Biblical Psychology

1 THE SENSUOUS "ME." Eccl. 12: 13.

2 THE SOCIAL "ME." Eccl. 7: 29.

3 THE SPIETTUAL "ME." Eph. 2: 6.

"We mean by "Sensuous" our bodily, material consciousness. My "Body" represents one aspect of the "Me." Under the heading of my "Bounty," we consider our "flesh and blood relations"; and under my "Blessings" we consider our home, property, and wealth.

2. The Social "Me." (Eccl. 7:29.)

Under the Social' "Me" we consider all that my " set " means; if you insult my " set " you insult " Me "; and it is important to impress on ourselves that God recognizes that this is the way He has made us. Our Lord insists on the "social" aspect of our lives. He shows very distinctly that we cannot further ourselves alone.

3. The Spiritual "Me." (Eph. 2:6.)

This last aspect of our subject is the Spiritual "Me." That means my religious convictions, my mind, my morals.

Now to go back over (a) our first statement. If my body is hurt, I look upon it as a personal hurt; if my home or my people are insulted, it is a personal insult; if my "set" and my society are hurt, I consider it a personal hurt; and if my religious convictions are hurt or upset or scandalized, I consider myself as being hurt and scandalized. This, then, is, in the main, the general idea of what we are dealing with.

The normal "me," from the Scriptural standpoint, is not the average man. "Normal" means regular, erect, perpendicular, everything exactly regular and related. "Abnormal" means irregular and away from the perpendicular; and "supernormal" means that which goes beyond regular experience, not contradicting it, but transcending it. Our Lord represents the "Supernormal." We, by partaking of the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ by His redemption, partake of the "normal," regular, upright; and apart from the atonement of our Lord we are "abnormal."

We mean by the term "me" the sum total of all a man calls his. That means that there is no real, practical distinction between "me" and "mine." My personality identifies "mine" with myself so much that it is not necessary to make a distinction between "me" and "mine." 1. The Sensuous Me.

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." (Eccl. 12:13.) That verse is the conclusion, from the human-wisdom viewpoint, as to what the whole end of our life is, viz.: "to fear God and keep His commandments."

"Sensuous" means that which is affected through my senses, or that which I get at through my senses. The first thing I get at by my senses is my body. The Bible has a great deal to tell us about our bodies.

One of the main distinctions to make to-day about our body is that the Bible shows that our body is the medium through which we develop our spiritual life. The idea in the Middle Ages was that the body was a clog, a hindrance, an annoyance, a thing that kept us back, that always upset our higher calling; it was a thing that had sin in the very corpuscles of its blood, in the cells of its make-up. This view the Bible disapproves of entirely. The Bible tells us that our bodies are "the temples of the Holy Ghost," not things to be despised. So the body, in the Bible teaching, is placed very high indeed.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies." (Rom. 12:1.) The Apostle does not say there, "Present your 'air to God." The hymns of "Higher Life" do, and consequently they are unsatisfactory, for you never can know when you have given your "all." Take it in the light of the last chapter; if our personality is too big for us to understand, how are we going to know when we have presented our "all"? The Bible never says anything so vague as present your "all," but present your "body." There is nothing ambiguous or indefinite about that statement, but something definite and clear. The body means only one thing to us all, viz.: this flesh and blood body.

Let us ask ourselves this practical question: Who is the ruling person that is manifested through my body, through my hands, through my tongue, through my eyes, through my thinking and loving? Is it a self -realizing person, or is it a Christ-realizing person? Our body is to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, and the medium for manifesting that marvelous Christdisposition in us all through; and instead of our bodies being a hindrance to our development, they are exactly the opposite. It is only through our bodies that we are developed; our bodies are the way we express our characters. You cannot express a character without a body. "When we talk of a character, we think of a flesh and blood thing; when we think of a disposition, w;e think of something that is not flesh and blood. God, by Christ's atonement, gives us the right disposition; that disposition is inside our bodies, and we have to manifest it in "character" through our bodies, and by means of our bodies. The whole use of bodily control is to make the body the obedient medium for expressing the right disposition. So the Bible, instead of ignoring the fact that we have a body, exalts the fa,ct. We are told to remember that it is the " temple of the Holy Ghost, and Paul says, "If you defile that temple, God will destroy you." Instead of the Bible belittling laws of health, and bodily uprightness, and bodily cleanliness, the Bible insists on these far more by implication than any modern science does by explicit statement. Go back again to our first subject, viz.: The Making of Man (chapter II.), and you remember that the chief fact of man is not that he was in the image of God spiritually, but that he was made of the c ' earth earthy.' ' It is not his humiliation, it is his glory, and through that mortal body is to be manifested this wonderful life and disposition — "Christ in us the hope of glory."

