LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Man's Being
An analysis of the composition and function of the parts of man.
Gino Iafrancesco
In Genesis, chapter 1 we see man's mission and in chapter 2 we see his constitution, which depends on the mission. According to man's mission, God does it, and God teaches it. It will be easy to understand what God wants, why He made us as we are.
Genesis 2:7 says: " And Jehovah Elohim formed man, dust of the ground, - that's why it is that natural medicine has such good effects with mud. That part refers to our physical body. "and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." Now that refers to man's spirit. In James it says that the body without the spirit is dead. When the spirit entered into man through is nostrils, then, "Man became a living soul."
When Paul analyzes this passage, he says: "Because we have this treasure in vessels of clay", understanding that man is a vessel; that's why in Romans 9 it speaks of vessels for honour and of others. The word "vessel" indicates the plan of God towards man which is to contain God; because, how will we carry His image and be a channel for His Kingdom and His Dominion, if we don't contain Him? How will we contain Him and reflect Him if we don't have affinity with Him? Man's spirit is kindred with the Spirit of God; they can mix and make a single spirit. That's why it says in 1 Corinthians 6:17: "...he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him." They unite like coffee with milk. Beforehand, the coffee was to one side and the milk on another. Now we are totally in Him and He in us.
The spirit is the Holiest Place of the temple and the soul is the Holy Place, it is the one that has to receive so much information from inside and outside us. God moves in man's spirit, and He tells the soul which understands and interprets it. Because of this, it was in the Holiest Place -where the ark was placed - that bars were placed to mobilize the ark, and the two tips of the bars came out into the Holy Place.
Composition of man's parts
The spirit is the Holiest Place of the human temple, where the Spirit of God dwells, and consists of the following parts: conscience, communion and intuition. Intuition is the perception of God, of His presence, of His voice, of His guidance. Intuition is not merely a rational deduction; it is like a kind of traffic light that inspires our movements.
The soul is the Holy Place in the human temple. It is the seat of the ego, of the mind (reason, memory, concentration), of the will (preference, decision, choice), of the emotions. All this integrates what is called the personality, and it characterizes each human being's individuality; it is what makes us ourselves and not others.
The body is the Atrium in the human temple, and it is the seat of the senses (sight, smell, tact, hearing, pleasure, vestibular [balance] and sensitivity [pain and fatigue]). It is also seat of the different biological apparatuses: bones, muscles, nerves, breathing, digestive, circulatory, endocrine, reproductive.
The temple of God and the Trinity
That breath of life that God blew into man refers to man's spirit, the human spirit. Romans 8:16 says that: "The Spirit himself testifies to our spirit, that we are children of God." That means that man's spirit is created, it is not eternal; it had a beginning in the creation of God. Zechariah 12:1b says that: "Jehovah ...formeth the spirit (ruja) of man inside him." We have a human spirit, human soul and human body; we are a vessel that unites with the Lord and it is in the human spirit that the divine Spirit is received who brings all that belongs to Christ and all that belongs to the Father. The Father comes through the Son.
Jesus says: "My Father did not leave me alone; the One who sent me is with me, and the words that I speak, I don't speak of my own account. The Father who lives in me, He has given me commandment. Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The one who receives me, receives the One who sent me. He who has the son, also has the Father." So the Son doesn't come alone. When we receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit brings the Son. That's why Jesus said: "If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him" (Jn. 14:23). The Father comes with the Son and in the Son, and they come through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit won't speak to us by His own account, but rather he will take that which is of the Son. It is like when we shake a person's hand with glove on; we touch him with the glove, but we also touch him with the hand that is inside the glove. The Son of God has been sowed in us, he grows in us, he is formed in us.
When we are in communion with God, we receive the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, because we are the house of God, and God is Triune; three People in one God. In the essence of God three People subsist, but the essential substance of the three People is the same. Only, it is that the divine essence in the Father subsists as He who is begotten, as He from whom the Spirit proceeds. The same divine essence in the Son subsists as the image of the invisible one. The invisible one is the Father, and the visible one, the image, the splendour, the Word, the agent, is the Son. The divine essence in the Son subsists as begotten by the Father, that's why we speak of the Only-begotten of the Father; but one cannot speak of the only-begotten Father, because nobody engendered the Father, on the other hand the Son was engendered by the Father "You are my Son; today I have begotten you" (Psalms 2:7b).
That same essence subsists in the Holy Spirit as coming from the Father and of the Son, because the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and from the Son; on the other hand the Father doesn't proceed. In procedure He is distinguished from the Spirit, but not in the essence. Three people have the same essence because it is a single God. In the Father subsists engendering and breathing; in the Son begotten-ness and expressing, and in the Spirit proceeding. The essence in God is one alone, but He subsists in three ways and each way has consciousness of Himself and is a Person.
Those three different subsistences from the unique essence, are personal, because each is manifested with personal characteristics and they use the pronoun I/me. The Father tells to the Son: "I have begotten you." The Son tells the Father: "You, oh Father, in me." The Holy Spirit also speaks and says in the first person: "Separate unto me...." That's why that those three different People make a single true God, the Trinity, and can say: "Let us make man... let us descend and let us confuse... who will go for us", etc.
Those three people are inseparable, even co inherent, because one is in the other. The Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father; the Father and the Son come by means of the Spirit to the Church. When the Spirit comes, the Son enters, and when the Son comes, he brings the Father, to express his glory in the Church.
That's why God says: "Let us make man..." with spirit to receive Him, with soul to interpret Him and to represent Him and with body to serve Him. The soul interprets, that's why it says that if someone prays in spirit, his spirit prays, but his mind is without understanding and it is necessary to ask God that the understanding interprets the movements of God in his spirit. The divine life flows from the inner most part to the outer most part; moving from the Lord in your spirit it passes to the understanding, and it is when the soul understands, it sympathizes and decides, and gives the order to the body, and then the body obeys.
The president is the spirit, the soul is the steward, and the body is the servant, the secretary. Although in the natural man things are the other way around: the president is the body, the soul is the slave, and the president has been assassinated; that's why redemption is necessary.
It is necessary to understand that mess which happened in man from the fall. That tripartite man was put by God amid the garden of the Eden. God didn't only make to man with a body, no. God told man: "Of all the trees you can eat." There were fruit-bearing trees to feed the body; but man had a spirit. How will he feed the spirit? The tree of life was amid the garden; and that word life refers to the very life of God, the eternal one. He wants to be man's food; God wants to be digested by man, to saturate him and that he assimilates to God; that's why God is presented as if He were a meal. "He who eats of me will live... take, eat." Men were designed as vessels to contain God, to eat God. Jeremiah says: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them" (Jeremiah 15:16; Revelation 10:9), and it says: "Nutrients", because it is life, it is spirit.
God put the tree of life there, which was not forbidden. There was another tree that was to the side and that represented Satan, acting for himself, independently of God, living for ourselves as if God didn't exist, as if we didn't have anything to do with Him; that was what represented the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the tree of life, represented living for God and that is what He wants us to understand, and that's why He became manifest through His Son - the one who has the Son, has life. Christ is the life, the way and the truth, and the life has light and it illuminates, and the light and the life are the truth, and the truth is eternal; and the life builds the house of God, so that God is manifest in the whole Church.
In Genesis we were mud, but in 1 Corinthians we are already stones, and in Revelation we are already precious stones. Man wants that precious transparentness of the stones; it is in man, that's why man wants to adorn himself with stones, and that is what represents the work of God in us. The house of God should be built with gold, silver and precious stones. This is the divine nature, the Father who is represented in gold; with the redemption whose price is represented with silver, and which symbolizes the Son; and with the precious stones that it is the work of God in men, the Holy Spirit transforming us under pressure, so that the coal becomes a diamond. If right now we are under pressure, understand God. He wants His work to be manifest so that you become beautiful, by the preciousness of the Lord.
In Ephesians 3:14-16, it says: "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in the heavens and on the earth is named, in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man." The apostle Paul, by the Holy Spirit, here presents, in a masterful and synthetic form, the development of the house of God, Christ's body; he shows us a first stage, necessary for the second, then for the third, and then for the fourth. It is the person's experience and of the Church, because the Christian person, daughter of God, is part of the Church. Paul, knowing what God wants and having received from the Father the way He carries out His purpose now with the new man which is the Church, begins to pray for special points, but what Paul wants God to give is not a material thing; that comes as an addition.
He begins to ask for the Church, so that each brother may be strengthened in his Spirit; that of the Lord, in the inner man. These are the priorities of the apostle Paul's intercession. Without strengthening in the inner man, nothing of value is done; all things have to begin with the inner man's strengthening, by the gift of God. Glory is the wonderful expression of God, and those riches of the glory of God, in grace, strengthen our inner man that is the spirit. That is where the work of God begins, from the inner most part toward the outer part. "He who believes in me, from within will flow rivers of living water."
It is necessary to pay a lot of attention to what happens within. We are sometimes so quick and upset, so drawn by the world, by activities, even delights, and we pay very little attention to the very soft but very faithful and true voice of God in the inner man; our being's most intimate part, there in the conscience, in the intuition of the spirit. The true events of spiritual value, the authentic ones, are given first in the inner man's environment, of the spirit; first God has to move in grace, God has to take the initiative and to blow into you.
Job 32:8 says: "there is a spirit which is in man, and the breath (ruja) of the Almighty giveth them understanding." He moves like a soft breeze, like a very fresh inner breeze. Maybe we are accustomed to the psychedelic accelerations of this century, to the agitations of the soul, to the external man's emotions, and we pass by that soft but overwhelming, clear breeze, with direction of God. We don't realize that God sometimes approves, he sometimes applauds, and is sometimes happy, and you know it in the spiritual, but sometimes he is sad; when you are afflicted it is because the Spirit of the Lord is afflicted. Mary says in Luke 1:46-47: "My soul magnifies the Lord; and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour." In the Greek, regarding the soul, it says magnifies in present tense, but regarding the spirit, rejoiced appears in past and that is because things happen in the spirit first, because that's where the traffic light of God is located, which gives a green light or red light; it is sometimes yellow, when God tells us that we must walk slowly, with much care, because this is a holy matter.
You sometimes have freedom, you have life, you have peace, because when the Lord agrees he lets you know via life; the spiritual life is like a kind of lamp of Jehovah; when the lamp is lit dimly, it is necessary to add fuel, then it increases. The Bible says: "And the peace of God rule in your hearts" (Colossians 3:15). It is the peace in the sense of receiving it; it says that if we have the Lord, we are sensitive in the spirit; our spirit is a lamp of God, so when the Lord agrees he lets us know in the spirit, and when he doesn't agree, it is the same. There are occasions in which God wants us to go slowly. We sometimes don't realize our sins that are hidden; perhaps we realize the clear sins; that's why the psalmist, referring to sins, said: "Deliver me of those that are hidden" (Psalms 19:12b), those mysterious disagreements that waltz about in my mind in a natural way.
Work of the spirit
The spirit is the part of man that functions to communicate with God and to behold Him in His different manifestations. It is the part of us where God comes to dwell. Man's spirit has functions different to those of the human soul. The human spirit is the headquarters of the conscience, intuition and communion with God.
a. The conscience, alerts us, tells us what is right and wrong.
b. Intuition or perception, are something different to our feelings (these are in the soul), because it is to perceive more intensely and much deeper within our being. By means of intuition we can perceive the presence of God, the movement of God, His approval or reprehension; it is a kind of traffic light that allows us to feel the opportune approval of God.
c. Communion with God, is the human being's intimate component. It is the part of the spirit by means of which we pray and worship God in spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 6:17 we read: "But he who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit with him." That means that the work of God dispensing Himself to us is first through our spirit, when it operates the regeneration of our spirit; the Spirit of God being made one with our spirit; the divine life uniting with the human spirit; mixed into a single spirit, like the example of the coffee with milk. Then that life goes on manifesting itself in the transformation of the soul and later on and as a consequence, is manifested in the body. Each organ is designed to enter into contact with something. The organ to enter into direct contact with God is the spirit. Romans 8:16 says: "The Spirit himself testifies to our spirit, that we are children of God." This life of God that entered into our spirit, becomes rivers of living water whose end is to run from within toward the outside, transforming all our being, passing first from the spirit to our soul, transforming our character; hence we begin to be renovated and irrigated in a flowing from inside toward the outside, as the Lord Jesus says in John 7:37b-39.
Moving of God in our spirit
God decided to come to dwell in man's spirit, which gives His testimony; the one who receives the testimony of God, has it in himself, in the spirit, in the most intimate part of his being. It is necessary to give due attention to the moving of God in our spirit, because it is there where the government of God is manifested. God gives us signs in our spirit, and it is there where we should distinguish the impulse of God, the restriction of God, the warnings and admonishments of God, the lesson of God.
God told Moses: "Moses, in the Holiest Place of the tabernacle you will put the ark; on the propitiatory and under the wings of the cherubs I will declare myself to you" 1. The Lord declared Himself in the Holiest Place when the blood has been spilled on the propitiatory to cover the sin. Under the wings of the cherubs, so as to not go to any extreme, because God doesn't dwell nor speak in extremes; sometimes we go too far. All of that is a figure of real things. Today the ark, Christ, is in our heart. It is in our spirit where the Spirit of the Lord is, and it is there, where you perceive the presence of God, the hour of God; but if you are in the parties of the agitations of your soul, God passes by and you don't know the day of His visitation, as was the case of Samuel that when the Lord called him, at the beginning he thought that it was Eli.
All those who are guided by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God, who are characterized by the Spirit that has given them new life. In Galatians 4:19, Paul speaks of having childbirth pains, "until Christ is formed in you." Like what happens in woman's pregnancy, in the believers, as a wife of the Lord, there are periods in which Christ is being formed in their inner most parts. At the beginning the women feel a small weight, and we don't always pay attention to that small weight and we risk the creature. If a woman who is pregnant begins to lift heavy things, to go up stairways very quickly, she is putting the baby's life in danger. A haemorrhage can occur and an abortion. There are even women who didn't know that they were pregnant until they lost the child. There are people that offend the Lord without realizing it. They already had the Lord living inside, yes, but because they didn't feel it because they were very accustomed to the psychedelic acceleration of the soul. They didn't pay attention to that intimate and deep movement of the Spirit, to that kick. Sometimes you say that the Lord Jesus shivered and the Spirit moved in your heart, but actually it moved in your spirit first.
Beloved, do you want to be in the Kingdom of God? Do you want the Lord to govern in your spirits? Don't make yourselves men's slaves; you are freemen of Christ, but he must govern you in the Spirit. You have to know the Lord in gentleness, faithful to him, without having fear of man; otherwise, you are not a servant of Christ. If we try to please men, we are not servants of Christ. We have first to please the Lord in spirit, to be loyal to him. How often we have excitedly looked here and there, and there and here, but the Lord is in those that have sought after Christ, the sons of God who received Christ. It is not necessary for them from the outside to tell you.
Pay attention to your inner man, so you may know where God moves. Then you will know peace, then that is when you will take on his yoke, and that is what: "Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow me" (Matt. 16:24) means. How will you follow Him if you don't know where He goes? But those who know him, know where He goes, because He says: The Father loves the son and shows him the things he does, so that the son does them, and the Father says: "To him who loves me, I will also manifest myself and I will give him understanding about what I am doing, so that he may do it together with me."
Don't be deceived by external appearances; know the glory of the Lord, know the situations, know the people, know the brothers and sisters. The spiritual one judges all things, the spiritual vision in the Church; exercising their spirit, their inner man. Nicodemus didn't understand Jesus. "What is that that you speak? What is that of being born again, how is that, should I maybe enter again into my mother's womb? I don't understand, that is very complicated." Jesus tells him: "Thou art the teacher of Israel and knowest not these things! Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that which we know, and we bear witness of that which we have seen, and ye receive not our witness." (John chapter 3).
Man's being and his relationship with God
We should pay permanent attention to our spirit, to what it testifies, because that's where the narrow path of the Kingdom of God is, where one has to deny his own interests, when the Spirit doesn't like something. It is necessary to humble yourself, repent, admit that that is happening in your life, and to say: "Lord, if there is something that I don't understand which remains hidden, examine me, oh God, in your light; You are the light." But if you don't ask him, he will act as though he were going to pass you by, and you would miss His visitation. You have to invite Him, you have to consecrate yourself so that He reigns over you; otherwise He allows you to go where you want. But if you decide to deny yourself and to continue with him, in your spirit you will know where you are going. It is necessary for the inner man to be strengthened by the Spirit; be made sensitive, that this thick layer which stops us perceiving be broken, as the Lord says: "for the heart of this people has grown fat, and they have heard heavily with their ears, and they have closed their eyes as asleep, lest they should see with the eyes, and hear with the ears, and understand with the heart."
Take care not to offer your burnt offerings just anywhere, but in the place that God chooses, there you must go, and that place is Christ in the spirit, and Christ's Body; that is the unique sanctuary of God, where we all reach spiritual unity and in legitimate inner coordination, under the true government of the Spirit of God. God have mercy on us and grant us to walk with him along the narrow path which is the legitimate one, Jesus Christ.
Extracts of messages imparted in Teusaquillo and Fontibón, Colombia.