Ephesians chapter 2 is where we are going to start this morning. It's probably not the wisest course of action to begin a Sunday school lesson by preparing you for failure. We're studying the person of the Holy Spirit. And I'm trying to address a couple of questions that I have received about the Holy Spirit. And I am coming to the conclusion that the answer to the question is beyond my ability to comprehend. Let's pray and we will start this morning. Father, We know at one sense and at one level that you are so infinitely superior to us and then we come to the Bible and begin to study complex issues and we are brought face to face with your majesty and our human limitations. Please help us. We pray for the ministry of your Holy Spirit to teach us your word, to instruct us and I ask this help today in Jesus' name. Amen. Galatians chapter 2 and verse number 20 are our starting point to give us a little bit of a perspective on what we're up against. Paul writes, I am crucified with Christ, so I'm dead. Nevertheless, I live. So I'm crucified and alive. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. and the life which I now live in the flesh, and by that he means his body. I think the context there is very clear. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So as I said, the last time that we were in Sunday school together, that I was in Sunday school with you, I had begun to try and address a couple of the questions that had come to me. And so I just want to take the questions, and I had kind of talked around the questions the last time, I just want to take the questions and try and at least address them. Because I really have come to the conclusion that I don't know that I can answer them, some of them, but at least address them. So one of the questions was, is the Holy Spirit a replacement for our original spirit? And the quickening is referring to us more in a holistic sense. And so holistic refers to the entirety, the complexity, the whole. if you're not familiar with the word. And we're going to come back to that because I think holistic is really a necessary way of thinking about our relationship with the Lord. But I'm addressing that question first because that's the easiest question. We have a spirit that is completely and totally distinct from God's spirit. So the Holy Spirit is not a replacement for our spirit. Look, if you would, at Luke chapter 23. I want to try and prove from the text the statements that I'm making. So we have a spirit that is distinct and separate from God's spirit. Jesus had one. What am I doing? What did I do wrong here? I've got the wrong. Oh, verse number 46. I got Luke 23, 66 in my notes and I'm very confused. Luke 23, 46, and when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, my spirit. And having said thus, he gave up the ghost, or if you have an ESV, I know that this is kind of how it reads, he breathed his last, because that's really what the word means there. The ghost is not the spirit in the way that we're accustomed to thinking of him in the King James Bible. And I would just point out there that Jesus is not saying, Father, into thy hands I commend thy spirit, right? But he's talking about his own spirit, his own humanity. He has his own spirit. Acts chapter seven. Acts chapter seven and verse number 59. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Receive my spirit. Or Romans chapter 1 and verse number 9. Romans chapter 1 and verse number 9, for God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. And then one last reference, and in some ways the most definitive one, Romans chapter 8 Romans 8.16, the spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And then just a grammatical note there in case it comes up, right, in the Greek language, right, the noun spirit, right, if the gender of the noun is masculine, then it would be his, and if the gender of the noun is feminine, which Greek does, then it would be hers, And then Greek has what's known as a neuter gender, without gender, and that's what the word spirit is, which is why our translators call it itself. They're not being disrespectful to the person of God's spirit. They're attempting to be grammatically precise there, that a noun without a gender needs to be continued in that way. So the spirit itself bears witness with our spirit. So again, That is one of the questions that was asked and it is in some ways the simplest. We have a spirit. Now, I'm not going to go back and revisit or even really attempt to revisit at this point in time what the distinctions between our soul and our spirit might be, but we have a spirit. We have an inanimate part of our being that is not body, that is immaterial, that is an instrument through which we serve the Lord and which thinks and communicates and has a life, right? Stephen said, Jesus, receive my spirit. And so it comes to him. It has its own life. And so God interacts with that and it is received by the Lord. It is our immaterial part of our being. The second question or another question is, does God quicken our once dead spirit making it now alive. And this becomes, to me anyway, more difficult because theologians have been discussing and arguing for centuries what it means for a living human being to be dead. And the Bible calls us dead, and I just want to look at some of that. Go back, if you would, to the Gospel of Luke, chapter number 9. Luke chapter 9 verse number 16. Jesus said unto him, let the dead bury their dead. Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. Right, so our options are, right, because we are Bible literalists, to interpret that that Jesus means dead bodies should somehow bury dead bodies. which is almost certainly not what he means, but that people who are dead to God should go and bury their dead. People who are alive to God have a different responsibility. Now, again, you gotta be very careful, folks, about how far you pull that, because Jesus here is not issuing some condemnation of dead believers or the dead bodies of believers being buried or lamented or mourned. He's not saying that at all. There's a larger framework there. So let's move away from that. Romans chapter five. The Bible refers to us as being dead to God. So what does it mean to be dead? Does God quicken our once dead spirit, making it now alive? And again, I'm not trying to be evasive, Exactly what the Bible is getting at when it calls us dead is, I think, a little trickier than we might immediately conclude. Romans chapter 5 and verse number 15. And this, of course, is part of a much larger argument about justification by faith, but it is part of the argument here of representation. All human beings are identified as, number one, in Adam, and then some human beings are identified, number two, as in Christ. And that's kind of what Paul is getting at there. So you have the doctrine of original sin, chapter five, verse number 12. Verse number 15 of Romans chapter 5, but not as the offense, so also is the free gift. So the free gift is different than the offense. For if through the offense of one many be dead, which again, we could interpret that to mean many will die, but that isn't what Paul is arguing. He is not arguing that physical death will come. I mean, that is certainly a part of it. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift of grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ has abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. So I would argue that what Paul is getting at in Romans 5.15 is not simply physical death. That is certainly a component of sinfulness. But everybody comes into the world, everybody is in some way dead to God. Dead to God. And you know and I know when we go down that road, we get perilously close to conversations that people don't like to have. But the Bible identifies us, it labels us as being dead to God. One of the classic passages is, of course, Ephesians chapter two. And again, I'm just gonna point out, I'm not gonna take a lot of time on this, but I'm just gonna point out the grammatical note, you, and then if you're looking at your King James Bible, you'll notice that you have hath he quickened in italics, and that's because it's not found there in the Greek text that we have. Paul is referencing us actually back to verse number 20 of what to us is chapter one. What God did to Christ, right, when he raised him from the dead and set him in his own right hand in heavenly places, and you, and you, who were dead in trespasses and sins. So there's a label of death, but what does it mean to be dead in trespasses and sins? Because certainly we are not dead to sin. Lost people love to sin. It is what they do best. So Paul is not making an argument that we are somehow dead to sin, but rather, we want to make sure we get the note accurately, we are dead in sin. And our sin then, of course, alienates us from God. It is our affection for sin that makes us, that contributes to, at least, our unaffection for him. Or the companion passage in Colossians chapter two, because of course you know that Ephesians and Colossians our companion books. Colossians chapter two and verse number 13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened, made alive is what the word means, together with him having forgiven you all trespasses. So the Bible labels us as dead, and I guess I would put it this way. There is a deadness to humanity in its lost condition. I would understand that to be dead to God. On Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, right? We'd already had family Christmas. Kids have been here, kids are gone, right? The next day, Leafy and I are leaving, so it's just Christmas Eve does. She's working at the house. I'm down at the office about three o'clock or 3.30. She calls me. She says, hey, hate to ask you to come up on the roof of the house, but several times today, I've heard something that sounds like it's trying to chew through the roof. So I go home. It's 3.30, 4 o'clock Christmas Eve. Get out the ladder, get up on the roof. Look all over the roof. The roof is fine. On a whim, I look down. We have a four-inch PVC stack pipe. And I look down into the four-inch stack pipe, and there's a squirrel stuck in the stack pipe. I'm for crying out loud. All right, so it's Christmas Eve, it's starting to get dark. Who do you call at four o'clock on Christmas Eve and go, hey, I got a squirrel stuck in a roof vent? So we talk about it and we come to the highly spiritual, hopeful conclusion that maybe it