Biblical Psychology

3 SOME DELUSIONS OF IMPORTANCE. 2 Thess. 2: 7-12.

(a) The "Ego" in Delusions of Insanity.

(c) The "Ego" in Delusions of Mediums and Possessions.

(a) Independence of the Persons. John 1: 11-13.

(b) Identification with the Purpose. Gal. 2: 20.

(c) Incorporation of the Power. 1 Cor. 12: 12, 14. This last section deals with the Readjustment of Ego

1. Some Distinctions of Importance.

We divide this subject of Ourselves into two — one, the part that knows, the Ego; and the other the known, the Me.

First of all, we will take these distinctions generally— Individuality and Personality, and Egoism and Egotism, and find how the Bible gives wonderful insight into these distinctions.

(a) Individuality is a much slighter term than (b) Personality. "We speak of an individual animal, an individual man, and an individual thing. An individual man simply happens to be one by himself, he takes up so much space, requires so many cubic feet of air, etc. Personality is infinitely more. Possibly the best illustration we can get is a lamp. A lamp not lighted will illustrate the individual; a lamp lighted will illustrate the personality. The personality in its influence goes far beyond the individual lamp; it takes up no more room than the individual lamp, but the light permeates far and wide. "Ye are the light of the world/ ' said our Lord. "We do not take up very much room individually, but our influence goes far beyond our calculation. So when we use the term personality, we are using the very biggest mental conception we can have, and that is why we call God a Person, because "person'' is the word that has the largest import we know. We do not call God an individual; we call Him a Person. He may be a great deal more, but at least He must be that. It is necessary to remember this when the personality of God is denied, and God is taken to be a tendency. If He is, He is much less than I am. Our personality is always too big for us. When we come to examine the next sections and trace the Bible teaching, we will find that the Bible says we are much too big will find that the Bible says we are much too complex to understand ourselves. Another illustration for Personality, more often used, is as follows: an island at sea may seem very easily explored, yet how amazed we become when we realize that it is the top of a great mountain, whose greater part is hidden under the waves of the sea, and goes sheer down to deeper depths than we can fathom. That little island represents our conscious personality, the part we are conscious of is a very tiny part; the great underneath part we know nothing about, and consequently there are upheavals from beneath that we cannot estimate. We cannot grasp ourselves at all. We begin by thinking we can, but we have to come to the Bible standpoint that no one knows himself but God. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death." Individuality then is a smaller term than personality. Personality means that peculiar, incalculable being that is meant when you speak of "you" as distinct from everybody else. People say, "Oh, I cannot understand myself," of course you cannot. "Nobody else understands me," of course they don't. There is only one Being who understands us, and that is our Creator.

It is necessary to have the proper distinctions in our minds regarding (c) Egoism and Egotism. "Egotism" is a conceited insistence on my own particular ways and manners and customs. It is an easily discernible characteristic, and fortunately is condemned straightway by all right-thinking people. We are all inclined to overlook it in very young and very ignorant people, but even in them it is of the detestable, vicious order. But of Egoism we can only say good things. It is that system of thinking that makes the human personality the centre. Thinking that starts from all kinds of abstractions is contrary to the Bible way of thinking. The Bible way gets us right straight down to man as the centre. What puts man right and keeps man right is the revelation in God's Book. For instance, our Lord and the apostle Paul continually centre around "I," but there is no egotism about it. It is egoism, everything is related to man, to his salvation, to his sanctification, to his keeping, etc. Every system of thinking which has man for its centre and as its aim and purpose is rightly called Egoism.

2. Some Determinations of Interest

The personality of man is the most internal nature of man, it is distinct from spirit, soul and body and yet embraces all. It is the innermost centre of man's spirit, soul and body, and there are three things about this Ego. It is (a) Inscrutable, we cannot understand it, we cannot search it out. The Bible says that a man is incapable of satisfactorily searching himself out. Isaiah 26:9 says, ''"With my soul have I desired Thee in the night, yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early.' ' The distinction there is made clearly between the inmost personality called "I" and spirit, soul and body, and the distinction is kept up all through God's Book. I can search, my spirit up to a certain point; I can search my soul and my body, but only up to a certain point. Man begins to find, immediately he comes to examine himself, that he is inscrutable. He cannot examine himself thoroughly. He may get certain arbitrary distinctions and call himself body, soul and spirit, and instantly he finds it is not satisfactory. Those of you who are interested in this kind of reading, will constantly find the word "subliminal" occurring, i. e., below the threshold, something that is below the threshold of my consciousness, and every now and again you wrill get something emerging from below the threshold of your consciousness that upsets your thought about yourself. Our Lord dealing with His disciples brought them into places where they became conscious of doing things they never knew. In Matthew 16 we read that Christ said to Peter, "Get thee behind Me, Satan." Peter had not the slightest notion that God Almighty lifted him up as a trumpet and blew a blast through him, which Jesus Christ recognized as the voice of His Father; and a little while afterward^ Satan took him up and blew a blast through him, which Jesus recognized as the voice of Satan. If you had told Peter that he was capable of denying his Lord with "oaths and curses," he would have been unable to understand how you could think it.

There are possibilities below the threshold in my life and yours which no one knows but God, and Jesus Christ brought His disciples through crises to reveal to them that they were much too big for themselves. There were forces of evil and good within them which played havoc with every resolution and every prayer they made. "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults." (Psa. 19:12.) This is simply a type verse of a revelation which runs all through. God's Book. We cannot understand ourselves, we do not know the beginnings of our dreams or our motives, we do not know our secret errors, they lie below the region we can get at.

Then not only am I inscrutable, but I am so built that I am obliged to examine myself, that is the meaning of introspective, (b) Introspection means the act of directly observing the processes of my mind. That is the line upon which people go insane. Cut a tree in half and you can tell by the number of rings how old it is, and people try to cut themselves in half psychically, that is, they try to cut their consciousness in half and tell you how it is made; and we are so built that we attempt to $0 this. Immediately a jnan gets to feel that he is incalculable, he begins to want to understand himself, begins to introspect. The great chapter on wise introspection in the Bible is the 139th Psalm. That Psalm is Intercessory Introspection. Those words are a contradiction in terms, but they exactly convey the jneaning of the Psalm. This tendency in me which makes me want to examine myself, and know the springs of my thoughts and motives, in this Psalm takes the form of prayer, "0 Lord, explore me." The Psalmist gives a description of the great Creator who knows the beginnings of the morning and the endings of the evening, who knows the fathomless deep and the tremendous mountains, but he does not stop with vague abstractions; these things are all very well, but they are useless for his purpose. He asks that great Creator to come and search him. " There are beginnings of mornings in me and endings of even- ings in me that I cannot understand; there are great mountain peaks I cannot scale, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, I cannot attain unto it, explore me, search me out." Or, again it means, " Search out the beginnings of my dreams, get down below where I can go, winnow out my way until you have got to understand the beginnings of all my motives and dreams, and let me know that you know me; and the only way I will know that you know me is that you will save from the way of grief, you will save me from the way of self-realization, you will save me from the way of sorrow and twistedness, and you will lead me in the way everlasting.' ' The old Greek philosophers used to tell us to know ourselves, and the whole meaning of Socrates' teaching is exactly the same as in this Psalm, only from another standpoint. Socrates' wisdom consisted in finding out that he knew nothing by himself, and that is why he was called by the Oracle the "wisest man on earth." About myself I have to be an avowed agnostic. "We begin by thinking that we know all about ourselves, but a quarter of an hour of the "plague of our own heart" will upset all our thinking and we will understand the meaning of the 139th Psalm. "0 Lord, search me!" Mark you, God does not search me unless He lets me know it. "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly." (Prov. 20:27.) The word there translated by the old Saxon word "belly" means "the innermost part." He makes the man know that He is searching him, and when we come to our Lord and His attitude to the human soul, that line of thought explains Him immediately. "If I had not come, they had not had sin." "If I had not eome with My light, and if the Holy Ghost had not come with His light, men had not known anything about sin." It takes an apostle Paul, to use the phrase "sold under sin," to know what it meant. He had been searched clean through by the penetrating Spirit of God. We are inscrutable, but we are so built that we must introspect. Introspection without God leads to insanity. We do not know the springs of our thinking, we do not know; what we are influenced by, we do not know all the scenery psychically that Jesus Christ looked at. For instance, our Lord continually saw things and beings we do not see. He talked about "Satan" and "demons" and "angels." Now we don't see Satan, or demons, or angels, but Jesus Christ unquestionably did, and He sees their influence on us. The man who criticizes Jesus Christ's explanation about demon possession, does not see what he is doing. The people who have no tendency to introspect, are those who are described in the New Testament as "dead in trespasses and sins," quite happy, quite contented, quite moral, all they want is easily within their grasp, everything is all right with them; but they are dead to all the world Jesus Christ belongs to, and it takes His voice and His Spirit to awaken the dead.

By (c) the term " Individual," we mean, first, what we stated at the beginning in distinguishing between individuality and personality; and second, that every man is judged before God as an individual being, that what he has done he alone is responsible for. Ezekiel 18:1-4: "The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, What mean ye, that ye use this proverb, concerning the land of Israel, saying, That the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are Mine, as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die." This line of revelation which runs all through God's Book shows the absurdity of a certain amount of cheap criticism, a fictitious conception which was that we are punished for Adam's sin. The Bible does not say so. The Bible says that men are punished for their own sins, that is, culpably punished. The Bible says that "sin entered into the world by one man," but sin is not an act on iny part at all. Sin is a disposition, and I am in no way responsible for having the disposition of sin. What I am responsible for, is not allowing God to deliver me from it, when once I see that that is what Jesus Christ came to do. What I am punished for is the wrong things I do, and I will be whipped for them no matter how I plead. I will be inexorably punished for, and suffer from every wrong that I do. The inexorable law of God is laid down in the Old and New Testaments that the wrong I do, I will smart for, and be held responsible for, and punished for, no matter who I am. The Atonement has made provision for what I am not responsible for, viz.: the disposition of sin. John 3: 19 sums it up: "This is the condemnation (or the crisis, the critical moment) that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." What is light? Jesus says, "I am the light of the world," and He said to His disciples, "If the light in you be darkness, how great is that darkness." My darkness is "my own point of view."

You will find in the matter of regeneration that God works below the threshold of my consciousness; all I am conscious of is a sudden burst up into my conscious life, but as to when God begins to work no one can tell. That is the meaning of our intercessory prayer. A mother, or a husband, or a wife, or a Christian worker praying for another soul has a clear indication that God has answered their prayer; but outside the people are just the same, there is no difference in their conduct, but the prayer is answered. The work is unconscious yet, but at any second it may burst forth into conscious life. You cannot calculate where God is going to begin any more than you can say when it is going to become conscious; and that is why we have to pray in intercession in the Holy Spirit. The path of peace for you and for me is to hand our case over to God, ask Him to search us — not what I think I am, not what other people think I am, not what I persuaded myself I am or would like to be, but " search me out and explore me as I really am in Thy sight."

3. Some Delusions of Importance. (2 Thess. 2: 7-12.)

There are supernatural powers and agencies we are unconscious of which can play with us like toys whenever they choose, unless we are garrisoned by God. The New Testament continually impresses that on us. "We do not battle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of this world's darkness, and spiritual wickedness in high places" — all outside the realm of our consciousness. When we pray, if we only* look for results in the "earthlies," we are ill-taught. A praying saint performs far more havoc among the unseen forces of darkness than we have the slightest notion of. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much in its working." We have not the remotest conception, nor the right to try and examine and understand what is done by our praying, all we can. know is that Jesus Christ laid all stress on prayer. "Greater works shall ye do, because I go to my Father... that whatsoever ye ask the Father in My name that will I do." It is only when these terrors and speculations are awakened in us that we begin to see what the atonement of Jesus Christ means. It means safeguarding in the unseen, safeguarding from dangers we know nothing about. "Kept by the power of God! ' ' The conscious ring of our life is a mere phase, God did not only die and rise again in Jesus Christ to save that, it is the whole personality that is included.

Those verses in the Second Epistle to the Thessa. lonians 2: 7-12 represent the borderland realm of things difficult to trace. The theme is not an isolated one, it runs all through the Bible and indicates the borderland that we cannot step over.

First, (a) Delusions of Insanity. YvTiat is insanity? One of the greatest mistakes to-day is the statement that the cases of demon possession in the Bible were insanity. The distinction between them is made perfectly clear in the New Testament; the symptoms are not even the same. Insanity simply means that a man is differently related to affairs than the majority of other men, and is sometimes dangerous. Paul was charged with madness (Acts 26:24, 25), and that is the charge they brought against Jesus Christ also — "He is mad." Have you ever noticed the wisdom of the charge? Jesus Christ and Paul are unquestionably "mad" according to the standard of wisdom of this world. That means they are related to affairs differently from the majority of other men, and what the majority of other men must do for self-preservation is to shut them up in lunatic asylums. (Our Lord was crucified, and Paul was beheaded.) "When you get imbued with Jesus Christ's spirit and relation to life, you will find that you are just as "mad" according to the standard of this world.

Another thing we say about insane people which is mainly wrong is that an insane person is one who has lost his reason, that is technically untrue. An insane person is one who has lost everything but his reason. He has lost the relation of the body to the reason, and the relation of the outside world to the reason, according to the common, most universal standard. He can find a reason for everything. If you know anything about the diagnosis of insanity, you will find that this is true. If you want to know some of the cleverest dialectics that have ever been printed, read the expositions of the Sermon on the Mount to-day. They want to make out that Jesus is not mad according to the standards of this world, but He is absolutely mad, and there is no apology* for it. The modern attitude to things has either got to alter or pronounce Jesus Christ mad. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Volumes have been written to prove that the Lord did not mean anything like that, but He did, He taught it and proved it. Modern sense says, "It is nonsense, I must seek my living first, and then devote myself to the kingdom of God." Read the apostle Paul's reasonings in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, he says there that in the view of God the other crowd is mad, and a man only gets sane in God's sight when he is readjusted to God through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Then take (b) the Delusion of Alternating Personalities, that is one body being the arena of more than one personality. This is not demon possession entirely, although the case I am going to take is so. This is not a case of insanity. You wonder first of all who is speaking. A man came to Jesus Christ and bowed down; he knew perfectly well, that Jesus could deliver him. But as soon as he got there, the other personality cried out against Jesus Christ and pled that He would deal mercifully with him.

There are cases of alternating personalities to-day.

The annals regarding them are amazing, you will get them from the records of doctors of lunacy, of people suddenly disappearing. Case after case has occurred of people disappearing from one part of the country and living in another a totally different life. Alternating personalities cannot be dealt with by science; but Jesus Christ can deal with them. Then last (c) Delusions of Mediums and Possessions. Paul was grieved because this girl was a medium. Spiritualistic mediumship is the greatest psychical crime in the world. By psychical we mean the greatest crime against our soul. Drunkenness and debauchery are child's play compared to mediumship. It is possible, according to the Bible revelation, for a man or woman to make himself or herself a medium through whom unseen spirits can talk to seen men and women. (Beware of using that phrase " yield, give up your will." Be perfectly certain to "WHOM you are yielding. No man or woman has any right to yield themselves to any impression, any influence, or any impulse saving Jesus Christ. Immediately you do, you are susceptible to all kinds of supernatural powers and influences. There is only one being I have to yield to, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, and let me be sure that it is the Lord Jesus Christ. Impressionable people are the most dangerous people of all in religious meetings "When you get that type of nature to deal with, pray as you never prayed, watch as you never watched, and travail in communion as you never travailed in communion, because the soul that is inclined to be the medium between any supernatural forces and himself will nearly always be caught up by the supernatural forces belonging to Satan instead of by God. The Bible says, * * If it be possible, even the very elect will be deceived' ' regarding the false revelation of Jesus Christ. So beware to whom you yield. When once a nature gets hold of the sovereign power of God and recognizes to WHOM he is yielded, then the whole power of the nature is safeguarded forever. Beware of impressions and impulses unless they wed themselves to the standard given by Jesus Christ. Insanity is a fact, demon possession is a fact, and niediumship is a fact.)

"All power is given unto Me." "I will give you power over all the power of the enemy." "For this cause was Jesus Christ manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil."