The outward, or the visible man, is the one that you salute on the street.
The inward man is the one who gives this outer man either his attractiveness or his repulsiveness.
It is a very remarkable fact that God deals with the “inward man” instead of the outer man.
Spiritual things are unveiled to this “hidden man of the heart.” The Holy Spirit makes His home in the “hidden man.”
Sin consciousness comes from this “inward man .
It is deeply important that you understand this fact : it is the recreated spirit that convicts of sin in the believer, and our conscience is his voice speaking to our reason .
We stated before that man is a spirit being. He possesses a physical body in which he dwells, He has a soul. The “hidden man” is the part of us that is recreated, receives Eternal Life, and becomes a New Creation .
A translators recently gives 2 Cor. 5:17 like this, “Wherefore if any man is in Christ there is a new self brought into being, but old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.”
The reconciliation it speaks of in the next verse is between this “hidden man of the heart” and the Father-God.
He never speaks of a reconciliation between the mind, or the reasoning faculties, and God, it is always a reconciliation of the heart.
This is the truth unfold, it should have an effect upon our attitude toward some of the teachings we might have accepted at some point in our lives or during our early days of christianity.
Let us think of man as being in God’s class. He is a spirit. He is an eternal spirit. He is capable of receiving the nature of God. He is capable of loving God. He is capable of becoming a son of God.
You understand, he was created in the image and the likeness of God, that is “spiritual likeness” .
He lost that image in the Fall, but it is restored in the New Creation.
There is a very remarkable term used in the Pauline Revelation many times. For instance, in the first chapter of Ephesians it occurs (in one form or another) eleven or twelve times.
Take this as an illustration, Eph. 1:7 “In whom we have our Redemption.
Notice the first two words, “In whom,” “in Christ,” or “In Him.” For a long time that bothered me. I wondered what it meant.
There is something in John 15:5 “I am the vine, and ye are the branches.”
The branch is a part of the vine. The vine is a part of the branch. The two are one.
In Eph . 1 :6 he says, “We are in the beloved .”In Eph . 2:6 it states, “We are seated together .”We are seated with this Beloved One at the Right Hand of the Father.Eph . 2:6-7 “And raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
In Eph. 2:10 it tells us that “we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.”
You see, this occured before the Resurrection of the Master .
When Christ was recreated the Father said, “This day have I begotten thee.”
In the mind of Justice the entire Body of Christ was recreated .
This becomes a reality in us the moment we accept Christ as our Saviour and confess Him as our Lord. We then receive Eternal Life, the Nature of the Father . This makes us New Creations.
Now come back to this scripture “Wherefore if any man is in Christ there is a new creation, a new self . The old things of the old self have passed away, behold, they have become new, and all these things are of God : who has reconciled us unto himself through Christ.”
Romans 6 :4-8 “We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in the newness of life.”
Notice the next verse. “For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin .” Note the tense, “was” not “is.”
“For he that hath died is justified from sin . But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”
Way’s translation throws much light on this . “Well then, if that baptism made us share His death, it must have made us share His burial too. It must follow that, as Messiah was raised from among the dead by means of the descent of His Father’s glory, so we too, who arose with Him, are to be employed wholly in the activities of the New Life.
“For if, by having died like Him, we have entered into living union with Him, most certainly we shall not be less so in consequence of having risen with Him. This we recognize, that our former self was nailed to His cross with Him, so that that body which was the instrument of sin might be made impotent for evil, so that we could not any longer be slaves of sin .”
Notice carefully that the part of us that was recreated, made new, was “the hidden man of the heart .” He is called “the old man.”
This old man was crucified with Christ . It was neither our physical body nor our reasoning faculties, but our spirit . That is the part of us that was Spiritually Dead and had to be recreated.
Col. 3:9-10 “Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him.”
Notice that the “old man” was put off, crucified with Christ .
When Christ arose from the dead a “new man” arose with Him. That new self is the human spirit.
Now the physical body, which is the home of the five senses, must be brought into conformity with Christ, who is the Head of the Body.
This brings us to Romans 12 :1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service .”
“And be not fashioned according to this age : but be ye trans- formed (or transfigured) by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
This body is the home, or dwelling place, of the spirit. This recreated human spirit wishes to communicate its new-found joy to those about it.
Hidden away as it is in the human body, it has no way of communication but through the five senses .
Therefore, the first thing that must be done after one is recreated is to bring these five senses into subjection to the recreated human spirit, and the Word. When this is done the mind will be renewed.
Although you are Born Again you still possess the same mind and body that had been under the dominion of the Adversary. This is the reason that it is so important to renew the mind and bring it into harmony with the recreated spirit.
You must bring it into subjection to this new self that has come into being.
The trouble with the majority of believers is that their minds have never been renewed .
The mind will never be renewed until they begin to practice love. They must live this love life that Jesus introduced to the world.