The spirit man : or, the hidden man of the heart ; a work on pneumatology and psychology, showing the Biblical distinctions between the soul and the spirit of man, and the harmony of these with the objective and the subjective man of science

Front matter

OR

The Hidden Man o f the Heart

J. H. ALLEN liIiMlIil j Book A*? )^)

Dedication

This book is dedicated in love and faith to the earthly and the heavenly seed of Abraham. That is to the natural seed and to those who are the children of Abraham by faith.

The Author.

Table Of Contents

Preface

In the preface to my book on the sceptre and the birthright promises made to Abraham, I told my readers that while in that book I had dealt exclusively with the promises that concerned the earthly things, and had emphasized the words of Jesus when he said: "If ye have not believed Moses when he told you of earthly things how can ye believe me when I tell you of heavenly things." But that if I were permitted to write another book, I would write on the heavenly things of the divine word*

This present work is in partial fulfillment of that promise, but it is by no means what I intended it to be at the time of my promise. For since then, the precious Lord has permitted me to be greatly afflicted and become a partaker of the fellowship of his suffering, of which I never dreamed at that time.

It was but a short time after the completion of Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright that I met with the fearful accident in which my right hip and foot were broken and the hip dislocated, and which has made me a helpless cripple for life. The hip being still dislocated, and the break not having grown solidly together, — only fiberously.

The first five days after the accident the suffering was so great that my moans were heard two blocks away. After which time the Lord heard and answered prayer for the easing of those torturous pains; for which I praise Him yet!

After I was fixed up according to modern methods, I lay for six months and one day before I was even turned over on my side. During which time, and for years after, I suffered untold agony from cramps, because I could not move or get out of bed so as to kick them out. But, praise the Lord, after thirteen years these cramps are gradually ceasing, and I can rest in bed with comfort.

During these years I have been kept from murmuring, and have said all along, and still continue to say: "Thy will be done." Read Col. 1 :24. It may be that the Lord will let you see what a great blessing has been mine.

This book is better because of my suffering. In fact, it has been born out of this season of fellowship with my Lord in His suffering. For it has taken me out of evangelistic and other more active gospel work.

Without doubt, the heavenly things of God are the things of the Spirit, and the unction of the Holy Spirit has been consciously upon me as the Spirit

Himself has illuminated these heavenly things to my spirit being.

Dear reader, we pray that this same divine unction may be upon you while you look into these precious things. To the doubting one, we ask: What good, what joy, what comfort, what help, or what knowledge could there be in the fact of man's possibility to know the mind of the Spirit, to live in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, to have the illumination of the Spirit, to know the law of the Spirit, to have the witness of the Spirit, and to be filled with the Spirit, if man had no spirit nature in himself whereby he might be made conscious of all these blessed and heavenly things.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.

THE AUTHOR.

"Whose adorning (Koafios=Cosmos ; zvorld) — i.e., whose world, * * let it

be THE HIDDEN MAN of the HEART."

1st Pet 3:4.

"For as he (a man) thinketh in his heart, so is he." Prov. 23:7.

"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Rom. 10:10.

DEDUCTION The thinking, believing, mentality of the Sub, the under, the covered, the hidden man of the heart, is that of intuition, perception, or discernment, i.e., spiritual discernment, or discernment by spirit.

Chapter I. Man's Future Possibilities — Introductory

In any part of this universe, indeed, in any part of any of the multi-universes of God, an intelligent and loving personality is the crowning act and fact of creation. Such creations, universally speaking, vary greatly in importance, rank and power. The generic or general class names, as given in the Bible, to some of these classified orders of beings who are thus crowned with the glory of mentality and affection, are thrones, dominions, principalities and powers ; while the contrastive names are those of men and angels. The former of which is applied to those who inhabit this earth, while the latter is applied to those whose habitation is in some other part of the universal heavens ; either of which may have fallen or may have kept their first estate.

It is also true that each individual in any one specific class or order of these exalted beings varies, at least in some respects, and often in many respects, from others of his own order. Man, who is one class of these varied and various orders of creation, has some interests that are not of the earth earthly ; in fact, his greatest interests are not of this world. Hence, he is a universal character; is of universal interest, concern and importance ; and is akin to all the creatures of God who have the distinctive and crowning glories of intelligence and love.