will expire over the evening. And we'll deal with it in the morning. So of course, Christmas Day, it was kind of misty and rainy and I got the ladder out about 10, 11 o'clock and the roof was a sheet of ice. Had to wait for that to melt. About two o'clock, I go up there, and sure enough, I take a flashlight, look down the stack, and there's two little eyeballs looking at me. And about that time, my neighbor across the street comes, gets home with his kids, and he goes, hey, is everything okay? Well, not really. Now, I'm, you know, so I, you know, I'm just gonna, we dealt with the situation, okay? My point is just simply this. The squirrel did not want to be in the vent. He had exhausted himself trying to get out of the vent. I did not want the squirrel to be in the vent. All of my efforts to rescue the squirrel from the vent were met with vicious vengeance. The squirrel did not want to be in the vent, and the squirrel did not want me to rescue him from the vent. And as I'm dealing with all of this, I'm thinking, This is exactly the kind of thing that God is up against with us. We don't like being in our sin. We don't like the consequences of it. And we don't want him to help us. And no matter what I said to that squirrel, I'm not trying to hurt you. Won't you please come out? What can I do to get you to come out? All of those run into the impediments of the fact that as dumb as I can be at times, I'm way smarter than a squirrel. And please just stipulate to that, okay? No. I know where this will go with some of you. So I wasn't just having a squirrel and a roof vent problem. I was having a two different nature communication problem. And that's what lost people are up against, and that's what God is up against in dealing with lost people. It is a completely alien nature. And there is a deadness then. The Bible describes that as a deadness. Well then there is the miracle of the new birth, and God's language changes a little bit. Turn if you would to Romans chapter 6. Now we are no longer dead in sin, but we are dead to sin. Romans chapter 6 and verse number 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound. Then I'm supplying the so, because that's really what's built into the word that. Right, because, right, Paul has been pointing out that God's response to human sin has been a grace that is greater than our sin. We have a song that we sing about that, grace that is greater than all my sin. Right, so what would a logical conclusion be? Well, if sin brings grace, more sin brings more grace. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? So now the whole orientation of death changes. Once upon a time we were dead in sin, now we are dead to sin. Peter makes the same kind of statement in 1 Peter 2. And verse number 24, and not only that, well, you don't need to turn to that, right? But, because we're in Romans six and I'm just gonna have you look across the page to Romans chapter seven. Not only are we now as believers dead to sin, we are dead to the law. Romans chapter seven and verse number four. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. And although we read Galatians 2.20, Paul makes the same statement in Galatians 2.19, a similar statement. We are dead to the law. So once upon a time, we were dead in sin, and now we are dead to sin, and we are dead to the law, if you'll turn to 1 Corinthians 1. So a lost person, does God quicken our once dead spirit? Well, a lost person still has a spirit. And again, Without going back and trying to revisit the difficulty is that the spirit of the soul, a lost person has an immaterial part of their being that is very real, that continues on in existence after the body dies. It is animated, it has personality, it has all of the intellectual and emotional attributes of humanity. and yet it is dead to God. We are alive to God and dead to sin. That's kind of stated of us. Lost people are dead to God. And that doesn't mean that God dismisses them as off his map because they're dead, but there is no ability to interact at any kind of a favorable level between God and lost people. They are objects of wrath. That's all they are, objects of wrath. So 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse number 18, and I just want to read through this very quickly because there's a lot there. Paul touches upon part of the nature problem that we have in being lost people who are dead to God. We who are now alive to God are forever trying to figure out ways to get lost people to be alive to God. Verse number 18, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, idiotic stupidity. But unto us which are saved, it is the power of God, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, but the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified under the Jews' stumbling block, and under the Greeks foolish. You see where Paul is going here? The Corinthians, whatever shape it takes, folks, The Corinthians are trying to reach people with the gospel through some form of worldly wisdom. To which Paul is going, but you can't do that because they just think it's stupid no matter what you do. When you preach the gospel, here's what happens. It is to the Jew a stumbling block, verse number 23, and unto the Greeks foolishness. That's what they hear. And so I'm really not on a crusade about a lot of things that are attentive to our modern culture. I really am not. But to think, folks, that just by the flipping of a switch from music to a piano to a bass guitar and a snare drum will undo 1 Corinthians 1.23 is the height of naivety and folly. It will not. The proclamation of the cross is still stupidity. to lost people, to lost Gentiles, and an obstacle to lost Jews. That is what the Lord says. And then he goes on, right? Because that brings us almost to the point of despair. Verse number 21, for after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God had pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So that very message that sounds so ludicrous and idiotic to the vast majority of people sounds like the sound of salvation to some. Or as Jesus put it, my sheep hear my voice. Or as Luke puts it in the book of Acts, Paul heard the voice of Jesus and everybody else that was with him just heard noise. Same message. two different end products. Bringing us to this conclusion, right? Where's Paul going with all of this? Verse number 26, you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen ye, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are, again, so that no flesh should glory in his presence. So that the secret sauce of success in the proclamation of the gospel message can never be men or man's methodology, never. Whether that be the most extreme radical forms that it takes today in the uber, uber, ultra contemporary world, or whether it takes the extreme forms that it takes in the uber, uber, ultra fundamentalist world. Human boasting is always excluded. Verse number 31, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. which is, again, perhaps a long way of answering the question, does God quicken our once dead spirit? I don't think that's what's happening because we are new creatures. We are new creatures. So that brings thoroughly this question then, does God create and give us a new spirit? And I think the answer to that is absolutely yes. But even that is somewhat complicated, and now this is where we go back, or I would go back, to what I think was an excellent word used in an excellent way, is that it's kind of holistic. Is it the totality of how we are? Well, salvation is certainly the making of a new creature, John chapter three, verses three through seven. you must be born again, there is a new creature. And not terribly long ago, we walked through that, right? The washing and the renewing. We went back to the book of Ezekiel and noted that the washing is cleansing. We need to be made clean. We need to be made new and we need to be made clean. And this is what salvation does for us. Turn if you would to 2 Corinthians chapter number five. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse number 10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in this interesting in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. But we are made manifest unto God, God sees us, and I trust also we are made manifest in your consciences. And of course, 2 Corinthians is really a very pastoral letter. Paul is exposing his pastoral heart for these people, for his desire for their well-being, and of course you know there's a conflict and they don't trust him, and they've got some hostility towards him, and so he is constantly reassuring them of his love and his good intentions. And so I hope that you will see, Paul writes, that not only does God see us, but that you can see us, right? We are all going to this judgment seat that none of us should be deluded into thinking is going to be some kind of a picnic. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. We're all going to have a talk with God about the things we have done in our bodies. In our bodies. Verse 12, we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion of glory on our behalf, that you may have somewhat to answer them, which glory in appearance and not in heart, for whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God, whether we be sober, it is for your cause, but the love of Christ squeezes us, constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves. That is a powerful statement, folks. That is a very simplistic, and I don't mean, I'm not using the word insultingly, that is a very simple explanation of kind of the entire package of what it means to be saved, that we lose the right to live for ourselves. He didn't save us so that we could live to ourselves. But unto him which died for them, verse number 15, and rose again, wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh, yet though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, here's the passage that we all know, right? He is a new creature, a new creation. So it is, our salvation is not the regeneration of an old spirit, but the birth of a new. He is a new creature. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Right, so we are judged in our body, and Paul talks about those who glory in appearance. Verse number 12. Because the judgment, and Paul will get to this and deals with this in 1 Corinthians chapter four, the judgment is comprehensive of not just deeds, but intentions. And so Paul is always, this is kind of a theme in 2 Corinthians, those who are all about how things look, how they look. So the glory in appearance and not in heart, not internally, not, and again, folks, we wanna be very careful here because some well-intentioned Christians then come to the conclusion that nothing on the outside matters as much as what's on the inside. And right, the judgment is a comprehensive judgment. God is not satisfied with either. We don't get to pick and choose which one we will focus on and bring to him. We are, again, to use the word of the question, holistic. We are the entire package. Which brings me then to this question that is raised. And the questions you can see are all kind of associated with this. Is this new creature the new man and is our old spirit the old man? So, right, we have our own spirit. When we get saved, we are made new creatures. And is this new creature the new man and is our old spirit the old man? And I'm gonna add then this question because in trying to answer that question, this question came up a lot. Are the old man and the flesh the same thing? or the old man and the flesh the same thing. And again, if you get out the books or you go to the internet to research that, you will find that there is not consensus on that. Some people say that they are two separate things, completely separate things, that the old man and the new man are not the flesh. Because of some time constraints, let me just give you the references So the Bible uses the word body and flesh, and the Greek language has two different words for body and flesh. One word always describes body, that's the Greek word soma, and it always is a reference to our body, right, what we can touch. And then it has the word sarps, which is flesh, and sometimes that's our body, what we can touch, and sometimes that is referring to the inanimate or the immaterial sinful dimension to us. Matthew 26.41, Jesus said, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And I don't think that he means the physical body is weak. In John chapter 6 and verse number 63, Jesus said, The flesh profiteth nothing. And there he is talking about the body. Right? I mean, we would understand this, folks. Right, you would understand this of your children. The fact that you are a believer doesn't guarantee that your children will be believers. The flesh profits nothing. It doesn't guarantee anything. John chapter seven and verse number five, the flesh produces death. Romans chapter seven, verse 25, the flesh serves sin. Romans 8, verses 1-13, the flesh cannot please God. 2 Corinthians 10, 3, we do not war according to the flesh. And Christians have crucified it. We have crucified the flesh. There are no shortage of really good people who would argue that the flesh and the old man are not the same thing. And how much do we care? I don't know how much, I don't know how big a fight I'd make over that. Look at Romans chapter six and verse number six. I would point out that the Bible says similar things about the old man that it says about the flesh. So I would not be quick to try and draw too big of a distinction between them. Romans chapter 6 and verse number 6. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, death dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him, for in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. All right, so we were dead in sins, but now we are dead to sins, and our death to sins looks very much like Jesus's did. There was a crucifixion and a resurrection. There are two passages. And again, they are found in the companion books. Ephesians and Colossians are dealing with essentially the same subject matter to two different local churches. It would be as if I sat down and wrote an individual letter to one church about an activity and then wrote a separate letter to another church about the same activity. They would be different letters but dealing with the same subject matter. That's Ephesians and Colossians. So look at Colossians chapter three. Let's kind of start backwards. Colossians deals with the subject of the old man positionally, would be my understanding of it. This is our position in Christ. Colossians chapter three, verse number nine. Lie not to one another. seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds. See how that's being addressed in kind of a past tense? This is something that you have done. And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. So in Colossians, Paul deals with this old man, new man, in kind of the positional sense. This is your identity. You have put off the old man, you have put on the new man, But in Ephesians, if you go back to Ephesians chapter number four, and let's start in verse number 20. In Ephesians, Paul deals with it more from the practical standpoint. In Colossians, Paul's dealing with it again, past tense, you have done this. Verse number 20, but ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation of the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lush. It sounds very much like flesh to me. And be renewed, verse 23, in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. That sounds like the new creature to me. But again, you'll notice that in Colossians, Paul's dealing with it in kind of a past tense