Comparing Three Spirits Like Three Russian Dolls

Please read this very carefully. It is all very precise. It's helped me greatly. All of this is for your edification, so read carefully. Watchman Nee clarifies all this very well in The Spiritual Man (CFP white cover).

When God breathed in the breath of life, which directly created man's (Adam's) spirit about six thousand years ago, into the body the soul life was formed so man became a living soul with a spirit and a body. Technically man is not a spirit like the angels, but a living soul with a spirit and body.

When man is born-again, very specifically, his old spirit is quickened with God's life (eternal life) by the power of the Holy Spirit; he is given a new spirit of eternal life. So visualize this. Man's spirit which is permanently existing (we are made in God's image which we can never cease to exist) is given a new spirit which is eternal life. God has eternal life. He gives us His uncreated life. His Holy Spirit has eternal life. Now man who is born-again has eternal life. Now that a born-again man has eternal life, the Holy Spirit enters in through the window of his conscience and seats within the intuition of his spirit to commune with Him Spirit with spirit and permanently resides there. The Spirit of the Father and the Son could not have entered man's spirit unless God first created a proper abode for which to enter which is by giving man a new spirit of His uncreated life or eternal life.

So there is the use of the term spirit which is our innermost man; there is the new spirit of eternal life (the word new spirit here connotes uncreated life-God's life); and there is the Holy Spirit (God's life) Who has uncreated life. The best way I know how to describe is to take those Russian Dolls and the small one is your spirit. Put it inside the another doll which gives it eternal life. This eternal life ultimately comes from God because it is God's very life, so place it in another doll (the largest doll represents the Holy Spirit), because God's Holy Spirit comes to indwell that new life. You can reverse the order if you like if you think in terms of God operating in the smallest scales, so His Spirit is the smallest doll which is put in a larger doll of eternal life then put that doll into a larger doll which is your spirit. Then put your sensitive spirit into the more cumbersome soul like a nut and its shell. Some shells have the nut (spirit), a coating (soul) around the nut, and then the outer shell (body). As you get the basic idea: Holy Spirit covers our small spirit in indwells, or from the perspective small things, the Holy Spirit works in the smallest.

One last clarification. I used the term God's life in two senses. His Holy Spirit and eternal life (or uncreated life). The phrase "God's life" is used in two ways. When it is referring to His Holy Spirit we may say with more clarity "God's Own life". When referring to the life eternal given to man who is saved, take out the word "Own". To distinguish God's eternal life from the eternal life of the saved man, just say: "life of the Holy Spirit" distinguished from "eternal life of the saved man." God's Own life life can also be used in two ways that distinguishes between God's Holy Spirit and the uncreated eternal life of God since it is God's own life. You've always got to be careful in which sense these words are being used.

I know it's tricky, but God leaves no stoned unturned so we have to be very careful handling how He does things. Print this out and meditate on it several times even over several days if you have to and it will all sink in as it did for me.