In the book “The Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit” by Chinese evangelist and theologian Watchman Nee, I saw how wonderful a relationship with God and being a servant can be. It put into words things I felt but could not articulate at the time. It shows over and over how God wants relationship but will never force Himself on us or force us to do anything. But our outer man must be broken. We must have a desire to and choose to be obedient to Him and the work He has called us to do.
Breaking of the outer man speaks of how our outer person (our physical and temporal body and emotions) prevents our inner person (our spirit) and God’s Spirit (Holy Spirit who dwells in us) from being released. It is through the trials of life that our outer man is broken. And until then, our servanthood is ineffective and we cannot partner with the church for God’s work. When our outer man is broken, our spirit and God’s Spirit is then released in concert and the love, goodness, and servanthood is felt by those around us. We will no longer try to control our inner spirit which results in a transparent, yielding person whose mind and emotions will serve the spirit rather than try to control it. That brings grace and blessings to others. The Apostle Paul uses the term inner man several times as in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day.” Ephesians 3:16 reads, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,” and Romans 7:22-23 says, “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law, but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.”
Genesis 1:27 says that God created us in His image. According to 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So He gave us a soul, spirit, and body. It has been said that we are not bodies with souls; we are souls that have bodies. The body or “outer man” is our physical being through which we experience the world. Our bodies are gifts from God and He desires that we surrender those bodies as living sacrifices to Him. By accepting God’s gift of salvation through Christ, our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit.
Our souls are our personality centers. With our souls we choose either to listen to and obey the lusts of our flesh or the desires of the Holy Spirit. The inner man is contained in our spirits about which the word speaks. This is where the Spirit of God communes with us. Jesus said, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” It is within our spirits that we are born again. The “inner man” contains our conscience upon which the Holy Spirit can move and convict us of sin. Our spirits are the parts of us most like God, with a knowledge of right and wrong. It states in 1 Corinthians 2:11, “For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”
Romans 12:1-2 tells us not to be conformed to this world’s way of thinking; rather, our inner man must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This renewing of the mind comes about as we allow the Holy Spirit free rein within our “inner man.” Through our rebirth by the power of God, our spirits long to obey and follow Jesus. But dying to self or the flesh is not an easy death. The book of Romans speaks about how we can gain victory over the flesh. Chapter 7 poses a question that followers of Christ should ask: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Verse 25 provides the answer: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Our relationship with God and victory over the flesh grows and is strengthen by the extent our outer man is broken, by the extent we give ourselves to Him, and by the extent our love grows in Him. And please know, this breaking may come quickly, it may take months or years, and parts or all may have to be redone as we slip back into sin and our old selves. We must consecrate ourselves to Him and try to live the life He calls us to; servanthood, partnering with the church to carry out His work, a life of love because God is Love.