Book Four
What Exactly Is Spiritual?
ONE
The Effort to See
An expression of sight. We use it in our communications daily. It is this: “I see.” Our expression is not used to suggest the seeing of physical objects so much as to say ‘I agree’, ‘I know’, ‘I understand’. I have said that knowing can be the same as seeing - seems others have said the same thing. To know (or to see) spiritually, by which I mean ‘mentally’, takes a deliberate effort. One has either wide open spiritual eyes or sleepy little spiritual eyes with heavy lids. People try but a little, then tire; the eyelids droop. They say, “I just don’t see it”. This type is the un-exercised type: soft and flabby, mentally speaking. We seekers, on the other hand, exercise those mental muscles; we stretch our spiritual sinews: we are a buff new breed.
When it comes to the exercise of understanding, it must be said that knowledge is like x-ray vision. Case in point: since we know that our physical world is ‘built’ around function and intent, we may look at the outside of a barn and see the bales of hay stacked behind the walls. In an earlier analogy, I put forth the ‘gloved hand’. Now, obviously, we cannot see the hand for the glove, but, we can see the glove. And what is the glove exactly? It is a thing built around the hand, made to fit the form and function of the hand. The hand is hand-shaped, therefore, the glove is hand-shaped. Though we may not see the hand for the glove, we may know the hand by seeing the glove. Crude work gloves may give but an indication of the underlying hand, while refined silk gloves may give up the added information of a ring on one of the fingers. Then again, a form-fitting pair of surgeons’ gloves can offer the clear imprint of knuckles, creases in the skin, and even manicured fingernails.
It should be no wonder that Christ said, in John 12:45, “He that seeth Me seeth Him that sent Me.”
Look closely, please. Christ said that we can look upon His physical, visible body and see the invisible God inside. Of course, since the physical eye will only see the glove, man must wake up his sleeping spiritual eye. Are you spiritually awake, or spiritually asleep? Are you spiritually (mentally) alert and watchful in regard to higher issues?
See the spiritually asleep in Proverbs 4:19, “The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.”
See the call to be spiritually awake in Mark 13:35-37, “Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.”
The spiritually asleep, mentioned in Mark 13, reference individuals stumbling through life with no regard for higher issues.
A spiritual issue cannot sneak past you unless you are negligent of spiritual issues. Now, the world
is notorious for its gross negligence of things spiritual. They deny the light and stumble in the dark.
They imagine that the things they stumble at are of their choice. But how would they know? They
think they tripped on a rock, when, without light to see by, it could have been God tying their shoelaces together. This is the bottom line: blind ignorance is a rope stretched across every man’s path. One cannot step high enough to avoid it by stepping blindly. The only step that can avoid it is the step of opening one’s spiritual eye to the light.
See another admonition to wakefulness in 1 Thessalonians 5:6, “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”
In this fourth book, I ask, ‘what exactly is spiritual’? I have said that spiritual is mental, but here, we begin with spiritual states as recorded by the early writers of scripture. Spirit has been called many things by many writers. Numerous individual attributes have been ascribed to spirit, and these
individualities are like milling sheep, each one seeking its own mouthful of turf. Here, we will attempt to lead these individualities into the stable, and see if, together, they constitute a flock. We see the ‘generalized’ spirit, and we note the ‘spirit of’. We understand that early writers used the word ‘spirit’ to identify natural and common states of the human condition. Something of the nature of man is also of the nature of spirit.
See Ecclesiastes 2:17, “Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”
Everyone has felt ‘vexed’ at some point in their life. Is this verse in Ecclesiastes an affirmation that every human has a spiritual component? Is that component ‘mental’, as I have asserted?
See the ‘spirit of’ that component in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
The question must be asked, is a ‘sound mind’ a spiritual quality? The effort to know, that is, to see the spiritual, is like knowing the invisible wind by the movement of trees. Sometimes a tree will move but slightly. Other times it is uprooted. Thus, the wind may be ‘seen’ in its levels of strength. Above that, there are levels in the whole spectrum of matter. One may look at the lower level of water, and learn much about the higher level of wind. In man, there are spiritual levels: from the babe to the adept, from the nature of man to the nature of God. Our next reference contrasts the two obvious levels of physical and mental. More important, it shows us which one God prefers.
Romans 2:29, “But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit (that is: the mind), and not in the letter (a set formula); whose praise is not of men, but of God.”
In other words, God respects the inner man of the mind; the true people of God are those who have deliberately cut away the gross caul of worldly thought to reveal the true mind. That newly exposed mind is man’s ‘God-mind’.
See the lower and the higher mind plainly in 1 Corinthians 2:11, “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit (or mind) of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit (or mind) of God.”
Our present topic: mental levels between the mind of man and the mind of God. These two extremes, as our next reference suggests, are like oil and water.
See 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit (or mind) of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (by the mind of God).”
Now, obviously, none of the early writers were experts on the mind of man. Some approached a measure of expertise. The psychiatrists and psychologists of our day and age are no closer. If all modern psychological knowledge is based in the premise of our cognition being the neural firings of a corporeal brain, I must confess that modern professionals are less the experts than early writers. No wonder man has so much trouble approaching God: he has reduced mentality to a formula that he may control. Such an amputated creature will never stand.
But, we can begin to find our legs in Ecclesiastes 11:5, “As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit (mind), even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.”
If we do not understand God, it is that we do not understand the God that is in us. If we act against God, it is that we act against the God that is our own higher nature. The next reference shows Ananias acting against God. Was he acting against the God of other men, or the God that ruled from within?
See the higher quality of man in Acts 5:3-5, “Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.”
We speak of the Holy mind of God. It is an implant, a thing grafted into man. As such, we now have a nature higher than our former selves. The Holy Spirit inside of us gives to us an added dimension. The Holy Spirit of God is now our higher nature. As the ‘children of men’, we have reached a point where the ‘oil and water’ has become ‘milk and honey’ - that we may know the good and avoid the evil. It is only by the ‘God-mind’ that we may know the good and evil.
See Ecclesiastes 9:1, “No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.”
What is before the natural man but the corporeal world? The children of men have received a higher mind, and it is that better nature alone that may justify or condemn a son of man.
See Matthew 12:31, “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.”
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