Dr Doug Mamvura

Adam in the Garden lived in the realm of the spirit. He had perfect fellowship with God. His spirit dominated him. However, when he fell together with Eve, sin came and they were driven from the presence of God. From that moment man lived under the domination of his senses.

These five senses became his master. His spirit lost dominion the moment he became spiritually dead, a partaker of Satan’s nature. This is why Apostle Paul reminds us that “we were dead in our trespasses” prior to us accepting Christ as our Saviour (Ephesians 2:1).

The real man is a spirit being, but the moment that spiritual death took possession of his spirit, his senses dominated. He lost his approach to God the moment he sinned. The nature that he received made him antagonistic to God.

We have to deny our natural way of thinking and be led by the Spirit of God in order to have a walk pleasing to God. First Corinthians 2:14, declares: “Now the natural man (the man of the senses) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually understood.”

Spiritual truths can only be perceived by a person’s spirit. Therefore, it is impossible for those who are walking in the vanity of their minds to ever understand the things of God. They are foolishness to an unbeliever.

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When man fell and his spirit received the nature of the adversary, he really became a stranger to himself. He was no longer dominated by his spirit, but by his body in which he lives. It made him a slave to his body instead of a master over it.

Man is God’s product created to be His child and companion. He was created in God’s class of being, in His image and in His likeness. God is eternal. Man is eternal. God is a spirit. Man is a spirit. Man was so created that he could partake of God’s nature and become God’s child (2 Peter 1:4).

You cannot partake of God’s nature unless you are in God’s class of being You can understand now the calamity that befell man when his spirit lost control over his senses. In that moment his senses governed his spirit. All the knowledge that natural man has, has come through these five avenues of the body—seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling. The brain has no capacity to think independent of sense evidences. A child that is born without sight, or hearing, or feeling, would be of limited abilities, though its brain was as perfect as the brain of any child. That brain had no contact with the world because the senses failed to function. Now we can understand that man’s physical contact is with the physical. His mental contact is with the mental.

His spirit then can contact only the spiritual. If man’s reasoning faculties cannot contact God, then it is up to his spirit to make that contact. Man’s reasoning faculties are utterly dependent upon the senses. Sense knowledge is unable to contact his spirit in any intelligent way until after that spirit has been recreated, received the nature of God, and his reasoning faculties have been renewed and brought into harmony with the recreated spirit. It is, however, very unfortunate that some of the believers still live their lives based on the five senses, or sense knowledge, hence there is not much difference with a non-believer and their spiritual growth is limited.

The new creation man finds a new self in Christ, and that new self becomes almost independent of the senses when he comes into closest fellowship with the Father. “Wherefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation,” a new self (2 Corinthians 5:17). The real self has been made anew, recreated. That means his spirit has been recreated.

It is imperative now that the mind which derives all of its impulses, all of its knowledge from the five senses, should come under the dominion of this new recreated spirit or self hence Apostle Paul then encourages us to be transformed by the renewal of our mind (Romans 12: 1-2). This can only come as man begins to study the Word and then begins to practise and live it.

It is a fact of great importance that every believer should know, that there is no such thing as understanding the Word until the mind is renewed. The reason for that is, that the Word is the work of the Holy Spirit and it is a spiritual thing, and sense knowledge cannot understand spiritual things. Therefore, it is necessary that his mind be renewed and come into fellowship with his spirit. It is almost imperative that this recreated spirit should gain the dominance over his reasoning faculties. The life of a believer should be dominated by the recreated spirit, not five senses.

You know how we often fight our conscience, and how it is often in opposition to our reasoning faculties. That conscience is the voice of our spirit. If we should learn to obey our conscience, we could walk continuously in fellowship with the Word and with the Father; but the reason is, we have not learnt to give our spirit the place of authority and dominion that belongs to it.

Did you know that our spirit can be educated just as really as the mind is educated? It can be built up in strength just as the body can he built up. That comes by meditation in the Word. By practicing the Word. By giving the Word the first place. By instantly obeying the voice of our spirit. After a while you can know the will of the Father in all the minor details of life, because He communicates with your spirit, not with the reasoning faculties.

Apostle Paul speaks of the mind of the spirit. Romans 8:6: “For the mind of the senses leads us into the realm of spiritual death, but the mind of the spirit (that is our recreated, spirit) leads us into the realm of life and peace.”

The life there is “Zoe”— eternal life — the nature of God. The spirit mentioned here is the recreated spirit, not the Holy Spirit. It is hard for us to accept the fact that the natural man is ruled by the five senses. His body is the teacher of his mind and he cannot grow in knowledge beyond the reactions of his senses upon his brain. The new creation man has almost an unlimited opportunity of growth because his spirit has received the nature of God. He is in perfect fellowship with his Father.

He has an unlimited use of the name of Jesus that the natural man does not have. He has the wisdom of God, for Jesus is made unto him wisdom. The natural man has nothing, but the wisdom that comes to him through his un-recreated spirit.

The new creation man has the ability of God at his disposal. He is lifted out of the natural realm into the spiritual realm, and when he is recreated, he has the privilege of having the Holy Spirit, who raised Jesus from the dead, to come and make His home in his body. Now we can understand Romans 12:1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. “And be not fashioned according to this age: but be ye transfigured by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God.”

This shows us why it is imperative to have the body, the university of the mind, under the control of the recreated spirit. This new creation man does not walk under the dominion of the senses but is to be governed by the Word of God. He behaves like a spirit man not a natural man.

Dr Doug Mamvura is a graduate of Charis Bible School. Feedback: drdoug@corporatemomentum.biz or Twitter @dougmamvura