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About
the Book
Table of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
PartIV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
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Part IV: The Development of Personality:
The Old and the New
Chapter 6
The Nature of Conversion
Structure and Content in Christian
Experience
FROM WHAT HAS
been said about the thoroughly undesirable nature of the subconscious,
which to a large extent seems to be the real man and out of which
it seems only evil can come for the most part, it is not surprising
that the Lord does not seek to reform it. As Paul said, "Therefore
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new"
(2 Corinthians 5:17). Or as Jesus Himself put it, "Ye must
be born again" (John 3:7). Yet while the old self is not
reformed, it is not simply replaced either. It is a common experience
to find that in a subtle but very real way the old personality
does remain. Simply to bypass it, to cast the old self aside
as worthless, would seem to do violence to the soul. Almost every
child of God can look back and see at certain critical points
the hand of the Lord molding him while he was yet unsaved. Then
how do we reconcile our experience with the statement made by
Paul in writing to the Corinthians? In what sense do we not
undergo a complete change? To see this, we must revert to
the circle, the triangle, and the square.
It will be remembered that these
figures were arbitrarily chosen to represent certain personality
structures or types: the circle for the artist, the triangle
for the philosopher, and the square for the practical man. No
psychologist with a reputation for competence would dare to simplify
the situations as is done here. Almost every aid to understanding
can also be an aid to misunderstanding. There are not just three
"kinds" of people. The choice of three and the selection
of artist, philosopher, and mechanic is for convenience only.
For example, some have a marked capacity for memorization, and
they learn languages well. There are extroverts and introverts,
both it seems by heredity. These remarks are merely to underline
the fact that the shapes used are quite arbitrary, but do stand
for something that is evidently real and can be clearly defined.
As we have seen, these aspects of personality are hereditarily
determined, a man is an artist because he was born
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an artist, and though
training may make him a better artist, the temperament must be
innate to respond to the training. These personality structures
are revealed by projection techniques.
The structure is non-moral, being
in itself neither good nor bad, but capable of being turned to
serve either good or bad ends. In Scripture this is referred
to by the term "Vessel" and as such its shape is by
God's appointment. There are vessels of honour and vessels of
dishonour, but in itself this brings neither praise nor blame.
Every house must have both types of vessel, yet a beautiful vessel
may be degraded completely by its contents when it is made to
serve the wrong purpose. The content of a vessel shares something
of the vessel itself and communicates something of its own nature
to the container: and yet for all this the two are clearly separable.
This simple observation is important for what follows. The content
is the moral aspect of man's nature, and without becoming involved
in the eternal problem of the body-soul relationship it is clear
that such a relationship does in fact exist in some form. In
the previous chapter we showed that the content filled the vessel
and took its shape. And when that content is bad, a vessel of
honour may be put to dishonourable use. In Scripture the content
is represented by some form of the word "Filling."
This filling is completely changed, but because it is poured
into the old vessel which is retained, it assumes a form which
does not break the continuity of personality or ignore the stature
which a man has already achieved. As Dan Crawford put it, (48) looking back after 22
years without a break in Central Africa, "With the converted
African, Christ's mercy, like the water in a vase, takes the
shape of the vessel that holds it." Culturally the African
Christian is still an African as the Hebrew Christian is still
a Hebrew. We must then suppose that in some way God is able to
put something entirely new into each man which is completely
suited to a part of his personality that He has no intention
of destroying.
It is not too difficult to see
how this can be. Scripture makes it clear that we are all derived
ultimately from Adam. So it must be assumed that the potential
for the structure of every man's personality existed in the first
man, and has since been divided by inheritance, fragmented, or
distributed by natural means so that each one of us individually
has an appropriate portion and all of us together have the whole
of Adam's potentiality. In Adam was the artist, the philosopher,
the mechanic: the circle, the triangle and the square. Augustine
taught that human nature in its totality was present seminally
in the first man. (49)
48. Crawford, Dan, Thinking Black,
Morgan Scott, London, 1914, p.484.
49. Neve, J. L., History of Christian Thought, vol.1,
Muhlenberg Press, Philadelphia, 1946, p.144.
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In
the Lord Jesus Christ were gathered together once more all the
potentialities of Adam. Is it any wonder, then, that He can distribute
some perfect fragment of His personality to fit appropriately
into the circle or triangle or square, that is each one of us?
When the Lord became man, He passed through all the stages from
babyhood to manhood creating a perfect personality for each age
as He lived through it. But because He was more than man, God
made man, He summed up completely in Himself the total potential
of human personality -- not merely young and old, but male and
female, black and white, ancient and modern, artist, philosopher,
and especially mechanic -- carpenter. This same Lord is the seed
who is implanted in the believer when he is born again. This
thought is expressed in the ancient Christmas carol which has
the words, "Be born in us today." He is implanted as
a child in the child, a youth in the youth, a man in the man,
a woman in the woman, an artist in the artist, and a philosopher
in the philosopher.
Do not misunderstand, because this
can be dangerously misunderstood. A series of diagrams extending
the use of the circle, triangle, and square will, I think, help
to make clear what is taking place. There is abundant Scriptural
support for this approach. We have three structures:
The content
fills the structure and gives it its moral significance. At a
very deep level, it is morally bad, destructive of self and of
society, and restrained only by cultural influences.
Into this total personality God
implants a seed which is perfect and completely appropriate in
form:
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This seed has
immense vitality and will grow at the expense of the old content
in so far as we allow it to do so
The difference
in size of these seeds is intended to show that the growth of
each Christian personality does not proceed at the same rate.
Whatever the rate of growth, this new man is no less than the
Lord Jesus Christ reincarnate, but reincarnate in such a form
that the new personality displaces the old personality by growing
at its expense, yet thereby maintaining continuity of soul. One
still recognizes John the literary artist, or Thomas the doubting
philosopher, or Peter the practical man. We shall return to these
three men later.
On the other hand, what now lies
outside the growing seed has no part in the new person in so
far as God is concerned. It does not grow by absorption, but
by displacement of the old. It is like a perfect flower planted
in a bed of weeds. Our job is to clear the weeds so that the
flower may grow. The flower is entirely a work of God. The area
of weeds is the old nature and as its outer margins were determined
at birth, so will they disappear with death. And at the same
time, in the disappearance will be spilled out all of the content
which was not enclosed in the new man. Conceive of the outer
lines being removed altogether, leaving only that which is of
the Lord. Thus:
It is this which
God looks upon as the real "us." But we may go several
steps further. It not infrequently happens that when a man becomes
a
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Christian, his old talents
and capacities are suddenly enlarged. We would have new diagrams:
One of two things
may result: the Lord may grow to larger size, or the individual
may end up with a larger proportion of unredeemed old nature
than he had before. This is the tragedy of some converts who
have been advanced too rapidly in the assumption of responsibility.
If we carry this to its logical
conclusion, two things become apparent. The first is that if
the solid figure should ever completely fill the structure in
which it is born, that soul would have apprehended his apprehension
(Philipppians 3 :12). The second point is that if all these little
seed figures (the dark areas within) are extracted and put together,
they would be found to fit like the segments of a jigsaw puzzle,
like the cells of a body, like the stones of a great temple.
It is as though some great Architect who understood His task
perfectly had predetermined their shape and form and character,
so as to guarantee that the final building would be exactly as
He planned it should be.
The Vessel and the Filling According
to Scripture
It occurs to
each of us sometimes, I'm sure, that the part we play as members
of the Body of Christ is very, very, small. Even in Paul's time
there were evidently many people who felt like this. But it is
surely comforting to recall what Paul said about it. Using the
analogy of a living body, he pointed out that we could not all
be hands, tongues, or eyes. "But," he said, "God
hath set every one individually in the body as it hath pleased
Him" (see 1 Corinthians 12:18).
Now cells are differentiated not
because they want to be, but because it is predetermined for
them what part they shall play, what form they shall take, what
structure they shall have when they reach maturity. And though
it might be thought that many of them could be dispensed with,
it seems highly probable -- certainly in the Body of Christ --
that not one is expendable. The cells are different, the differences
are predetermined, and the predetermination is God's. The structural
aspect of the new personality must be considered in the same
light. Scripture refers to this differentiation by saying that
in a
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great house there are
vessels of gold and silver, and wood and pottery (2 Timothy 2:20).
As with the materials, so with the shapes: one shape differs
from another. And as with their shapes, so with their uses: some
being more distinguished (more honourable) than others (Romans
9:21). Note in this passage that it is of "the same lump":
that is to say, God is here dealing simply with the stuff of
heredity. Moreover, in the previous verse it is made clear that
this is entirely of God's responsibility. Verse 20 reads, "Shall
the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made
me thus?" The kind of vessel that we are is of God's choosing.
These distinctions are foreordained to guarantee that the Body
will at all times be functionally complete.
It must be apparent that any reference
to functional form will involve pre-ordained duties. This is
explicitly stated. Paul says, "Ye are God's workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before
ordained that ye should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).
This means that the labour any child of God performs as a direct
contribution to the functioning of the Body as a whole is not
necessarily related to his moral stature. This is the
functioning of a cell fulfilling an appointed task for which
God has seen to it that heredity provided the requisite structure.
In the last section of this Paper we shall see how completely
consistent Scripture is with itself in the relationship between
the moral aspect of behaviour and the functional aspect. This
helps to explain why a Christian whose life is far from what
it should be, may nevertheless be exceedingly active in the Lord's
work with every evidence of success: while some other dear saint
of God whose character is pure and sweet, may appear to be playing
a very insignificant part in the work of God.
In all of this, we are speaking
specifically of the work which the individual is equipped to
perform and not of the spirit in which he performs it. This is
an important distinction because it raises the question of whether
we should not perhaps after all accept as part of God's plan
the contribution which a man can make, even when his life is
not lived according to the standards we think are proper. A highly
successful business man, whose innate capacity for making a success
in business, may be able to contribute much to missionary work
in a financial way. Yet among his business associates he is considered
as crooked as a dog's hind leg. His innate capacity may be quite
distinct from his own personal standards of morality. Although
it is never right or possible to separate these altogether, it
seems quite proper for those missionary boards which accept his
contribution, to do so as from the Lord. For in spite of himself,
this man gives them these gifts as unto the Lord, even though
he refuses to acknowledge other financial
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obligations in his business
dealings. This might be an exceptional case, but I think it illustrates
an important point. If God has given to one of His children a
special capacity, do we have any right to deny to that individual
the exercise of that capacity? Should we not rather permit God
to indicate His pleasure or displeasure in His own way, by either
withdrawing the capacity (as He did from Nebuchadnezzar) (50) or prospering it? Yet
this is a difficult question.
Using the analogy of the body,
Paul speaks of the cells as being fitly joined, compacted together,
and growing (Ephesians 4:16). This growing structure, by a change
of analogy, is likened to a building taking shape as a habitation
for God. And here the phrase is not "fitly joined,"
but "fitly framed," and the elements are now likened
to stones (Ephesians 2:20-22). Thus the Body becomes a Temple.
The stones for the temple which Solomon built were brought to
the site already shaped and carved, to be fitted silently into
place (1 Kings 5:17; 1 Kings 6:7). But these stones are "living"
stones (1 Peter 2:5) for the building of a spiritual house. This
building is therefore God's building, not ours (1 Corinthians
3:9). Or, as Paul put it to the Corinthians subsequently, "Now
he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also
hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit" (2 Corinthians
5:5). Although some people have interpreted the passage in an
evolutionary sense, there could be a reference to God's secret
carving of these stones in Psalm 139:15, 16. This much seems
clear, however, that for the cell to take its proper place in
the body, the stone in the building, or the vessel in the house,
forethought and deliberate planning must have been involved.
Those aspects of personality which qualify it to fulfill its
role as represented symbolically by the use of these three terms
are predetermined; they remain through the experience of conversion.
The structure of the old personality is the structure of the
new.
And what about the filling, the
new content, which God introduces at the time of regeneration
into the heart of each individual? Like the precious ointment
in Mary's alabaster vase, we also have a treasure in these earthen
vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7). The treasure is the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is by Him that we are "filled with the fruits of righteousness"
(Philippians 1:11) and therefore filled "with all joy and
peace in believing" (Romans 15:13). In Ephesians 3:19 Paul
writes that we are to be "filled with all the fulness of
God." And what is the "fulness of God"? Jesus
Christ: "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily" (Colossians 2:9); "For it pleased the Father
that in him should all
50. Daniel 4. Verses 1-3 show of pride, thinly
disguised as "praise," verses 15-17 the removal of
God's power foretold, and verse 34, the restoration.
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fulness dwell" (Colossians
1:19). Consequently, when all these apportioned "fillings"
within the individual are summed together, the end result is
"His Body," the fulness of Him that filleth all in
all. Thus, in due time we shall all come in the unity of the
faith "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13).
This is the overall view. Let us
look for a moment at the individual. The Seed in Scripture is
Christ (Genesis 3:15 and Galatians 3:16). The seed which is introduced
into the new man is also Christ, and this seed is sinless. I
John 3:9 has troubled many people, but surely the explanation
is simple enough in the light of these things. "Whoever
is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in
him: and cannot sin, because he is born of God." This I
think, is a reference to this fact that within the heart of the
believer there is now a new seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is
born of God, and being no less than the reincarnate Lord Himself,
it cannot possibly be the source of any sinful act. This seed
remains within, always present, the source of the new personality,
the spring of all righteousness. In Romans 7:22 Paul wrote, "For
I delight in the law of God after the inward man." The Greek
here is ". . . according to the man inside."
Here we have a new man within the individual, sinless and delighting
in the law of God. This is the direct consequence of the new
birth. We have been born again not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible (1 Peter 1:23). The new nature is incorruptible
because the Seed which gives rise to it is Christ Himself. This
is the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). We have been made partakers
of the divine nature that we might escape the corruption that
is in the world (2 Peter 1:4). The reincarnational nature of
the new man is constantly affirmed in Scripture -- it is Christ
within:
Deuteronomy 30:20 Romans
7:22 Colossians
1:27; 3:4
Zephaniah 3:17
2 Corinthians 13:5
1 John 3:24; 4:4; 5:11, 12
John 14:6, 18-21
Galatians 1:16; 2:20; 4:19 Revelation
3:20
Ephesians
3:17-19
We are not filled
with some kind of impersonal power which descends from His presence.
When we open the heart's door He Himself enters in (Revelation
3:20). The consciousness of His presence is brought home
to the soul by the Holy Spirit. But I believe that the Lord's
presence personally within the believer is not merely mediated
by the Holy Spirit. It is a real presence. Michael Green put
it this way: "The greatest thing is that He is within us
still, though we cannot see Him. He has come . . . to take up
residence in our personalities." (51)
51. Green, Michael, Man Alive, Inter-Varsity
Press, London, 1969, p.24.
pg.8
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This
by no means renders us sinless (I John 1:10); for the old man
struggles still to assert himself. But thanks be to God, He has
no use or interest any further in this old man as far as Satan's
accusations before the throne of grace are concerned. He points
to the new man which is perfect; and this is the basis of Paul's
triumphant assertion in Romans 8:1, because the sinfulness in
our lives does not spring from us, i.e., the real us; "There
is therefore now no condemnation. . . ."
There is a beautiful illustration
of this in 2 Peter 2:7, 8 where by inspiration Peter gives us
God's picture of Lot during his sojourn in the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah. He tells how God "delivered just Lot, vexed
with the filthy conversation of the wicked: For that righteous
man dwelling among them . . . vexed his righteous soul
from day to day. . ." A truly godly man, and yet the Old
Testament record gives us the picture of quite another man. Still,
the New Testament is speaking of the new man, under no
condemnation whatever for his failure to maintain his testimony,
because he is seen as God sees him.
One day Archbishop William Temple
was accosted by a drunkard and rebuked because some of his parishioners
had passed him by without offering to help him. Dr. Temple walked
thoughtfully down the street with the parting words of the drunken
man ringing in his ears, "And then you tell me the Church
hasn't failed!" But suddenly he realized that the Church
has not failed. What fails all the time is not this aggregate
of inner seeds which is the Body of Christ, but the aggregate
of weeds in the individuals' personalities, which that seed has
not yet displaced. The Body of Christ never fails; and within
that Body the new man in Christ never fails either. What fails
is not part of the new man. It is not our failure as the
Church, but our failure to be the Church.
Summary
To summarize
what we have been saying and to make clear the distinction between
the structure and the content, the form of the vessel and the
filling which occupies it, the part which is divinely appointed
in which we have no say, and the part for which we are personally
responsible, let us revert once more to John, Thomas, and Peter.
These three were different kinds of people, and if such techniques
had been available, the Rorschach Test would have undoubtedly
separated them out. John was an artist at heart, and the word
pictures which he has painted of the Lord are among the literary
masterpieces of the world. Peter, on the other hand, was entirely
practical. It was he who, after the "tragedy" of the
crucifixion, said, "I'm going fishing." To him, it
was the obvious thing to do -- to get
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busy, to do something
practical. And one of the last scenes points up this difference
as recognized by the Lord, who said to John, "Stay with
Me," but to Peter, "Feed My lambs." In these personality
traits neither Peter nor John ever changed. John's imagination
on Patmos painted vivid pictures in symbolic forms, whereas Peter
spoke in quite exact scientific terminology of the elements being
melted with a fervent heat and being dissolved
(52) -- the artist and the practical man
to the very end.
And what of Thomas called Didymus?
Thomas was one who had to think his thoughts for himself and
must know the reasons why. While all the others were emotionally
convinced, perhaps because they wanted to believe that it really
was the Lord who was raised, Thomas still demanded a certain
type of proof. He knew exactly what kind of proof would satisfy
his reasoning mind, and the Lord set out deliberately to meet
his specific need. It seems appropriate that this man should
have become a missionary to India, if the traditions about him
are correct. The philosophical Age of Greece was past, and its
people were little more than idly curious dilettantes. But in
India it was quite otherwise. Here was a pagan people with little
interest in practical things but deeply immersed in philosophical
problems. Who then could better go to such a country than Thomas?
There is a certain parallelism
between Peter and Paul. In both cases, it is clear that these
men were leaders, men of decision, men whom others tended to
follow. This is a structural feature of personality, namely,
executive capacity. It was true of both men before, as well as
after, their conversion. When Peter said, "I go fishing,"
the others said, "We go also" (John 21:3). And much
later, when Peter made the mistake of withdrawing himself from
the fellowship of Gentiles in the presence of his Jewish brethren,
many others also were led astray (Galatians 2:11-13). Moreover,
Peter's impetuosity stayed with him to the end. Having denied
the Lord with cursing and swearing, he was, according to tradition,
crucified head down at his own impetuous request. And like others
of such nature, he could always fall asleep very easily. On the
Mount of Transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane he simply
went to sleep. Later on, in the prison (Acts 12:6) and on the
housetop (Acts 10:9,10), we find the same Peter, asleep. So also
with Paul. He was as thorough in his persecution of the Church
of God before his conversion as he was in its edification afterwards.
Thoroughness was part of his nature -- that part which was divinely
ordained and was not laid aside. But the filling of this vessel
brought something entirely new. It is
52. 2 Peter 3:4-11. A remarkably scientific statement
in contrast to John's.
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not until Acts 13:9
where the first specific mention is made of this new filling
that his name is changed from Saul to Paul. In view of all that
has been said about the giving of names and the identity of a
new name with a new person, it is significant that the change
of name took place when the change of personality was first made
manifest. Paul, "a chosen vessel" (Acts 9:15), now
filled with a new content, was never again referred to as Saul.
Every one of us has received a new name, completely expressive
of our new nature individually, but it is not yet revealed. We
shall perhaps more readily recognize our brethren in heaven,
than we shall recognize ourselves.
The Medieval theologians rightly
said, "In Adam a person made human nature sinful; in his
posterity nature made persons sinful." This is surely true.
But it is also wonderfully true that in the Last Adam, a person
made human nature pure; and in His posterity, thenceforth a new
nature was to make persons pure.
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Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights
reserved
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