Then (b) My Bounty. "By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." (Heb. 12:15.) That verse comes in a chapter which is intensely practical in dealing with our relationship to strangers, and our relationships in some of the most intimate and practical ways of life. The next relationship to my body is my blood relations, my father and mother, my sister and brother, my wife, etc. Have you ever noticed that those are the phrases and those are the relationships Jesus Christ refers to most often? Over and over again in our Lord's talk about discipleship, that is the sphere He deals with. He puts the relationships in that sphere as crucial. If you will read Luke 14: 26-35, you will find that our Lord places our love for Him away beyond our love for father and mother; in fact, He uses a tremendous word; He says, "Unless you hate your father and mother you cannot be My disciples." This word "hate" appears to have been a stumbling-block to a great number of people. It is quite conceivable that many persons may have such a slight regard for their fathers and mothers that it is nothing to separate from them, but the word "hate" shows by contrast what love we ought to have for our parents, an intense love; yet your love for Me, says Jesus, is to be so intense that any other relationship is "hatred" in comparison when in conflict with My claims.

Jesus preached His first sermon where He was known, in Nazareth (Luke 4), where He was brought up, and He told His disciples that they were to begin at "Jerusalem." What was the reason? Did Jesus Christ have such great success at Nazareth where He was brought up, where they knew Him? He had exactly the opposite. They "broke up" His service and tried to kill Him. Our Lord insists that we begin at Jerusalem, and our Jerusalem is unquestionably among the bounties of our own particular flesh and blood relations; for our own character's sake. It is infinitely easier for the great majority of us to offer the "sacrifices of praise" and thanksgiving to strangers than amongst, or to, our own flesh and blood. It is a sacrifice there. We would rather testify to anyone than to our own flesh and blood, there is where the real sacrifice of praise comes in, and that is where young converts want to skip. The reason seems to be "Because you will be confirmed in your character and relationship to Me," In the fourth chapter of

Luke Jesus says distinctly what maddens His own people. He says in effect, "It is God's way to send His message through strangers before that message is accepted." They would not accept it from Him. "Why? Because they knew Him, land immediately you look at that statement you find how it revolutionizes a great many of our conceptions. "We would naturally say that if Jesus testified amongst His own people, how gladly they would have received Him: the only place they did not receive Him, the place that detested Him, and the place that He could not do many mighty works in, was the place where He was brought up. The place He told His disciples to begin their work in was this Sensuous Me, viz.: my own flesh and blood, my own Jerusalem begins there, and then you will get consolidated and know where your true basis lies. We do not very often put these two words together — "sacrifice" and "praise." Sacrifice means giving the best I have, but it also embraces an element of cost. That is where the sacrifice of praise comes in. My own flesh and blood relationships have to be the scene of the sacrifice of praise on my part, whether they accept it or not.

(c) My Blessings. I mean by "Blessings," our home and our property. "Distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality." (Rom. 12:13.) Have you ever noticed what a great deal the Bible has to say about "hospitality" and "entertaining strangers"? God recognizes the enormous importance of my immediate circle. Not only does this term "blessings" include my home and my property, all that 1 distinctly look at as mine, but I have to use it with this outlook of hospitality. Immediately you look at these things, you will see how personal they are. If your home is insulted, if any stranger begins to find fault with your home, you will find how intense tha resentment is. Our home is guarded in exactly tha same way as our body. It is mine, therefore it is part of the very make-up of my personality, and God won't have us keep it exclusive, we have to have it open and be given to hospitality. In the East they know a great deal more about hospitality than we do. "What we mean by home is what we Britishers especially think of when we mention "home," the most intimate relationships; THAT is to be the scene where I am to be given to hospitality. The point is "be given to hospitality" from God's standpoint, not because other people deserve it, but because God commands it. That principle runs all through our Lord's instructions in the New Testament. Then in my body, in my blood relationships, and in my home I have to recognize everyone of them, keep them intimate, and keep them right, but I have to keep them with the first duty in each and all towards all. My body i3 the temple of the Holy Ghost, not for me to disport myself in, not for me to realize myself. My "blood relationships" are meant unquestionably for me to recognize, but they are to be held in subjection, if I may say so; my first duty is to God. And my "home" is to be given to hospitality. Have you ever noticed how God's grace comes to people given to hospitality if they are His children? Prosperity and growth in home, business and everything else comes from following God's advice in every detail.

