The Old Testament person was dualistic in nature. He had an outer man and an inner man, but the gospel of the Old Covenant could not touch the inner spirit of man because spiritual death was lodged in there.
In order to bless people, God sent an expression of his character & nature in the form of 10 Commandments. Whenever anyone conformed to those laws in thought, word and deed then God was able to bless them. But according to Hebrews 9: 13 the sacrifices could only cleanse the outer man and could not touch the inner spirit of man. There wasn't any sacrifice great enough to deal with or change the old nature within. The only problem with the Law was that no one could keep it. If you broke one part you broke the lot, it was too perfect. Paul describes this in Romans 7 where he says that he found himself doing the opposite of what he wanted to do and described that living under the Law and trying to be free made him 'a wretched person'.
You cannot be set free from the old nature by works,. In the New Covenant we are set free by what we say and believe, not by what we do. The promise from Ezekiel 36 is that in this New Covenant the Lord has given us a new heart and put his spirit within, that is to say his character and nature within, because that's why the Bible says that without the spirit of Christ (his character & nature) we are none of his. This is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit, because unless we have the nature of Christ within then we will not be able to reproduce his character or nature. Natural people reproduce the nature of their natural parents, spiritual people reproduce the nature of their spiritual re-birth.
In this new Covenant God has given us a new heart and within that new heart he has placed his Law.
Yet today we have many people who are still dualistic in character and living like Old Testament people and still bound by their habits and things, still living like Paul in Romans 7 delighting after God in the inner man but still having conflicts with their flesh, not realising that they are still married to the Law whenever they should be dead to it and set free to live a new victorious life in Christ.
The Law will have dominion and power over a person as long as they are still alive and will continue to operate in that person until they die.
The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the Law of Sin and Death. That's why Paul was able to say that 'how can we who are dead to sin live any longer in it?
This next diagram shows the function of 'THE SPIRIT'
Whenever we say someone is 'soulish' in nature it means that they are governed by their mind, will and emotions, whereas for the 'spiritual' person they are governed by the word of God, that's why Jesus said, 'make my word your home, you will indeed be my disciples, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32)
Here is the function of 'THE SOUL' you will see that in the soul you have the mind, will and emotions.
As an example; if I have anxiety about something it affects my mind and then my thoughts will then send a signal to my heart and I will have high blood pressure. The same with anger and any other emotions that we have. Drugs are not the answer, they only suppress the problem, you need to lay the axe to the root of the problem and take it to the cross where Jesus took it for you. These are the things we have to confess in order to get free from them.
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