body up … The new birth God has given it is to get it to a place where soul and body will be identified with Christ, until spirit and soul and body are sanctified here and now, and preserved in that condition … by a certain, conscious, superior, moral integrity, transfigured through and through by the union made by the Spirit with God through the atonement of Jesus Christ.” (p. 27)

Dynamics of sanctification and glorification

The uniting of man’s personality, body, soul and spirit, may be brought about in various ways [artificially] … but the Holy Ghost alone through Jesus Christ will do it rightly, this is the only at-one-ment. When our personality is sanctified, it is not God’s Spirit that is sanctified, it is our spirit (1 Thess. 5:23) …” [that is sanctified]. (p.14)

“The marvelous hope before us is that in and through Jesus Christ, our personality in its three aspects is sanctified and preserved in that condition blameless in this dispensation, and that in another dispensation body, soul and spirit will be all instinct with the glory of God.” (p.16).

Conclusion

Oswald Chambers’ discernment of man as spirit, soul, and body was based on a grasp of the whole counsel of God in Scripture. We affirm that this perspective contributed to his profound and influential discipleship teaching.

JBW

[1] https://ourdailybreadpublishing.org/fv162.html

[2] https://ourdailybreadpublishing.org/biblical-psychology.html

Quotations from Chambers’ Biblical Psychology are from the 1914 edition available online at at Internet Archive.

Differentiating Soul and Spirit

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by Dr. JAMES FOWLER

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”
(1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)
 
To properly understand the work of Jesus within the Christian, as He functions conjunctively as Lord and Savior, requires a differentiation of spirit and soul – of our spiritual condition and psychological behavior.

What a disservice theology has done for centuries by attempting to amalgamate spirit and soul as synonymous terms, even to the extent of regarding their differentiation as heretical.
The biblical evidence sufficiently differentiates these differing functionalities of our humanity. Writing to the Thessalonians, Paul indicated that to be “sanctified entirely,” our “spirit and soul and body must be preserved complete” (I Thess. 5:23). The writer to the Hebrews notes, “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit . . . and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb.4:12).

When we fail to differentiate spiritual function and psychological function, we end up with a mushy merging of psychologized spirituality or spiritualized psychology. Christians are left with an inability to explain the fixed condition of their spiritual union with the Spirit of Christ, alongside of the behavioral conflict in their soul. This is the breeding ground of the false identities, insecurity, and hypocrisy, which are rampant in the contemporary Christian community.

Our Spiritual Condition

Many Christians have not understood what was brought into being in their spirit by spiritual regeneration. Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” explaining, “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5,6). If the life of the risen and living Lord Jesus has not been birthed in our spirit, then we are not Christians. “If any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom. 8:9), Paul wrote. On the other hand, if we have received the life of the Spirit of Christ, “the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16).
Christians are those who are “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Peter 1:3). They are “alive unto God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11), with the very resurrection-life of Jesus dwelling in them. A spiritual exchange has been enacted whereby they have been “converted from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18). Previously we “were by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3), but now the Christian has “become a partaker of the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4). This is a radical spiritual exchange, not to be considered as a joint-tenancy of two natures that allows for a dualistic and schizophrenic basis of identity, as well as a paranoid uncertainty of servitude. “No man can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24), Jesus declared.

Much of the evangelical emphasis on being “born again” has been shallow and misleading. People have been led to think that just because they have raised their hand, walked an aisle, and repeated a creedal statement, they are promised a ticket to heaven with the future guarantee of eternal life. Christianity becomes an “escape hatch” or a “fire insurance policy” to avoid the terrifying threat of hell-fire.

If this is the extent of what it means to be “born again,” then it is no wonder that many have accepted the possibility of being spiritually “still-born,” with no life expression of growth, maturity, and developing sonship. Such a suggestion of spiritual “still-birth” is not far removed from that of “spiritual abortion” whereby those who are unwilling to go through the labor and pain of Christ being formed in them (Gal. 4:19) participate in the abortion of Christ’s life, though they might be adamantly opposed to physical abortion.

It is imperative that Christians understand that we are spiritually regenerated when we receive Jesus into our spirit, when His very Being is present and active in the spiritual core of our being.