2. Now we will take the Social Me.

"Lo, this only have I found, that God hath mad 3 man upright, but they have sought out many inventions." (Eccl. 7:29.) The word "inventions" is a very quaint one. It means devices from man's self love. It is a strange word. Remember, God made man upright, normal, perpendicular, regular; but he sought out many devices from his self love, many ingenious twistings away from the normal. Now the v Social Me" simply means "recognition by my set," and that has a wonderful influence with us all. For instance, the boy who is good and mild to his father and mother at home, may swear "like a trooper" when he is with the other "set." It is not because he is bad or evil, but because he wants to be recognized by his "set"; and you will find that that goes all through life, and God recognizes it, and regenerates that also. "We must be moulded by the set we belong to, whether we like it or not, and you will find that God very often alters our special setting. We may affect any amount of individuality but it remains true that we either "grovel" or we "strut" according to our realization of how we are recognized by the "set" we belong to, and you will find how insistent God is on this. You cannot develop a holy life alone. It will be a selfish, wrong life, without God in it. Jesus Christ was charged with being a "glutton and a winebibber" because He lived so sociably among men, and in His high-priestly prayer He prays, "I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil that is in the world.' ' And the first place He led His disciples to after He said, "Follow Me," was to a marriage feast. Jesus says, "My Father and I will make our abode with you." That is the "set" God places the Christian in, fellowship with the Trinity. Therefore the greatest concern of your life and mine is that we live according to the recognition of that "set," that we do those things that please God.

Let us now take (a) My Success. (Matt. 5: 13-16.) _ [What is the standard of success as a Christian? Do you know; what success is? Success is to end with advantage. Jesus Christ distinctly recognizes that we have to succeed, and the kind of success is indicated. The advantage we have to end with in our lives, is "preserving salt and shining lights," not losing our savor, but preserving in health. If we get salt into a wound, it hurts, and if God's children get amongst those who are "raw" towards God (every immoral person is an open wound towards God) their presence hurts. For instance, the sun, which is a benediction to eyes that are right, is an agony of distress to eyes that are sore. The analogy holds with regard to a man who is wrong. He is like an open wound when salt gets into it, the pain stirs him to annoyance and distress, then spite and hatred. That is why they hated Jesus Christ. He was a continual annoyance. Or again, nothing is cleaner, or grander, or sweeter than light. You cannot soil light. A sunbeam may shine into a puddle, but it. never gets dirty.

You can soil a white sheet of paper, you can soil almost any white substance, but you cannot soil light. When rightly related to God, one can go down and work in the most degraded slums of the cities, or the vilest parts of heathendom, where all kinds of immorality are practised, but one is not defiled because God keeps us like the light.

Next (b) My Sociability. Sociability means good fellowship. How insistent God is that we keep together in fellowship. In the natural world it is only by mixing with other people that we get the corners rubbed off. That is the way we are made, and God takes that principle and transfigures it. "Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together" is a Scriptural injunction.

John 5: 40-44. In these verses our Lord distinctly indicates that there are certain states of society He will have nothing to do with. He cannot have anything to do with the men who "seek honor one of another." He says, in effect, "It is a moral impossibility for that man to believe in Me." Our Lord is exceeding good company and good fellowship to the saints. It is "wheresoever two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst." Beware of isolation; beware of getting the idea that "I have to develop my holy life alone." It is impossible to develop a holy life alone, you will develop into an "oddity" and a "peculiarism," and unlike anything God wants you to be. The only way we can develop is by getting into the society of God's own children, and we will very soon find how God alters our "set/' He does not contradict our social instincts, but He alters them. Jesus Christ says, "Leap for joy when men separate you from their company for My sake" (not for some crotchety notion or some faddy ideas of your own, or some principle you have wedded yourself to, but for My sake). When you are true to Him, your sociability is lifted to a different sphere.

"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.' ' (Eph. 2:6.) "We are not raised up alone, but together. All through, this social instinct is a God-given one, ancl whenever a man gets alone, from the Bible standpoint, it is always to fit him for public society. Getting alone with God is very often such a dangerous business that God will very rarely allow you to do it unless you are getting into closer contact with people after. It is contact with one another that keeps us full-orbed and well-balanced, not only as natural beings, but as spiritual beings also.

(c) Then My Satisfaction. All these things are applicable in the natural world and the spiritual world alike. Satisfaction means a comfortable gratification. There are certain peculiar people who say if you like a thing, you must not do it or have it. They are as those who would say, "If you like to go to a prayermeeting, you must not go; if you dislike a ballroom, you must go." These people won't have any satisfaction at all, they think it is a sin. Now satisfaction, and the demand for satisfaction, is a God-given principle in our human life, and Jesus Christ says, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled' 9 (satisfied). Satisfaction is a good thing, "comfortable gratification, ' ' but it has to be satisfaction in the highest.

Read Mattthew 10:17-22. That is an extraordinary passage, and you will wonder why that passage has been taken in connection with satisfaction. The reason is that it indicates the only place where satisfaction is to be found — satisfaction in having done God's will. Those verses are very often taken and applied to the methods people adopt when they speak at meetings. (I have heard a man say at a gathering of Christians, "I have not had much time to prepare for this morning's address, so I am going to give you what the Holy Spirit gives me, but I hope to be better prepared this evening." His justification, he said, was this very passage.) When you go along seeking God's satisfaction in the world of men, you are going to come in contact with "open wounds," and they are going to hate you, you are going to be systematically vexed, persecuted and detested, and hated "for My sake," says our Lord; and "they will put you in all kinds of places suddenly where you will be completely humiliated, but when you are put there, do not be alarmed, I am there, and the Spirit of God will bring to your remembrance what you shall say in those moments." So we end where we began, that the social setting of my life is the highest — the Trinity. That is why, in secret or in public, the one set that I am anxious to please is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and the only sort of people I have real communion with are the people who have the same dominant note in their lives. Jesus Christ says, "Whoever does the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, sister and mother." 3. The Spiritual Me.

"And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. " (Eph. 2: 6.) That verse does not refer to hereafter, but to now. My Mind, My Morals, and My Mysticism. I have (a) My Own Mind, and my particular mind means my particular cast of thought and feeling. You ridicule that, and you hurt me. You may not know it, but immediately a certain type of thought or feeling is ridiculed, someone will feel hurt. So it is quite right to put it under this category. "And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Rom. 12: 2.) One of the most wonderful things in your spiritual experience and mine is the way God alters and develops our sensitiveness. There was a time when our mental acts of thought and feeling made us amazingly sensitive to what certain other people thought and felt; now God has altered that and made us that we are absolutely indifferent to what they think, but we have become amazingly sensitive now to what another set of people think (1 Cor. 4:3, 4); then finally we are only sensitive to what God thinks of our cast of thought and feeling, and right through we are commissioned to be renewed in the spirit of our mind for that purpose, viz.: that we "may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

Then (b) My Morals, my standard of moral conduct. Let us take the great verse, "Except your righteausness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.' ' (Matt. 5:20.) The practical outcome of that for our lives is wonderful. My standard of moral conduct must exceed thef standard of the moral upright man and woman I know, who lives apart from the grace of God. Think of the most upright man, the most worthy person you know who has had no experience whatever of receiving the Spirit of God, Jesus Christ says in effect you have to exceed their rectitude. Instead of our Lord lowering the standard of moral conduct, He pushes it to a tremendous extreme. You have not only to do the right things, but your motives have to be right, the springs of your thinking have to be right, you have to be so unblameable that God sees nothing to censure in your holiness. That is the standard of our moral conduct if we are born again of the Spirit of God and are going on to obey Him. What is my standard of moral conduct? Is it God's standard, or the modern one? The modern standard is summed up in one phrase, self-realization. The two are diametrically opposed to one another, there is no point of reconciliation between them.

Then (c) My mysticism, my direct and immediate communion with God. (Col. 2: 20-23.) Everyone has something of that sort whereby he directly goes to

God, whether he calls himself religious or not. Mysticism is a natural ingredient in everybody's make-up whether he calls himself "Atheist," or "Agnostic," or "Christian." Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God alters the whole thing. He does not alter the need of our nature, but He puts it on a totally different line. We are so mysterious in personality, and there are so many forces at work about us which we cannot calculate or cope with, that immediately we refuse to take the guidance of Jesus Christ, we may be, and probably will be, deluded by supernatural forces far greater than we are. Jesus Christ's way exalts everything about us, exalts our bodies, exalts our flesh and blood relationship, exalts our homes, exalts our social standing, and exalts all the inner part of our own life: mind, morals, and mysticism until we have at-one-ment with God.