Volition and the Spirit of Man

The Volition and Spirit of Man

It is now necessary to see from the Scriptures the true way in which God works in the believer, in contradistinction to the way of Satan and his wicked spirits; for the principle of co-operation with God,note 1 and not passive control by Him, must be fully understood, not only as the basis of deliverance from deception and possession, but also as the basis for the warfare which will be dealt with in our next chapter.

Briefly, it may be said that the Holy Spirit dwelling in the regenerate human spirit, energizes and works through the faculties of the soul and the members of the body, only in and with, the active co-operation of the WILL Of the believer, i.e., God in the spirit of man, does not use the man's hand apart from the "I will use my hand" of the man himself.note 2

CO-OPERATION WITH GOD DOES NOT MEAN AUTOMATIC WORKING

When Paul said, "His working, which worketh in me mightily" (Col. 1: 29), he first said, "I labour according to" His working. The "I labour" did not mean that hands and feet and mind worked automatically in response to a Divine energizing, as the engine works in response to the steam, but at the back of the "I labour" was the full action of Paul's will, saying "I choose to labour," and "as I labour, God's power and energy energizes me in the acting," so that it is "I who live and move and work," and "yet not I, but Christ--the 'Spirit of Christ' in me." (See Gal. 2: 20; Phil. 1: 19).

It was so in the Greater than Paul, Who said, "I came not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me," "The Son can do nothing of Himself," and yet He said also, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." "The works that I do shall ye do also!" He had a separate will, but He came not to do His own will, but the will of the Father, and He was doing the Father's will when He said to the one who sought His healing power, "I WILL, be thou clean!"

Thus it should be in the life of the believer. Granted the essential union of his will with the will of God, and the energizing power of the Holy Spirit, by his own deliberate choice of harmony with that Holy Will, the believer is actively to use his will in ruling himself in spirit, soul and body. God dwelling in his spirit co-working with him through his exercised volition. Jessie-Penn Lewis