Consecration and the Breaking of the Soul

Without the breaking of the soul there is no assurance that our consecration is spiritual.

Rubén Chacón

It is a fact which is rarely understood by most believers that God, from the first day of our salvation, looks to break our external man, that is to say, our soul. But what is the reason for this? To find the answer we will investigate the disastrous consequences that the fall brought to man's being.

The damage that the fall brought to the soul

Human life was designed to be a vessel that contained the divine life. Thus the life of God would be expressed by means of human life. To reach this goal, eternal life would be imparted to the human being's most intimate part, to its spirit, and from there the life of God, passing through the soul, would be manifest in man and through him. The soul was, therefore, designed by God to be a docile instrument of the spirit and to be its expression. This was God's Purpose. However, with the fall of man, his soul suffered and became over-developed beyond the intended limits, becoming an autonomous soul. His spirit annulled or died because of sin, disappearing from the scene and the soul, instead of being a docile instrument of the spirit, became unbalanced and sin took absolute control and possession of him.

The soul therefore didn't end up being a servant of the spirit, but a slave to sin. The soul, then, going beyond its function, attempted time and again to reunite man with God, but it failed. The only thing that the soul achieved, once disconnected from the spirit, was to enlarge its abilities beyond its intended limits: A strong will, a mind cable of intellectualizing everything, and emotions that would dominate the man completely. Thus the soul was "lost" and was in need of salvation (Mark. 8:35, 36).

The salvation of the soul

The salvation of the soul would therefore need not only the purification of all its sins, but also its regulation. It should not only be saved from sin, but also from itself. This second aspect of the salvation of the soul, its regulation, is referred to by the following texts: " He that findeth his life (soul) shall lose it; and he that loseth his life (soul) for my sake shall find it " (Mt. 10:39). " For whosoever would save his life (soul) shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life (soul) for my sake and the gospel's shall save it " (Mark. 8:35). " If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life (soul) also, he cannot be my disciple " (Lc. 14:26).

But what is this losing of the soul to save it? What does it mean to hate the soul? In the context of the aforementioned texts it is affirmed that it consists of taking up the cross and following Christ. And what does it mean to take up the cross? To deny oneself, to die.

Die to live

Jesus Christ is He who was from the beginning. He is the tree of the Life. Therefore, when we came to Christ and we believed in him, our spirit was not only brought to life, but rather it became the one and same life of God. So that, although our body is dead because of sin, the spirit lives because of righteousness (Rom. 8: 10). But what happened to our soul? Our soul, although purified, forgiven and saved, remained over-enlarged and outside its natural function.

The figure that Jesus used, to explain what happens to the soul, was that of the grain of wheat. A grain or seed contains life deep within. Nevertheless, because of the hardness of the shell, the life doesn't have any way of manifesting itself, unless the seed is buried and the shell rots. Then, the life wondrously arises, and manifests a new creation.

So the shell is the soul. Because of sin, it acquired such autonomy and development that it is practically impassable for the spirit. It needs to be regulated, quieted, tamed and domesticated. Simply put, the soul needs to be broken. It must die: Christ's cross must be applied to it. This, although it is not immediately apparent, will take a long time and a lot of work from God's part to achieve it. What's more, He will have to work from both from within and from the exterior to achieve such a work. From within, the Holy Spirit will apply Christ's cross to the soul; and from the exterior, sufferings through the circumstances of life will little by little look to make space in our soul, so that the life of God can flow through it.

Our soul must be dealt with time and again under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. It is like a dike that, in order to be able to allow water to flow out must be cracked. And it is in fact through those cracks that the spirit will begin to flow.

Without this breaking, there is no assurance that our service will be spiritual. How terrible it is to think that even our service to God can be a mere unfolding of the soul! To preach, to pray, to sing, to evangelize, etc., they can all be totally carnal actions. That which makes a certain work spiritual or carnal is not the work in itself, but the source from which it comes. Jesus said: " That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit " (John 3:6). That's why Paul, when writing to the Romans, said: " For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit " (1:9). And in his letter to the Philippians wrote: " for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God … and have no confidence in the flesh " (3:3).

Consecration

And it is on this point that we can connect the importance of consecration, because an absolute consecration to the Lord is necessary in order for our soul to be broken. When we fail in our consecration to the Lord, the only thing that we achieve is to delay and to hinder the breaking process. The day has to come when our consecration to the Lord is so full that He has absolute freedom to deal with us.

Consecration is not the same thing in itself as breaking, but its importance resides in that it begins the breaking of our external man without resistance on our behalf. Thus the time that this process will take will be only that which is strictly necessary. But if we don't consecrate ourselves to the Lord or if it is not absolute, we won't only delay the process unnecessarily, but rather our relationship with the Lord will be full of arguments and complaints against him, and it won't be surprising if we frequently end up doing our own will.