Now and then it is said of a man that he is greater than his kind, but of course, this cannot be true. Yet it often occurs with a man as it has with the blossoms of Luther Burbank's mammoth or Shasta daisy, which have been made to measure four and five inches in diameter, while the average size of its fellow species is only one inch in diameter. This great difference in individual specimens of the same species, be it either in a man or in a plant, is due to hereditary or progenital character, culture and environment. All of which goes to show the rich and marvelous possibilities of either species when subjected to the best possible conditions. Consequently, among the numerous and various specimens of the genus called man, as well as among those of plants, we occasionally find one that becomes not only an ornament to his kind but a marvel to the rest of his fellows. Consequently his life becomes an inspiration that marks the dawn of a new and uplifting era for the generations which follow, because he has reached a climax of physical strength and development, of mental and psychic power and greatness, or of spiritual efficiency and worth that has enabled him to liberate himself and others from the physically degenerating, the psychically paralyzing, or the spiritually darkening bondage of some former ignorance, inability, or hitherto supposed impossibility.

These greater sons of man have always been highly honored by their kind, and by many of them, especially the less enlightened ones, these have ever been deified ; for ignoranc and superstition are ever ready to bring garlands and oxen, to offer up sacrifice to the best of their kind, and to cry out: "The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men."

While it is true, on the one hand, that some men are thus superabundantly supplied either with super-human power to be unusually useful, or the illumination to accomplish great and hitherto unheard of things, or the grace to live such pure, victorious and uplifting lives that they have been at once a great benefit and a great blessing to their kind ; it is also true on the other hand, that there are others of this very same species whose sensuousness has compelled their ethical being to take the downward trend until they have become so completely degenerated that they have crushed out that inherent good, better, or best, which was theirs by right of birth, and which could have been fostered until it begat within them aspirations so pure, lofty and upreaching that they could have reached out and up after the highest and best conditions attainable to the sons of men. But the loss of this inherent good makes them as "Trees whose fruit withereth," whose degeneracy sinks them to the level of the "Natural brute beast." In comparison to whom the "Man with the hoe" is an exalted and princely son of honest toil, for his degeneracy is depicted as the patient plodding stupidity of the ox, and is revealed chiefly in his lack of a strong mentality. But these moral degenerates are "spots" even in the feasts of human love, and "Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame," until they become an absolute curse to their kind.

But the fact and the possibility of moral degeneracy is not confined to man alone, for we have a divine record that tells of certain angels who kept not their first estate, and who in consequence, are reserved in everlasting chains of darkness.

Furthermore, the name archangel is that which is given to the highest order of angelic personalities ; and that same record tells of one of this highest order, whose individual name, originally, was Lucifer or Day Star, that "He abode not in the truth." Hence, it is clear, that this stupendous question of sin, sinfulness and its consequent unholiness, together with that of moral worth and spiritual integrity, instead of being confined to this one little world; which, comparatively speaking, is but a mere speck in the immense vastness of celestial space, has affected other parts of the universe of universes, or, as it is designated in the divine record, "The heaven of heavens." Consequently, when the great universal settling time comes, it is declared that Christ will reconcile all things unto Himself, whether they be things on earth or in the heavens ; and that He shall eventually gather together all things that are in Him, "both, which are in heaven (Gr. the heavens), and which are on the earth."

But it is a fact that degeneracy of moral character, be it in men, in angels, or in archangels, can be accomplished only by the degredation of the highest possible good, better or best of which their class is capable.

Although man does not at present rank among the highest order of universal personalities, those of him who have not gone too far down the road that ends in the natural brute beast can no more keep their thoughts, desires, ambitions, and aspirations always turned contentedly and satisfactorily toward the earth; nor can they hinder them from occasionally reaching out into the universe after something, nameless though it be, which they miss here and hope to find there, than they could have prevented their own existence. For the desire is in them, and, even where the hope, seemingly, has not been divinely fostered — those whose natures are yet fine enough to protest against the encroachments of evil around them and strong enough to protest against being made the victims of its degredation and finality, seem intuitively to feel that all of their kind who will take the upward and holy way may yet have the opportunity to stand heart to heart, knowledge to knowledge, possibility to possibility, and glory to glory with the highest and best of God's created intelligences.