“This is the mystery,” Paul advised the Colossians, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). He questioned the Corinthians, “Do you not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you – unless you fail the test?” (II Cor. 13:5). “It is no longer I who live,” he explained to the Galatians, “but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

But even this glorious truth of the indwelling Christ in the Christian can degenerate into mundane statements of the location and placement where Jesus is deposited as a static commodity, failing to understand and appreciate that the living Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has become our life (cf. Col. 3:4).

This dynamic of divine life within the Christian disallows spiritual regeneration to be viewed as a static end in itself, and requires that we view regeneration as an initial receipt of the life of Christ, which must be dynamically lived out in our behavior. Regeneration is a crisis with a view to a process.

The spiritual relationship that the Christian has with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior must not be viewed as a casual acquaintance. In its broadest definition, a “relationship” is merely the locative proximity of two or more objects. The personal relationship of the Christian and Christ, however, is a dynamic relationship that goes beyond placement and proximity to a relational union with Christ.

“The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (I Cor. 6:17). This is not an essential oneness of equivalence, but a relational union of interactive conjunction, wherein the character of God is allowed expression in human behavior.

Thomas Merton wrote, Christian holiness is not a mere matter of ethical perfection. Sanctity is not constituted only by good works or even by moral heroism, but first of all by ontological union with God “in Christ.” Our ontological holiness is our vital union with the Holy Spirit.

When the Christian is spiritually regenerated – i.e., brought into being again with the life of Jesus in the individual, and that facilitated by the receptivity of faith – a relational spiritual union is established that must allow for the outworking of Christ’s life in the Christian’s behavior.
Everything becomes new for the Christian. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (II Cor. 5:17). Whereas once we were identified as an “old man” (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9), we have been spiritually transformed into a “new man” (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). The “old man” identity has been crucified (Rom. 6:6), “put off” (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9), and eradicated – replaced by the “new man” identity of Christ’s presence in our spirit, allowing us to participate in “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

The “new heart and new spirit” that Ezekiel prophesied (Ezek. 36:26) has been given to us by the presence of the Spirit of Christ in our spirit. This was not a “heart transplant” or a “parts replacement,” but the enlivening of our spirit by Christ’s life as the “law of God is written on our hearts” (Heb. 8:10; 10:16).

The Christian is not just redeemed, a “sinner saved by grace,” but the Christian is restored to God’s intent for mankind.

We have “all things in Christ” (I Cor. 3:21-23), “all things pertaining to life and godliness” (II Peter 1:3), “every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:3). We are “complete in Christ” (Col. 2:10).

We need to be aware of our spiritual identity as “sons of God” (Gal. 3:26), “children of God” (John 1:12; I John 3:10), and “saints” (Rom. 8:27: Eph. 1:18; 4:12), who are now “godly” (II Peter 2:9), “righteous” (Eph. 4:24; II Cor. 5:21), and “perfect” (Phil. 3:15; Heb. 12:23).

Every facet of Christ’s character is available to us in the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22,23), and the entirety of His functional ministry is made available via the charismata, the gifts of the Spirit.
Everything that God wants us to have, for everything that He wants to do in us, is accorded to us by the indwelling presence and function of the living Lord Jesus.

The saving activity of the Savior has been completed in reference to the spiritual condition of every Christian. “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8). Spiritually, the Christian has been “made safe” from the dysfunction of satanic misuse and abuse. We are “safe sons,” who are “dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11), and the Christ Who lives in us and has become the basis of our identity “does not sin” (I John 3:9), allowing for the possibility that we “may not sin” (I John 2:1).

The perfection of our spiritual condition must not, however, obscure the ongoing activity of Christ the Savior in our soul.

As “new creatures in Christ, all things have become new” (II Cor. 5:17) spiritually, but this is not to deny or disallow that there is a continued renewing (cf. Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23) still necessitated in the soul.

Joshua’s victory at Jericho still required the people of God to “take the land and overcome the strongholds.” In like manner, we who “have been saved” (Eph. 2:8) must still be “saved by His life” (Rom. 5:10). We who are “perfect” (Phil. 3:15) must still be “perfected” (Phil. 1:6; Col. 1:28). We who are spiritually “made righteous” (Rom. 5:19) must “present our members as instruments of righteousness to God” (Rom. 6:13).

Paul explained that the “new man” (Col. 3:10) continues to be renewed as he allows Christ to overcome the old ways of “anger, abusive speech, lying,” etc. (Col. 1:8,9).

Published online through IOMAmerica.net

James Folwer has authored over 20 books and manages http://christinyou.net/