He That Is Spiritual III

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Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder and first chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary (the largest Protestant seminary on earth) wrote a book in 1918, He That Is Spiritual, to delineate the so-called carnal Christian as contrasted with the so-called spiritual ones. An unbeliever was called the natural man. This dichotomy of believers is unbiblical and misleading. Any Christian can become carnal by sin, and all he needs to do is to confess it per 1 John 1:9--carnality is no perpetual or permanent state. We all live in a state of perpetual and progressive confession and repentance--the unrepentant person is not saved. John says that a Christian doesn't continue in sin, and this means he makes it his way of life, though he may live a defeated life, there is some life to his faith or it is dead faith producing no works, which cannot save.

The whole purpose of faith is to produce the workmanship of God, foreordained by God, that we should walk in it (cf. Eph. 2:10). Spiritual believers are not those who go overboard or are fanatical or so-called Jesus freaks, but those who walk with God in the Spirit. They are realizing their potential of the fruit of the Spirit, and of knowing the Lord. The Christian life that is spiritual is one that enjoys fellowship with God and other believers. All believers are exhorted to read the Bible, witness, and pray; not just the clergy.


The spiritual man has relinquished ownership and the throne of his life to Christ, he has surrendered to the Lordship of Christ, and he lives the substituted or exchanged life with Christ living through him. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (cf. Gal. 2:20). This can only be accomplished by a believer in sync with God's will, and willing to follow Jesus wherever he may lead. The spiritual man has learned the secret of "inhabitation," as opposed to "imitation."

The obedient Christian does these things and the only test of faith is obedience. A. W. Tozer, in I Call it Heresy!, says: "The Lord will not save those whom He cannot command. He will not divide His offices. You cannot believe in a half-Christ. We take Him for what He is --the anointed Saviour and Lord...." We see our faith in action by our good works according to James. Paul would say we see our good works by our faith. They go hand in hand. In other words: As Lutheran martyr, preacher, and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Only he who believes is obedient, only he who is obedient believes." (Note that it was by faith that Abraham obeyed, as written in Heb. 11:8.) The ultimate result is the fruit of a changed life, not an ascetic or mystic one that parades or charades as spiritual.


The spiritual man is appraised of no one, because of the wisdom of God and, if we have the Spirit, we are spiritual. The natural man cannot comprehend spiritual truth, for Satan has blinded his eyes. We need the eyes of our hearts opened to see spiritual truths. Some believers are more mature in the faith and know the Lord better, but all of them are spiritual. There's no class system or caste system in Christianity, we are all brethren and one in Christ. We should not idolize our fellow believers, even if they seem to be spiritual giants. We should never try to give the impression we are more "spiritual" than other believers or have a holier-than-thou attitude. By the same token, we shouldn't be intimidated by others and develop an inferiority complex. Christ's church has no spiritual elite or privileged class, for God is no respecter of persons and shows no partiality (cf. Acts 10:34, Rom. 2:11).

We all have different gifts and we don't have anything the Lord has not given us (cf. 1 Cor. 4:7). It is the Spirit that matters, not the gift that makes us spiritual. In exercising one's gift, what matters is the spirit that he uses it in. Believers have no excuse not to understand Scripture, pray, and witness and should enjoy the fruits of fellowship and worship in the body because they have the illuminating ministry of the Spirit.


We are all works in progress and improving from faith to faith (cf. Rom. 1:17); no one can claim to have "arrived" or to have met the goal and won the prize (cf. Phil. 3:13-14). We are in the process of maturing in Christ, but it is the direction we are going that counts and is the test, while perfection is the standard (cf. Matt. 5:48). We must bear fruit as proof of our faith, or it is bogus--no fruit means no faith, and ergo no salvation. (Jesus said we shall know them by their fruits in Matt. 7:16.) We can only find meaning, purpose, and fulfillment ultimately in Christ: "There is a God-shaped blank, and only God can fill it." (old axiom). Soli Deo Gloria!