Life in the Spirit

*The following article is from the book – The Mystery of Godliness


“…As the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this He meant the Spirit… (John 7:38-39)

…Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (John 4:14)

The Holy Spirit produced a never-ending river of life from within the spirit of the first Adam before the Fall. The Son’s Living Water welled up and overflowed from the fountain of his soul into a manifestation of God’s eternal life. The nature of this life from heaven kept his mind and emotions under the control of God. Everything he did and every attitude he expressed was inspired by the Spirit of God.

God literally expressed Himself through Adam. In the same way that Christ {the Second Adam} displayed the Father’s life and works, the first Adam was also the “radiance {or “outshining” – BBE} of God’s glory.” (Heb. 1:3)

Adam’s responsibility as a free moral agent was to offer himself to God in faith to be an instrument of His righteousness. The mystery of his godliness was simply a matter of a conscious choice to walk under the control and power of the Holy Spirit. As he yielded to the Spirit, God would use His power to display His life and works through Adam.

It is quite obvious that if this process had been purely mechanical, and Adam had possessed no capacity to exercise his own choice, he would have been no more than a robot. But God created man with a free will. Through an active choice of his own will, Adam would be required to live by faith in God, continually walking by the Spirit.

We need to see how man was created to be a mere instrument of God’s life of righteousness. This principle for living still applies to God’s children today. Because of what Jesus Christ has done at the cross, God’s called-out children can now enter into the life of promise and begin walking by the Spirit as Adam did before the Fall, and as Jesus did after the Fall. They can enter into the Holiest of All and receive divine spiritual life from God.

…Now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed…even the righteousness of God, through faith… (Rom. 3:21-22)

And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin {self-will}, but present yourselves to God…as instruments of righteousness to God. (Rom. 6:13)

Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection {or completion in the life of love}… This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil. (Heb. 6:1, 19)

Man was made by God to be an instrument through which God expressed the power and authority of His Kingdom. As man received his life from God, he would also share with God in a dominion over this world. But this authority could only be expressed through man by virtue of his “faith-love” relationship with God. As man lovingly submitted to all the leadings of God’s Spirit, God would supply him with the needed power to accomplish everything he was assigned to do.

God has a plan for each of His creation. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph. 2:10 Emphasis added) Man is therefore expected to enter into God’s plan. And he is expected to carry out his assigned work through the power of God’s Spirit.

The dominion that man received over his appointed sphere of work was derived from God. He could only exercise God’s power in the world while he responded to the divine will and lived by the Spirit through dependent faith.

God intends to remain sovereign over His universe. And yet, He would accomplish the work He wanted to do in the world through the dominion given to His spiritual children. In response to His revealed will, they would depend on Him to use the power of His Spirit in all their assigned activities.

In effect, God chose to display a unique form of sovereignty. He would first reveal His will to His sons and daughters, and then depend on them to carry out the work through their prayers of faith. This is how God has planned for all His sanctified children to live.

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire {My will as revealed to you}, and it shall be done for you. (John 15:7)

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing… And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so the Son may bring glory to the Father. (John 14:12-13)

Again, man was designed to be God’s highest expression of His power and glory. God’s dominion over the world would be visibly expressed through the work of His children. Without this visible expression of Himself {the “light of life” from heaven}, the world would remain lost in darkness.


When man turned from this walk of faith and ate from the forbidden fruit of self-will and self-sufficiency, God departed from his soul. This left him empty, in darkness, and on his own.
He also forfeited his right to express God’s dominion and power through prayer.

We can see that Adam was converted from the life of God. Every “conversion” occurs when there has been a change of mind. Adam changed his mind about how he wanted to live. He allowed the devil to poison his understanding. Believing the lie that he could improve his spiritual life by walking in the strength of his own flesh, he separated himself from the life of God. The Holy Spirit then withdrew from the human spirit, and man’s soul was plunged into the darkness of fallen humanity.

Something else also occurred at the Fall. When the Spirit of God was no longer filling man’s {mankind’s} soul with the Living Water that naturally wells up to eternal life, he was left empty and unfulfilled. He then became self-centered, or egocentric in all that he did. His life-purpose then became centered around his own efforts to find a means of spiritual fulfillment.

This self-centered nature, which naturally lives for its own desires, is called “the flesh.” Referred to in the Bible as “sin” in its singular form, it involves the evil principle of living by self-will and self-sufficiency. This life of “sin” is what produces a multitude of “sins.” (Rom. 7:14, 20; John 16:9)

The Bible therefore distinguishes between “sin” and “sins.” Everyone who lives according to their own personal desires is living by the “sin” nature. This flesh-life or “old man” has a self-centered nature that will naturally produce a multitude of sins. (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9)

The depravity that every person inherits from Adam is an empty soul. As long as there is an emptiness within, the individual will naturally turn to the self-seeking ways of this world to find his spiritual fulfillment. This is the essence of sin.

“Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. “My people have committed two sins {two all-encompassing evils}: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jer. 2:12-13)

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters… Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy. Listen, listen to Me, and eat what is good {eat from the Tree of Life}, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to Me; hear Me, that your soul may live {in the Kingdom-life}. (Isa. 55:1-3)

God uses His Word of Truth to help people understand why they experience a returning sense of spiritual emptiness within their soul. He wants them to recognize the hopelessness of ever experiencing a lasting fulfillment by following the self-seeking ways of this world. “God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done.’ To those…who are self-seeking…there will be wrath and anger.” (Rom. 2:6-8) They can never expect God to manifest His divine life through them while living as “self-seekers.”

When man’s soul was left empty by the departure of the Spirit, Satan was permitted to enter in and introduce the self-elevating principle of pride. This pride naturally leads to self-will and self-sufficiency. Man will remain hopelessly lost {in this fallen state} until he turns to the Lord and permits the Son to lead him into the life of faith. The Messiah, who has come to establish the lost Kingdom-life within the hearts of His followers, is the only hope that mankind has of being saved from his fallen nature.