sense. And in Ephesians, he's dealing with it in a, look, you need to do this sense of the word. Put him off and put him on. So to kind of conclude this, and I'm not, I'm more perplexed by some of what I'm about to say than I am satisfied with it, right? We do exist as distinct persons or personages, right? We are a body. There is a material part of us. And there is an immaterial part of us, soul, spirit, soul and spirit, Tri-part, bi-part, however you want to view it. There is old man, new man, which I would consider flesh and regenerated creature. The Bible always speaks to us from that position of holistically. It just talks to, right, the Bible talks to me. God talks to me. If we read, if we were to work our way through, and 1 John in particular does this, John is very clear, 1 John is kind of very clear in elucidating these two distinct persons, right? There is one that doesn't sin, right? He that believeth sins not, right? Doesn't sin. And I think that they really exist to the Lord and that the Lord is able to make the distinction between them. I have a renewed appreciation for Hebrews 4.12, that the Word of God is able to divide between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, that God can separate all these parts out. But we're in Ephesians 4, and Paul makes a similar kind of summary statement in 1 Thessalonians 5.23. Here's my question, right? In verses 20 through 24, here's what Paul says. You didn't learn this from Jesus, if you've really believed in Jesus. Put off the old man, put on the new man. Verse number 25, wherefore, Right? Since the new man is created in righteousness and true holiness. And the idea there of holiness in Ephesians 4.24 is the idea more of consecration than just sinlessness. True dedication to the Lord. Right? Do these things. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor. For we are members one of another. Be angry, sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed into the day of redemption. We're gonna deal with that, what it means to talk at least about it. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. All these instructions that we have raised our children. We taught our children these things from a young age. Who's Paul talking to? Who's Paul telling those things to? If there's a part of me that doesn't sin, why do I need to be told those things? I mean, is it fathomable in any way, folks, that somebody would ever have to sit Jesus down and go, now look, you can't tell lies. You can't tell lies. And Jesus, no corrupt communication. You can't do that. Would anybody think that they'd have to tell Jesus that? No, he's perfect. So if I have the nature of God, he already doesn't lie. He already doesn't practice evil communication or corrupt communication. He doesn't do any of those things. Who's Paul talking to? On the other hand, folks, my flesh refuses to be corrected in those things. Doesn't it? Isn't this part of the problem with the flesh is that it cannot be reformed, right? The flesh is not subject to God, Romans chapter eight, neither indeed can be. So when God says to my unregenerate man, don't tell any lie, I go, yeah, sure. Tell every lie I want. You're not telling me what to do. So again, I'm not trying to be flippant, but I have worked through this and I go, who's being spoken to here? And the best answer that I can come up with is us in our entirety. Because we're all in this body and I can lie and I can tell the truth. And I can yield to bitterness. And then there's a part of me that is not going to get bitter. And I think, one last, and I'm really running out of time, but that's okay. Look at 1 Timothy chapter four. I think from our end, right, that there is a peril that comes from trying to divide them to an extreme that God does not intend for them to be divided. First Timothy chapter four and verse number one. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. So when we try to, and in this case, some well-intentioned people, and Paul is dealing with it, we think, in the book of Corinthians, are trying to isolate the physical part of man away from the spiritual part of man. And they will come to a conclusion, one of two conclusions, that anything you do in the flesh is gonna be dishonoring to God, so virtually do nothing. Or what you do in your body doesn't matter at all to God, so knock your lights out and have a great time. So when we create artificial divisions that the Bible doesn't make, I just come back to this, who is Paul talking to in Ephesians 4? Who is he telling to tell the truth? Who is he telling to tell the truth? Who is he telling to be kind and compassionate? I have found in the study of this that I am 10,000 fathoms over my head. We are new creatures. We are new beings. I firmly believe, and you know this is another highly debatable thing, I firmly believe that the old man, the sin nature, just continues to reside in us and have an existence. And that God, at this point in time, while he can separate them out, God is kind of talking to us as the package, as the whole person. So that's what I have. I'm gonna stop there. Happy to talk with you privately. Happy to come back and try and answer any more questions that you have on this. We'll be back at 11 o'clock.