Some reasons for this out-reaching desire in mankind are : that he finds certain possibilities in his inner man for which he finds no possible completing ones. That is, he finds certain negative elements within himself, for which he finds no positive ones. For while he has been looking into the innermost recesses of human nature to find, if possible, the answering chords that would or could vibrate to the touch of those which he knows would bring out the sweetest music of his being, he has found his brother seemingly void of the complementaries that could thus fill out and complete his richest possibilities. Hence, there comes that unutterable longing, either for a change in himself and in his kind that shall supply those lacking attributes, or that shall place him in contact with another and higher order of beings, whose superiority of parts, state and action ; whose substance, quality and posture or relative position; whose mental, affectional and ethical nature shall be sufficient to satisfy the fullness of him. Hence the universal query and quest of an aspiring and intuitive manhood is: "Where and in whom shall I find those positive elements that shall correspond to these out-reaching, unsatisfied, unused and instinctive elements of my own being ; for which, in the present condition of my kind I find no satisfying and harmonious fullness?"

To show that some such query and hope as this is of universal concept, especially among those who have sought to foster the best that was in them — even by those who have had no knowledge of God's word, as well as by those who having a knowledge of that word have not accepted it as Divine — we give the following excerpt from the address of Dr. Philip S. Moxom before the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893 : 'That an idea is universal at some particular period of time is not necessarily evidence of its truth. Xor is even antiquity a guaranty of truth. * * * But when an idea, and an idea of such significance and seriousness as the idea of immortality, is not only universal, but also coexistent with the entire ascertainable history of the race, when that idea gathers strength and clearness and elevation with the progress of mankind, and when that idea is, in part at least the expression of an aspiration as well as an instinct or intuition, and works as an ennobling energy upon the springs of motive and purpose, allying itself with all that is loftiest and purest in human feeling and hope and endeavor, then its universality takes on a very high evidential value."

Now, the argument of science in general is, that the law of the uniform constancy of nature demands of every faculty of the human mind at some stage of its existence the performance of every normal function. And Thompson Jay Hudson in his " Scientific Demonstration of the Future Life/ 5 on pages 259-278, has shown that some faculties of the mind perform no normal function in this life. Therefore, the inevitable conclusion is that some faculties of the human mind must perform their office, function or duty, in another life.

Again r Dr. John Fiske, scientist and evolutionist, in his "Through Nature to God," says: "So far as our knowledge of Nature goes the whole momentum of it carries us onward to the conclusion that the Unseen World * * * has a real existence ; and it is but following out the analogy to regard that Unseen World as the theater where the ethical process is destined to reach its full consummation. The lesson of evolution is that through all these weary ages the Human Soul (he should have said the Human Spirit) * * * has been rising to the recognition of its essential kinship with the everliving God."

Furthermore, while discussing the relation of what scientists call the cosmic and the ethical processes, Dr. Fiske says : "Again, the ethical process is not only part and parcel of the cosmic process, but it is its crown and consummation. Toward the spiritual perfection of humanity the stupendous momentum of the cosmic process has been tending. That spiritual perfection is the true goal of evolution, the divine end that was involved in the beginning, there can be no question. When Huxley asks us to believe that 'the cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends,' I feel like replying with the question, 'Does not the cosmic process exist purely for the sake of moral ends ?' "

Plato, the celebrated Grecian philosopher, who never heard the Hebrew prophets, and who lived centuries before that one came who "spoke as never man spake," found in man's inherent nature something that was the cause of his becoming the founder of the human theory of the "Natural Immortality of the Human Soul." While Emmanuel Kant, a celebrated German philosopher, in his "Critique of Practical Reason," makes human immortality a postulate, i. e., that which cannot be proved, but can be assumed without proof — a self-evident truth ; and yet, he finds in duty that which he calls, "The Divine order of life and the pledge of its immortality."

Another writer, Dr. George A. Gordon, while commenting on that admission of Kant's (Kant was a skeptic on the divinity of the Bible) says : "Kant's thought of the requirement of moral law upon men was of a categorical imperative/' i. e., an unconditional demand of the conscience. Hence, he (Gordon) further says : "That demand is the most reasonable thing in a man's life, the most authoritative, the most sublime. It must be confessed and revered, and if man would have any worth, it must be obeyed ; but inasmuch as it asks for a form of being unattainable in time, it bids him claim the eternal world as his home."

Thus, we see that men — God or no God, Bible or no

Bible — cannot let the subject of an eternal future life alone ; that its very possibility causes them to think and search, question and hope, theorize and dogmatize, speculate and dream over it ; that the consensus of their opinion is that that unseen world and unknown life must be in every respect greater, richer, and holier than this world and this life ; and that the great fact of an ethical demand upon men, the ever present fact of law, law, law — law at every turn — to control their moral actions, together with the ever conscious fact that their own consciences hold them responsible to another and higher personality, are claimed to be the unanswerable arguments for another, a better and an eternal world.

Now, if these things be true, then in the universally admitted fact that the voice of conscience always pleads for that other and higher person, and that it always takes sides against the man in favor of that other and holier authority, we have unimpeachable evidence that man has in his own composite nature an element that voices the will and law of that Supreme One whose will is law in that other and superior world.

Emerson says: "An individual man is a fruit that cost all the foregoing ages to form and to ripen. He is strong, not to do but to live ; not in his arms, but in his heart ; not as an agent, but as a fact." And he thus addresses him : "O rich and various man ! thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night, and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain the geometry of the city of God; in thy heart the power of love, and the realm of right and wrong.''

These words have been quoted by many writers, who together with the great majority of those who have read them, have ever regarded them not only as a great compliment to man but as an expression of the highest ideal of his nature and possibilities. Consequently, they have been of great help, consolation, encouragement, and also the cause of uplifting aspirations to many. By some they have even been thought to contain a broaden grander and loftier conception of man than anything of like character to be found in the Bible. But, concerning man. a divinely inspired writer has said : "When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars ; what is man that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that Thou visitest him? For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands ; Thou hast put all things under his feet." Psa. 8:3-6.

Here is a compliment to. an ideal of, and a destiny for man; the universal and eternal fullness of which neither Emerson nor any other mortal spread-eagle could have ever dreamed. For, in this epitome of God's original and eternal purpose it is affirmed, that man holds a place in the mind, in the recognition, or in the remembrance of God; or, as the original words imply, he is marked for great things in the plan of God ; that he is visited and cared for with loving and friendly intent by the all creating, all-sustaining, all perfect and most holy God, whose characteristic name is Love ; that he is, in his present classified order, a little lower than the angels; that he is crowned with glory and honor; that he is given dominion — he is a king, a ruler — over the works of God ; and that ultimately all things are to be put under his feet. Surely an artist has the right to say what is his masterpiece. Evidently, man is the masterpiece of the Divine One. We have said ultimately, because it is written: "We see not YET all things put under him."

The penalty of man's sin is death. The inevitable consequence of which is the loss of all the promised glory and honor, the dominion over God's works, and the right not only of some day ranking with the highest and best in all the universe of God, but of having all things under his feet. But there is redemption from deatrr, and all this consequent loss ; for Jesus Christ the Son of God, the first born of every creature, the beginning of the creation of God, has taken upon himself the nature and the order of man a little lower than the angels — and, as the second Adam, has suffered the death penalty, won the glory and honor, and shall yet bring many of the sons of man unto that uttermost glory of eternal kingship and universal supremacy, which is their God-ordained destiny. At which time they, as joint heirs with Christ shall have all things under them in accord with God's eternal purpose. For the Divine plan is still in process of development, and the Divine Man. as the federal head of a new humanity, is working out the eternal and glorious destiny of his KIND. In which the first Adam failed, and which can now be accomplished only through Him who is now made a quickening Spirit : and who because He. as such, can unite Himself to the individual spirit of man.

Chapter II. The Trinity Of Man

Human philosophy has always regarded man as a dual or double natured being, but the teaching of the Bible — hence, the teaching of God, who knows the man He made — is that he is a trinity or triune being whose composite parts are a body, a soul and a spirit. Indeed, man never could have known that he is anything but a dual being, unless he had received a revelation from one whose composite nature is of that same substance or element in him that he, unaided, could not have discovered, defined, or understood — spirit.

