Mystery of the New Inner Person

By Professor P. V. Ntintili

No-one achieves Christlikeness through emulation. It is impossible for humans to emulate God. We cannot even perfectly emulate one another. Christlikeness is only achieved as we allow Christ to live His life in and through us. This book explains how this is possible.

The clue to the secret of fruitfulness and effectiveness in everything one does is found in Philippians 2:12-13. It is God who works in us to will and act according to His good purpose; not our purpose. If you truly want to be Christlike and exceptionally fruitful in all you do for God, Mystery of the New Inner Person is a must-read.

About the Author

Professor Ntintili is committed to four principles, namely:

•Raising disciples for Christ and not for himself;
•Preparing young people to take over from adults, run with the Gospel and be engaged in God’s Work;
•Equipping the Church and helping Her fulfil Her God-given mandate
•Raising leaders.

He runs the CLEAN Training School and trains ministers for pastoral work and other leaders for effective leadership. He founded Fulfill The Great Commission Missions. He can be contacted via [phone] or [phone]. He will be posting his teachings material and information concerning his programs on his website which is coming out soon...

He is married to Felicia Nombutho Ntintili and they live in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, South Africa. They have three grown-up children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Professor P. V. Ntintili
• Release date: Feb 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215568491

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Copyright © 2022 Professor P. V. Ntintili

Published by Professor P. V. Ntintili at Smashwords

First edition 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

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Published byProfessor P. V. Ntintili using Reach Publishers’ services,

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Professor P. V. Ntintili

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Fulfil The Mandate Publishers

12 Prestwich Avenue, Mathatha, Eastern Cape

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those who are serious about following Christ in biblical discipleship. It is clear that discipleship is becoming popular, and there are more Christian organisations, churches and schools which seem to have discovered discipleship. We trust that it is biblical discipleship they have discovered and not a theological concoction of those who are theorising on a topic as pivotal to God’s purpose on earth as discipleship. There are some young people who, by God’s grace, encountered the Christ of the Bible and have committed themselves to faithfully follow Him to the end and to pay the cost of doing so.

This is the third in a trilogy of books I have written: Mystery of Salvation, Mystery of the Crucified SELF and Mystery of the New SELF in Christ. I would recommend that aspiring followers of Christ should read all three to get the whole picture.

The present and the future belong to young people. This book is lovingly dedicated to them; especially a group called Replacement Sons and Daughters [RESAD]. It is my joy to see them growing in their knowledge of Christ. May they, in the words of Paul as expressed through the Amplified Version of the Bible, Progressively [become] more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly] (Phil. 3:8b). It is their turn to take up the cudgel and fight the battles of the Lord and forcefully advance His kingdom even in this alarmingly decadent generation in which they live. If ever there was a time when discipleship was urgently needed, it is now. May this generation of young people run with it!

Preface

The Gospel of salvation is the truth from the Bible, which I thank God for revealing to me. I was brought up by my grandparents, who were very committed Christians and were staunch church members. They attended church every Sunday, whether it was raining or the sun was very hot. Ministers who were making their rounds in a circuit enjoyed hospitality in our home when they visited our local congregation. But the church that my grandparents attended was not strong in preaching the Gospel of salvation. As a result, my deeply committed Christian grandparents and all the members of the local congregation were not saved; albeit they were profoundly devoted to God and to their church.

When I moved to Johannesburg, from Qumbu, South Africa, where I was born and bred, I was exposed to the preaching of salvation. After some time, I actually committed my life to Christ after having confessed my sins and having consequently received forgiveness of sins. The relief and joy this brought to me was unspeakable. There is no doubt that my life drastically changed. The things I used to do, which were not acceptable to God, I stopped doing. Nobody told me to be separated from them. Rather, something inside of me told me that those things were not part of the life which I had committed myself to.

I started reading the Bible. In fact, I bought three Bibles in different languages and started to read them rather diligently. There was an insatiable hunger for the Word of God. My prayer life also changed drastically. There was something that drew me to God and to my knees. In a short period of time, I found myself telling others what had happened to me and encouraging them to get it too. I later learned that what I was doing was testifying to others about my faith. The change which had taken place was obvious to those who knew me, especially those who were very close to me. I dissolved all relationships which were not acceptable to God. I destroyed things which I had bought through the back-door. This meant things that were stolen and I had bought from those who had stolen them, especially clothes. I also developed zeal for serving God and His people. The pastor of the church I attended guided me to God’s call in my life. I ended up going to Bible school to be trained and equipped for full-time Christian work.

I have related this story to show that I was actually saved; I do not doubt that. But after I had been following Christ for some time, I saw bad thoughts invading my mind. There was a pull to the practices I had discarded; though not all of them. Something in me told me that this pull was a temptation from the Devil which needed to be resisted. The pull seemed stronger than inner capacity to resist it. I was able to successfully resist some temptations that the Devil brought my way, even though this victory was sporadic and intermittent. This meant that I found myself doing things I did not want to. This greatly frustrated me and sent me to my knees to pray for victory over temptation. Victory, as I have already said, was not sustainable and yet living in sin and rebellion to God was also not a permanent practice.

Nobody told me why there was this proclivity towards sin in me and how it could be overcome. I do remember reading Watchman Nee’s books, though I do not remember which one right now. I do not remember reading "Normal Christian Life, The Overcoming Life "or "Not I But Christ". I think if I had been exposed to these books I could have overcome and could have been liberated from what caused me to do things I did not want to do and to do them compulsively. But by God’s grace I was exposed to biblical teaching on salvation, which included evacuation of the SELF life and Christ becoming my life. This answered almost all the questions that I had about how to sustain the salvation experience which I had received and how to successfully resist all the temptations of the evil one.

I decided to write books on these matters; books that explain what biblical salvation actually entails. This is a third sequel of those books. The first one is Mystery of Salvation, the second one is Mystery of the Crucified SELF and this one is the Mystery of New SELF in Christ. It is my prayer that these three books will adequately explain what being born-again actually means. I trust that the Holy Spirit will use these three books to help many people who are not saved and those who are saved but are struggling with what I also struggled with. May it please God to use these three books for His glory.

Professor Prince Vuyani Ntintili

12 Prestwich Avenue, Mthatha

Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Introduction

To Christians, the matter of having a vibrant, intimate and personal relationship with God is extremely important. 1 Tim. 2:5 tells us that there is one Mediator between God and human beings; it is the Man Jesus. He is the God-man, and His mission on earth was to reconcile sinful humans to a holy God (2 Cor. 5:19). The bone of contention between humans and God is sin; a transgression against God’s holy laws (1 John 3:4). Christ died in order to pay, in full, for this transgression and thus open the way for God to freely forgive transgressors who simply ask for forgiveness (Rom. 3:23-26). But sins do not just happen on their own. There is a nature that produces them which is known as the flesh or sinful nature or SELF life. Christ also took care of this producer of sins. When He died on the cross, He nailed the sinful nature of every person on that cross (Rom. 6:6-7; Gal. 5:24). Those who appropriate their death by faith actually experience deliverance from the tyrannical nature of the SELF life (Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:9-10; Eph. 4:22-24). This crucifixion of our SELF with Christ is known in theological parlance as co-crucifixion, whereas the death of Christ on behalf of sinful humanity is known as substitutionary death. This crucifixion of the sinful nature is also known as the evacuation of the SELF life. The Bible depicts this nature as intrinsically and irredeemably wicked (Rom. 7:18-24). It uses words such as depravity, reprobation and other terms that portray it as absolutely wicked.

While we sometimes, in our explanation of salvation, focus on the crucifixion or evacuation of this nature, there is something that is even more important than this. This nature is evacuated so that a better nature can replace it. The Bible uses the biblical concept of new birth to describe what takes place. When the SELF life is removed, there is another life that replaces it, and that life is completely new. The concept of new birth has been woefully under-conceptualized in biblical theology. What does it really mean to be born-again? People who claim to be born-again do not fully understand what happens when one is born-again. This book is an elucidation of this concept. It focuses on the new SELF that replaces the old SELF. Hence the title of the book is The Mystery of the New Inner Person in Christ. This has to do with the indwelling presence of Christ in a believer who has appropriated the new birth. The Christian does not have double-occupancy; namely two persons residing in a Christian. Instead, the old tenant leaves the house and the new one takes over. This book explains the nature of the new Tenant in a believer’s life, and that new Tenant is Christ. That is why the Bible speaks of Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27; cf. 2 Cor. 13:5 and John 14:20).

There is so much involved in understanding the nature of the new SELF who replaces the old SELF. We are talking about persons here; the new Person of Christ replacing the person of the old you. How does Christ, the new Person, operate in a person? This book tries to explain this spiritual phenomenon. I pray that God will grant you deep understanding as you read this book and I pray that this deep understanding will be revelational more than just being intellectual. I do echo the prayer of Paul in Eph. 1:17 where he says, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. May this be both your portion and experience!

This book is the third in a series of three books; the previous two are Mystery of Salvation and Mystery of the Crucified SELF. In referring to the inner person we used the word SELF in the two previous books. But in this book, we are using the word person in the place of SELF. The reason for that is to obviate an unnecessary misunderstanding. In the previous books we use SELF as a synonym of the flesh or the sinful nature. We did so because the old SELF actually refers to the flesh or old man or reprobate nature. SELF in that context refers to the fallen nature which we inherited from Adam. Now people find it difficult to associate SELF with the new life we receive at the time of the new birth. To avoid or preclude unnecessary misunderstanding we choose to use the word person in this book. We are discussing the person that comes and takes the place of the evacuated person when the old SELF is removed. But we will use the terms SELF and the Inner Person interchangeably even though the one concept which will be predominantly used is the inner person.

Let me also explain that you will find in the book many repetitions and I want you to know that they are not an oversight. Rather, they are deliberate and therefore kindly bear with us in this regard. Some things need to be hammered over and over again for them to truly sink in. I am a teacher by profession and repetition often sends a message to the students that something that a lecturer repeats is important and is likely to come up in the examinations. Those matters which we repeat again and again should send a message to the reader that they are important.

Peter, writing to people who were dispersed in the nations because of persecution, tells his readers that He is reminding them of something they already know. In other words, he was deliberately repeating something they already knew. He writes in 2 Pet. 1:12-15, So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things. The phrase that he uses that catches my notice is in verse 12 and it is firmly established in the truth. I too deliberately repeat the truths in which I desire you to be established. Pay attention to those matters which I constantly emphasize in various ways.

Part One

This covers chapters 1-9. It opens in Chapter 1 with clarification of what SELF actually is; it points out that self means personality, nature, identity and person. In this book we use the word person for the word self. Chapter 2 deals with the emptying of the corrupted person who was affected by the Fall. Chapter 3 deals with the serious transgressions which the old person committed in the past. Chapter 4 deals with the impartation of the new life of Christ after the evacuation of the old, corrupted person. Chapter 5 deals with the renewal of the mind which has been affected by the Fall. Chapter 6 discusses the unsetting of the settings of the old life and it is the mind that is primarily set and needs to be unset. Chapter 7 deals with the resetting of the mind when the new person takes over from the old one. Chapter 8 addresses the urgent matter of the breaking of our outer life which has been hardened by the old sinful person who occupied us before we experienced the new birth. Chapter 9, the last chapter of Part One, explains who the anticipated new person is. When we speak of the new person who substitutes the old one, who are we talking about? It is clear that in this part of the book we are talking about a transition from the old person to the new one.

Chapter One

The Concept of Self

This is one concept which we need to clarify. If we do not, there will be a lot of confusion arising from misunderstanding. In the book "Mystery of the Crucified SELF we explained that SELF refers to the fallen nature or the sinful nature. Other synonyms that are used for SELF are reprobate nature, fallen nature, sinful nature, the old man, flesh, human nature, iniquity, sin, depraved nature, carnal nature, Adamic nature, etc. All these terms speak of a life that produces sin and is corrupt through and through. We have seen this in many Scriptures. They explain that the sinful nature is intrinsically evil and produces wickedness all the time. When you read Scriptures such as Gal. 5:19-21; Rom. 1:18-32; Eph. 4:24-31; 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and Col. 3:5-10 they clearly show that SELF produces heinous sins. This understanding of SELF is correct and is borne out by the Word of God. But this is not all that the Bible says about SELF. We should not assume that the Bible speaks only of the sinful SELF. There is also the redeemed SELF who produces works of righteousness. This is the SELF we are trying to understand in this book and the one we refer to in the book as the new inner person in Christ".

We need to understand what the word SELF means. The word SELF can be defined as, a person’s essential being that distinguishes them from others, especially considered as the object of introspection or reflexive action. I would want us to pay attention to the word being. Collins Dictionary defines self as An individual’s consciousness or his or her own identity or being. What is more illuminating to me when we think of the concept of SELF are the synonyms that are used to describe it. Some of them are personality, person, nature, character, being, identity, traits, qualities and ego. The word SELF first refers to personality or person. God is a Person and not a thing. It is often pointed out that a person has a mind, emotions and will and since God has these, He is a Person and not an impersonal force, as some like to describe Him. The point I am making is that even God has SELF; His personality, identity, nature, character and traits. I want to disabuse us of the idea that the notion of SELF refers only to corrupt fallen SELF. There is good and bad SELF.

I want us to note three types of SELF in the Bible as it refers to us human beings. This will dispel some misconception about SELF; a narrow understanding of the world SELF.

The Uncorrupted SELF

We want to talk first about the uncorrupted SELF of the first couple; especially that of Adam, as the person who was created first. This is the SELF of Adam before the Fall; it was pristine and unspoiled. What did it look like? The Bible tells us what it looked like. It says in Genesis 1:26-27, Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. The key words in these two verses are: image, likeness and rule. The first two describe the nature of the uncorrupted SELF of Adam and Eve and the last their responsibility based on their SELF. Image means, Appearance. This mean that the SELF of the first person appeared like that of God in many ways. It means persona, representation, reflection, copy, picture, depiction, exemplification. This means that the first man Adam and his wife were a representation of God, they depicted God, they reflected Him and they exemplified Him and were His copy. These are very strong terms that are used to describe the SELF of the first couple. Since God is immaterial, these refer to the inner part of Adam and his wife; to their essence and character. This says a lot about the kind of SELF they carried.

As if this was not enough, Gen. 1:26 also speaks of likeness. It would appear as if this is repetitive; a mere and unnecessary tautology. The word likeness means Similarity, resemblance, correspondence, reproduction, portrait, and correspondence means agreement, match, conformity. All these words add to our understanding of the SELF of the first couple. It was similar to that of God, it agreed with it, it resembled it, it corresponded to it and it conformed to it. There was congruence between the SELF of God and that of the first couple.

This does not surprise us when we note how the first persons were created. The Bible says that Adam was created first (1 Tim. 2:13) and it tells us how the first person was created. Gen. 2:7 says, The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. What was created out of the dust of the ground was the body which was to house the real person. Then God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This means that God imparted to man life from His own life. Job 27:3 refers to what God breathed into man as the breath of God. Job 33:4 calls what God breathed into man The Spirit of God and the breath of the Almighty. God inserted Himself into man and that is why He resembled God so perfectly. After God breathed into man His life, the King James Version says, And the man became a living soul. Soul is understood to be the seat of intellect (mind), emotions (feelings) and will (volition). This means that these faculties were controlled and directed by the Spirit of God imparted to man at the time of creation. Consequently, the first man thought, felt and willed like God. The SELF of the uncorrupted first man was perfect in every respect; it was a good and godly SELF.

The Corrupted SELF

The Bible makes it clear that the SELF of the first couple did not remain as pristine and unspoiled as it was at the beginning. Genesis 3 speaks of the catastrophe which took place in the Garden of Eden; the Fall of Adam and Eve. It was precipitated by their disobedience to the commandment that God had given them. The Bible teaches that disobedience is sin (Deut. 11:26-28; 1 Sam. 15:23; Rom. 5:19; Eph. 2:1-2). God had warned Adam that the day he disobeyed God, by eating from the forbidden tree, he would die. He did not die physically but spiritually. What does it mean to die spiritually? Death always means separation. Physical death is the separation of body and spirit (Eccl. 12:7). Spiritual death is the separation of the soul and God. When the first man and his wife fell into sin, God withdrew His Spirit which was the basis of the image and likeness of God which they carried. If nothing had happened after God had withdrawn His Spirit, they should have dropped dead. But they did not. Instead, there was another spirit that entered into the first couple. The Bible says that God is Spirit (John 4:24) and what He breathed into Adam and Eve was His Spirit (Job 33:4). Now when God withdrew His Spirit, another alien spirit entered into man and it corrupted the SELF of the man and his wife. They became depraved. The word depraved means corrupted, degraded, debauched, debased and ruined. Bible scholars speak of total depravity which means that the corruption that resulted from the Fall has infected every faculty of human beings; their intellect, will and emotions. The doctrine of total depravity asserts that people are, as a result of the fall, not inclined or even able to love God wholly with heart, mind and strength, but rather are inclined by nature to serve their own will and desires and reject his rule. Note the last part of this quotation which states that depravity causes people to serve their own will and desires and to reject the rule of God. At creation man was given the life of God. But after the Fall, God’s life was withdrawn, because of God’s righteous life which could not co-exist with and co-habit the same space with a sinful nature. Instead of being inhabited by God’s life (God’s SELF), man was inhabited by SELF life.

From Genesis 3 to the end of the Bible, Revelation 22, we see the alarming moral and spiritual degeneration of humans. Up to the present time, human beings have been getting more wicked and degenerate. Things they do today were unimaginable only two decades ago. We cannot even catalogue the horrendous sins humans committed just in the first book of the Bible. In Judges 19:22-30 we are told of men of Gibeah who wanted to homosexually rape a Levite from the hill country of Ephraim. When they could not prevail, they raped his concubine the whole night and left her for dead and then dropped her at the door of the Levite. There are other gruesome stories such as this which depict the corruption of the SELF of human beings which had taken place. Describing the extent of the corruption that had invaded humans after the Fall, Gen. 6:5 says, And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. There are other scriptures in the Bible that paint a very bleak picture of the moral degeneration of humans after the Fall (Ps. 14:1-4; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 1:24-31; 3:9-23; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:16-21; Eph. 4:24-31; Col. 3:5-9).

The corrupted SELF is what is responsible for the debauchery and wickedness that we see in the world today. Job 15:16 speaks of people who drink evil like water. In our day they actually swim in wickedness and our governments do not know what to do to stem the avalanche of wickedness they experience in their nations. The horrendous stories we read in our newspapers and social media are too ghastly to believe. They actually threaten to destroy every fabric of moral decency and probity. This is the second SELF of human beings we have to deal with. It is this SELF that causes us to think that there could be no good SELF.

The Restored New SELF

The restored new SELF is what we call a born-again person. The Bible says in Job 42:1, I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. The Devil cannot have the last word on any situation. It is notable that the Bible says that Christ is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. The plan of salvation was not God’s afterthought. Even before He created Adam and Eve and before they fell into sin, God who works proactively already had the plan of salvation in place. It is through that plan that the new SELF was restored.

The question we should first ask is: what is it that is being restored? The answer is obvious. When God created human beings in the beginning, He created them in His image and likeness so that they would reflect God. Now at the Fall humans lost that image and likeness. Speaking of the restoration of the lost image of God in humans, Eph. 4:24 says, And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. This is after the removal of the corrupted SELF in verse 22. Note that in verse 24 the new SELF is created after the likeness of God. Now the restoration of the new SELF has to do with the restoration of the image and likeness of God. The question then is: how is this restoration to be done.

God had to send His Son, Christ, to come and undertake this important task. The Bible tells us that the Son is the exact representation of his being. The Amplified version of the Bible says that Christ is "the perfect imprint and very image of [God’s] nature". There are other Scriptures that affirm this; the book of Colossians is another book that stresses this truth. Colossians 1:19 says that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Col. 2:9; cf. 1:29). Col. 1:15 says that Christ is the image of the invisible God. He is the only Person who still has the image and likeness of God. The question, however, remains: how is God’s image restored to human beings?

We should again notice how God imparted His image into man in the beginning. Gen. 2:7 says that He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This breath of life came from God. In other words, He infused into man His own life. The preposition ‘into’ is important and it means to the inside of. The Apostle John’s favourite words are life and light. Speaking of Chris, he says in John 1:4, In him was life, and that life was the light of men. In John 10:10 He Himself says that He has come so that human beings might have life.