In assessing the many aspects of the body of Christ, the thing that stands out to me is that we have a personal responsibility to the body. We cannot sidestep that. We could summarize that responsibility as: “But the manifestation of the Spirit (or the fruit or the expression of the Spirit) is given to each one for the profit of all:” (1 Corinthians 12:7).
To be able to express the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), obviously one must first have it. This is where our individual responsibility comes into play. An important principle is reiterated in Ezekiel 14:
“The word of the LORD came again to me, saying: ‘Son of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it. Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness,’ says the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 14:12-14).
This supports the concept of the individual responsibility that we all have as followers of Christ. The good news is there are ways to express the fruit of the Spirit for the profit of all. It is about killing the “Old Man” through true genuine repentance: “that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).
Repentance is difficult as a stand-alone process that we all must individually face. But it is made more so by the developing counter-culture environment in which we find ourselves today. So what does repentance mean?
The most common word in the Old Testament which refers to repentance is the word nacham and is mostly used of God: “if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent (in the King James it’s repent) of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it” (Jeremiah 18:8). This is an indication of God’s ability to change His mind based on the response given. If they do change their ways God is prepared to turn His mind around.
The basic idea of changing His mind is to be sorry for the course of action that He had planned to take. And built into this word is the idea of comfort. It introduces us to the idea of change and that God is very responsive to human changing.
When this word repent is used of man, mostly it is the word shub. Nacham and shub, one word for God’s response, another word for human response. This implies that man at some point was in a proper relationship with God but has moved away in that relationship and needs to turn back to that relationship:
God desires . . .”that I may seize the house of Israel by their heart, because they are all estranged from Me by their idols. Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Repent (shub), turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations’ “(Ezekiel 14:5-6). Ezekiel again uses the word shub in Ezekiel 18:30.
God expresses His hope that everyone will change: “Perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, (shub, the human response.) that I may (nacham) relent (or repent) concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings” (Jeremiah 26.3).
So, there are the two concepts, one human and one of God. And if man will shub then God will nacham, God will change His mind. Really, the idea of repentance is a relationship issue, coming back into a relationship with our Creator. The need for repentance is when man is out of sync with God (Ezekiel 18:20-22).
Sin breaks relationships. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). It is something that no human can ignore because “all have sinned.” It’s something for all of us because we still have aspects of that “old man” within us while we remain in the flesh (Ephesians 4:22-24). That is something we deal with all our lives.
This human condition began with Adam and Eve. “Therefore, just as through one man (Adam) sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned — “ (Romans 5:12).
Adam’s sin closed off the tree of life and exposed man to only the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That left man exposed to “the prince of the power of the air” or “the course of this world” as Paul chose to state it. It creates “sons of disobedience” who “by nature are children of wrath,” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Man’s heart took on the evil of Satan’s mind. We didn’t inherit Adam’s penalty however. He sinned. There was a penalty. But through that sin man was cut off from God and therefore exposed to Satan’s mind and we went on to commit all our own sins from that point.
The heart and mind of man are clearly identified in scripture. Christ said : “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:18–19). This is what man has been exposed to through the mind of Satan. We can see more and more of this mindset in the world today. Satan operates through deceit by which he corrupts human mind. Today evil is called good, and good is evil. Interestingly, it was also the mindset in Isaiah’s time (Isaiah 5:20-21).
In Psalms 53 the “Old Man” is described as foolish: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.'” God’s response is expressed through King David: “They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity; There is none who does good. God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. Every one of them has turned aside; They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one” (Psalms 53:1-3).
These are just overall statements of facts that help us understand the natural mind of man. God gave man a spirit to create a mind – a spirit in man (Job 32:8). Satan’s spirit is able to influence that mind, to deceive and in that deception corrupt that mind. Humanity needs the Holy Spirit linked to the spirit in man in order to overcome Satan’s influence. This does require a turning to God through the sacrifice of Christ: “Turn at my rebuke; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you” (Proverbs 1.23).
But sadly, we are watching our nation and many other nations bring destruction down upon their own heads by their own self-centered individualism. The conduct of the leaders of the nations are typically a function of their proud hearts. Pride is like an impregnable shield around the mind that has been corrupted by sin. There is no basic desire in the natural, human mind that wants to change. The human mind prefers to please the self: I can be whatever I want to be, and you had better accept that fact!
The opposite to pride is humility. Humility identifies and dismantles that impregnable shield of pride. Humility is a mental state of mind that will help somebody break through the shield of pride. But first we need to mentally turn good and evil right-side up as God sees it (Psalms 10:3-4).
We need to put God’s thoughts into our minds. Effective repentance requires us to come to know our ‘old man’. When we identify the Old Man within ourselves, God will lift up the humbled mind by granting us repentance. We can then identify characteristics of the old man in ourselves and put them out of our minds and behavior (Ephesians 4:25-34).
We cannot get to the new man unless we do address the old man in personal terms. We must also put off: “. . . all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds,” (Colossians 3:8-9).
We must begin to receive with meekness God’s word and submit to Him. As we resist Satan, he will flee from us (James 1:21; 4:7). Satan will not be able to get at us if we come into that close relationship with God (James 4:8,10).
Understanding the true nature of the natural human mind, what the unconverted human mind is capable of, allows us to fulfill our responsibility to the body of Christ by putting off the old man which will bring us into unity with God the Father and Jesus Christ.
Brian Orchard