Hence, under the inspiration of divine revelation, Paul, while writing to the church of Jesus Christ at Thessalonica, used the following specific terms : "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1. Thess. 5 :23.

Just here, we hasten to say, that we fully recognize and admit the fact, that each of these three terms, body, soul and spirit, which the apostle has used so specifically to designate the several parts of man's composite being, are sometimes separately used to designate man in his entirety or as a whole. And, since there are some who deny this, we herewith give examples wherein each of these three terms are so used :

"If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness." Matt. 6 :22.

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers." Rom. 13:1.

"And every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water." Eze. 21 :7.

Now, all can see at a glance, that in these texts each of these three terms — body, soul and spirit — is so used as to designate every person under consideration ; and that in the last one, the words heart, hands, spirit and knees, are each used to indicate every person in the company of which the prophet was writing; and yet, no one is foolish enough to contend that all there is even in a man's body is either his hands, his knees or his heart. Neither will any Scripturally enlightened person contend that all there is in the composite nature of a man is either his body or his soul or his spirit.

Now, the facts, as revealed by the apostle's prayer for the church at Thessalonica, are : that he is praying for a company or community of men and women, and that he was burdened for each person in that company. Which burden was, that each or every one of them in his or her entirety should be sanctified, i. e., that, all of that which entered into the composition of each individual member of that company should be in the condition for which the apostle prayed. For, after mentioning that which involved the entire sanctity of each member of that body ecclesiastic, he then proceeded to enumerate the composite parts of each separate and individual unit of which the collective body was composed, and specified these several parts as body, soul, and spirit.

Some of our modern scribes object to this view of the apostolic prayer and we have before us the writings of one who says : "The terms body and soul and spirit may be used of the church collectively. For instance, the apostle says: T pray God (that) your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' 1 Thess. 5 :23. This prayer must be understood to apply to the church as a whole — the elect church whose names are written in heaven. In no other way could we apply the apostle's words."

Now, if we admit that these terms, body, soul, and spirit, are applied only to the church collectively, the facts remain absolutely unchanged. Because it is utterly impossible for a church, which is made up of a collection of human beings, to be wholly sanctified, to be entirely sanctified, to be sanctified as a whole, unless each individual belonging to that collective whole is thus sanctified. Indeed, there is no church, there never has been a church, there never will be a church, there never can be a church, independent of the individuals of whom it is composed. In fact, the only way a church can have either a soul, a spirit, or a body, is because that of which it is composed is the species known as man ; each of whom has a spirit, a soul and a body. Hence it is clear that the apostle recognized the fact that the men and women, for whom he prayed and to whom he wrote, had a tri-part, triune, or tripartite nature. Whereas, the common error that is being constantly and persistently foisted upon the Christian world, is that the composite nature of man is only dual or double. That too, by the teachers of Christendom whom, instead of following the light of the Divine Word, are following the philosophical school of Plato ; who never heard the prophets of God, who did not know God, as God; and who lived and died centuries before the Son of God walked and taught among men.

When these Platonic loving, Holy Spirit ignoring teachers are confronted with this question of the tri-part nature of man by an inquiring laity, as they often are, they simply beg the question by saying that the words soul and spirit have the same meaning, are synonyms, and are used interchangeably in the Bible.

But it shall be our delightful task to show that the terms, body, soul and spirit, are never used interchangeably in the Bible, nor anywhere else intelligently, as the name of any single part, or of individual parts of that component being called man ; and also that when any one of his component parts are spoken of in contrast with another part they are not so used, nor when either of those parts is mentioned in its associate relation, nor when any one of them is being abstractly considered. Hence we consider the following propositions :

1. That the composite nature of man is divisible into three parts.

2. That these three parts are distinguishable in the individual experience and consciousness.

3. That one of these parts, when abstractly considered, is body only.

4. That another part is specifically and exclusively soul.

5. That still another part is distinctively, and in contra-distinction to the other two parts, nothing but spirit.

We realize, however, that our chief task will be to prove and maintain the last two of these propositions. For if these can be sustained the others will fall into line as a natural sequence. Hence, we turn at once to that which Christianity must ever recognize as absolute authority on the subject — the revealed Word of God, wherein we find the following: