The Inner Man Series: Lesson 2 The Deformed Inner Man
In our last lesson we looked at this verse in Ephesians:
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, (Ephesians 1:18 NASB)
Paul was praying for the Ephesians to have the eyes of their heart or understanding enlightened. This tells us that an enlightened heart is not automatic. It also tells us that without an enlightened heart we will not know the “whats” he lists for us.
Paul was praying for an enlightened understanding “so that you will know” and then he names three “whats” that result from the enlightened understanding:
what is the hope of His calling;
what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints; and
what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.
If we have to sum these three things into single words they would be 1) hope, 2) value, and 3) power. Without an enlightened understanding we will not know these three things
As I said previously, I believe that these three areas constitute the foundation of the inner man.
HOPE: the hope of His calling gives us purpose and direction—a reason to move forward in the Lord and mature. It provides vision for the future.
VALUE; this is His riches in us—we have value to God. If there is no sense of value to God, that we are worthless to Him, then there is no reason to be obedient to the Lord or to grow up in Him.
POWER: this is His power in us and it is surpassingly great. It is the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead and it works in us to achieve these foundations and build on them.
Without these we will remain babes in the Lord and fail to mature into productive citizens of His Kingdom. It would seem to me then that this would be a priority for us.
To address this we need to answer a few questions about the condition of our inner man before coming to the Lord. What effect did the fall have on our inner man? What does it mean to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened?
In the Garden, Adam and Eve lived continually in the fullness of the Light of God. He would walk in the Garden and His presence would fellowship with them. We know that He is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Adam and Eve had hearts and understanding that was fully enlightened. However, all of that changed with Adam's disobedience.
The Scriptures tell us an interesting fact that occurred when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:7-8 NASB)
Now the question is, “what eyes were opened when they ate?” Obviously, their natural eyes were open because they could walk around the Garden and not stumble over things. Also, their spiritual eyes were open because God would come to the Garden and walk and talk with them, fellowshipping spirit to spirit. That only leaves the eyes of the soul. Apparently, up until that time, the eyes of the soul were closed and man could not “see” from the soul, only from the spirit and from the body.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden fruit, something was activated in their souls that had previously been inactive and something was de-activated in their spirits that had previously been active. In other words, the eyes of their spirits were closed (they were cut off from God by their disobedience) and the eyes of their souls were opened. The way that they saw reality changed. Their sight, their perception, became different.
How they saw themselves—prior to eating the forbidden fruit, they were naked but it was not an issue. After eating, it was an issue and they tried to cover themselves.
How they saw God—prior to eating the forbidden fruit, they saw God as a friend and fellowshipped with Him in gladness and joy. After eating the forbidden fruit, they saw God as someone to be feared, an enemy, and hid from Him.
How they saw reality—they saw reality through different eyes. This changed their perception; that is, the way they viewed the world. The thing that had changed was how they perceived reality.
Their disobedience had a profound affect on the inner man. The spirit in man died; it was cut off from God and no longer had the life that comes from God. This means that the “eyes of their heart”; that is, the eyes of their understanding was darkened. They no longer had light. The result was that, from that moment onward, man no longer perceived reality correctly as intended by God but now perceived reality from a twisted perspective that is rooted in the soul rather than the spirit.
Prior to the fall, all data input from the surrounding reality flowed through the spirit of man for interpretation, including both spiritual sight and natural sight. After the fall with our spiritual eyes closed and our “soulish” eyes open, all data input from the surrounding reality flowed through the soul for interpretation. Therefore, by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man received the ability, the capability, to determine within himself apart from God what is good or evil, right or wrong. Now with our perceptions changed, all things have to be evaluated by ourselves as to whether they are good or evil. Our interpretation of reality based on the eyes of the soul is the only measuring rod that we have when we operate by the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
When Jesus said that He is Truth, the Greek root of that word is “reality”. We must see Jesus and see Him with fully open spiritual eyes in order to see true reality otherwise we operate in a deformed version of reality as determined by our own souls.
Since fallen man no longer receives light through his spirit, he has a darkened heart or understanding. This is our natural condition after the fall and before we come to know the Lord.
So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; (Ephesians 4:17-18 NASB)
On numerous occasions Jesus referred to those “who have eyes to see”. He was obviously not referring to our natural eyesight but to that which is spiritual. He also made an amazing statement.
"The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. "But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23 NASB)
How can light be darkness? In the spiritual sense, only the light that comes from God through the spirit is true light. Light that comes through the “eyes that were opened” in Adam's disobedience is not true light but is actually darkness. Luke adds this to what Matthew had recorded.
"Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. "If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays." (Luke 11:35-36 NASB)
When we walk in the light of our own understanding from a darkened heart, we cannot know the reality of hope, value and power that Paul spoke of in Ephesians as mentioned at the beginning of this lesson. Our inner man must be illuminated by true light.
Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life." (John 8:12 NASB)
Our inner man without the light of the Lord has a deformed perspective, that is, a twisted view of reality, and walks in dark light from our own understanding, which is unable to bring us into a true knowledge of the things of the Lord.
Our deformed inner man must be restored to wholeness. This begins as we “put off” the old man and “put on” the new man. We learn to see from a new perspective, the perspective of the spirit. This is a process and while it is a completed process in heaven, on earth it has to unfold in time.
Our next lesson in this series will look at how the Lord restores our inner man to function properly in Him.
©2011 Art Nelson www.lifestreamteaching.com