DEWITT TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES
“THE
INNER MAN IS BEING
MADE PERFECT”
By C.W. Wood
February
2013
A
PERSONAL NOTE TO OUR READERS: Precious
Ones, we are now in our new year of 2013. I must say that some of us old-timers
never thought we would still be waiting on the Rapture to happen! Also, I know
that some of us have grown weary of the trials of our faith and have been
desperately praying, “Come quickly Lord Jesus!” “We are troubled on every
side but not distressed; we are perplexed but not in despair; persecuted, but
not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” Always striving to remember that
“The trial of our faith is more precious than gold.”
The purpose of this note is to encourage our Brothers and Sisters after
we ourselves have been helped. Surely, all our groaning and praying has gotten
His attention, and surely He is going to deliver us shortly. Perhaps we are
about to receive a new Pope, who according to prophesy, could be an American!
This would surely be an end-time sign. In the mean time, we here thank every one
of you for your gifts of love for the work, and for your earnest prayers.
In Christian Love,
Br. C.W. Wood
There is an OUTERMAN, our flesh man, or SELF, and this man was born a
sinner. He will always be a sinner. But, thanks be to God there is an INNER MAN
who has been born again by a seed from God, and this man has never sinned.
It is our goal in this sermon, to show the teaching of a Prophet
concerning the scriptural truth about the difference between these two. Once the
INNER MAN has been separated from the OUTER MAN, by revelation, we will move up
to the place where Paul said in Rom. 8:1, “There
is therefore NOW NO CONDEMNATION to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the spirit.”
In Rom.
And then, as if to be sure we didn’t miss the point, the Holy Ghost
repeated Himself in verse 20, “Now
if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in
me.” Paul was testifying that his inner man had no sin.
These short, but profound, statements open the mighty revelation geared
to take us from condemnation to perfect faith. We well know the Word in I
John 3:21, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward
God.” We are not adding to the Word when we say, “If our heart DOES
condemn us, then our faith falls short of being perfect.”
God’s goal for His Bride is to bring her to perfection here and now, in
this life, so that she may rule and reign for Him on Earth. He will bring to
pass the Rapture through the ministry of His Bride on Earth. She will finish the
work left for this hour. She will receive the “GIFT
OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.” (Rom.
This will be a FAITH reign. It will not be through the perfection of the
OUTER FLESH MAN, it will be the perfecting of the faith in the INNER MAN. It
will be by THE FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD, even as Paul said in Gal. 2:20, “…..the
life that I now live in the flesh I live by the FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD.”
In our text scriptures, we can see
that the Holy Ghost has separated the INNER MAN from the OUTER MAN. Paul said,
“The real I (my inside person) is not guilty of sin… “For I delight in the law of God after the INNER MAN.” (Rom.
The INNER MAN is a creation of God. He is the seed of God taken from our
theophany and placed in us at our physical birth, then, later quickened into
life. He cannot sin. Our OUTER MAN is this body of flesh that we live in, and it
is the result of the sexual sin in
Gal. 5:17, “For the FLESH lusteth against the SPIRIT, and the SPIRIT against the
FLESH, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that we cannot do the
things that we would.” Here again is the separation of the INNER MAN from
the OUTER MAN.
In the OUTER MAN dwells the spirit of Satan, while in the INNER MAN
dwells the Spirit of God. No more of a contrast is possible than that between
God and Satan, and no more of a contrast is possible than that between our INNER
MAN and our OUTER MAN.
Can we see then why we are to “Have
no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3), and “The
flesh profiteth NOTHING” (John 6:63) and yet again in Rom.
We said that in our OUTER MAN
lives the spirit of Satan. This is a hard saying, but it is a scriptural saying.
When Adam chose to disobey God, his nature underwent a terrible change. Adam
took into himself a spirit that was identical with that of Satan. Where in,
before his disobedience, he had God’s own Spirit of Love, he now had a spirit
of SELF love, and SELF preservation. He was willing to sacrifice his wife Eve if
only he, himself, could escape judgment. He declared himself “not guilty”
and laid the blame on Eve. He had received a spirit of FEAR that manifested
itself as he attempted to hide from his Creator.
Sin had destroyed the God-like nature of Adam, and his whole being was
under the control of the evil one. There was a deep chasm between him and his
God, and Adam, himself, could never bridge this chasm. So, is it with every
person born of his lineage; we must be born-again. Without the New Birth, we
have only the nature received from our forefather Adam. But, thanks be to God,
we have been born-again. We have in our flesh body the very SEED OF GOD. That is
to say we have the very NATURE of God in our INNER MAN.
In this INNER MAN, we are absolutely JUSTIFIED.
This part of us has never sinned. This part of us has never had need of
forgiveness; this part of us is JUSTIFIED.
In the following statement, the Prophet explains what scriptural
JUSTIFICATION is. He said the word Justification can only be applied to someone
who has never sinned. It cannot be applied to one who sinned and was then
forgiven. But, let him explain it in his own words.
QUOTE: INVISIBLE
“How did you come to do this? (How did you come to do this sin?) You
were deceived into it by your first marriage…to your adulteress parent, Eve.
(Eve sold us into sin and caused us to be born a sinner through no fault of our
own.) It is no fault of your own. By your natural birth you came after Eve, who
committed adultery. That is the reason you were born an adulteress. You were a
sinner to begin with.” (In our OUTER FLESH MAN) That is right! You were
deceived into it. No, it isn’t your fault. You never did it, because that
little germ (seed) that was in you was to be you before the foundation of the
world. God put your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (End of quote)
That “little germ” or that “seed” that is the REAL US, was a part
of God from before there was a world. This part of us had no sin while we were
still in Heaven, and it has had no sin since being placed in our flesh body.
Therefore, Paul declared, “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more “I” that do it but
sin that dwelleth in me.” (Rom.
And, so we see the Apostle Paul, and the Prophet William Branham
separating the INNER MAN from the OUTER MAN. The INNER MAN is sinless because he
came out of God, first as a Theophany, then a seed from the Theophany placed in
our flesh body.
The OUTER MAN was born a sinner as the result of our sexual birth. The
sin in
Sin took possession of Adam’s will and affections and made him an enemy
of God. It led him into open rebellion towards God. Man had now become a slave
to sin, both inwardly and outwardly. Can we now see why it is such a terrible
plight to be in this world with only one nature, the nature of Adam that came
through our sexual birth?
Can we now see why Paul said in
Here we see one of the greatest mysteries in the Bible: that our Father
planned for us to live out our Christian life with two natures in the same body.
He would set before us the pathway of Holiness. He gives us the INWARD desire to
be like Him in every way, while at the same time we are pulled downward day by
day by our OUTER MAN.
Our Prophet explained the reason for our dilemma. It was so our Father
could show His attributes. We were placed on Earth to be tested and tried. Our
sinful condition in the OUTER MAN is no accident. Neither is it any fault of
ours; it is the plan of God.
The Scripture declares that, “The
just shall live by faith.” (
Knowing what a hard thing He has called on us to do, that of contending
with Satan’s nature in our flesh, He promised, “My
grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (II
Cor. 12:9) This would be the great paradox of life for the real Christian: the
two natures side by side in the same body. The resulting struggle
would constitute the sufferings and trials that we are promised in this
world. It would produce a weakness that would make us strong in FAITH.
The battle can only be won by FAITH, since the sinful nature is not done
away with until God does so at the Rapture. There will be a need for the blood
and repentance the last day we are here, the INNER MAN constantly repenting for
the OUTERMAN.
This was the plan of God before there was ever a star or planet. If we
had come to Earth in our God-like theophany body, there would have been no
testing. We would have known all things.
QUOTE: WHO IS THIS MELCHISDEDEC, PAGES 16-17, “See, we have
bypassed that (theophany) to come straight from God, the attribute, to be flesh
to be tempted and tested by sin like Adam was. But when testing of His Word is
over, then we are taken up to this body that was prepared for us before the
foundation of the world…If we had come through that (the Theophany) there
would have been no temptation, we would have known all thing.” (End of quote)
God had a secret will, which was that the fall should take place, and
through the fall, He would have His Predestinated Children living on Earth in a
flesh body. They would have a nature in their OUTER MAN that would make it
impossible for them to live totally above sin. The Scripture says it like this, “I
do not frustrate the Grace of God, for if righteousness come by keeping the law (perfect)
then Christ is dead in vain.” (Died
in vain)
But inside of that OUTER MAN, which our Prophet called a cocklebur, lives
the Seed of God. This is part of our original creation. That part has never
sinned and cannot now sin.
What a paradox! One part of us cannot help but sin, while it is
impossible for the other part to commit a sin. The outer part is a result of the
fall in
I remember several years ago some ministers wanted to trace their lineage
back to Seth, and therefore, prove they were not of the serpent. But, they
didn’t take into consideration that Seth was also sex-born, and therefore,
inherited a wrong nature in his outer man. While it is true that Cain was the
direct descendant of the serpent, it is also true that he was only the first to
partake of the serpent seed nature in his OUTER MAN. We all partook of the same.
Did you ever notice in the Scripture that even though Cain was serpent seed, God
said to him, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And, if thou doest
not well sin liest at the door.” (Gen. 4:7)
God did not curse Cain because he was serpent seed, but rather because he
slew his Brother Able, and would not repent. After Cain slew his Brother, God
said, “NOW art thou cursed from the Earth, which hath opened her mouth to
receive thy Brother’s blood from thy hand.” (Gen. 4:11)
We are not cursed today because we have been born with serpent’s nature
in our OUTER MAN; we are only cursed if we do not well, and repent not of our
sins. The righteous God offered Cain Salvation and he would not. Jesus
offered the multitudes Salvation in Matt. 13, but said, “This
peoples heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, AND THEIR EYES
THEY HAVE CLOSED….”
You say they were not ordained to
life. True, but, it is also true that they closed their own eyes and will be
held accountable at the WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT. We must never forget that there
are two sides of the page. God is sovereign and calls whom He will, but man is
responsible for his own Salvation, else there would be no need for a judgment
seat.
Those who have studied this subject have quickly seen that making the
sovereignty of God compatible with man’s responsibility is the hardest knot in
theology to unravel.
To establish what we have said in the Word, we go to Rom.
But, we also know that at our
physical birth we had placed in us an INCORRUPTIBLE SEED. Let us read this in I
Peter
It usually takes the Christian several years to begin to understand this
mystery, depending on the teaching he receives. A true new birth starts the
convert out clear and strong. He has lots of love and zeal for his new-found
Savior.
We normally go for quite a few years full of SELF-confidence. We suppose
that we are trusting in the Lord, but it is only SELF-confidence at this point.
Gradually we begin to see that there is something wrong in us. We find that all
is not well with our Christian walk. God is beginning to make us WEAK through
failures and defeat.
We find ourselves having failures that we never dreamed a born-again
Christian would have. For some it may take only ten to twelve years. For others
fifteen to twenty years is not uncommon before we learn the heart sickening
truth that in our Christian walk, we are a miserable failure.
We know the Lord as the one who saved us through a new birth, but God
takes His Bride past this birth stage. We have to have the revelation of this
great paradox of which we are speaking.
We have to be made to see that there is a deadly spirit of sin living in
our OUTER MAN. It takes the revelation of our total depravity in the flesh
before we will turn wholly to confidence in Christ Jesus and forsake all
confidence in SELF.
I am speaking of that agony of conflict between the INNER MAN and the
OUTER MAN. If we could only realize what an unspeakable blessing it is to be
involved in this conflict, to be having this terrible struggle. It is not those
who are involved in this conflict that are the most needy. It is those who are
having no struggle at all. It takes the NATURE OF GOD coming in through the NEW
BIRTH before there will be a struggle.
The truth is the people with only the one nature do not realize their
condition. Many of them are in the church and are willing to walk life’s road
with no real victory, missing most of God’s blessings that belong to them.
All through our Christian life we must be reminded of our sinfulness in
the OUTER MAN. This is because our hearts and minds are not really opened to
receive Grace until we are made aware of our need of it. Grace is always there;
always ready to be extended to those who see their need for it. Little Bride,
God wants us to see that we are spiritually healthy and in a normal condition
when we are being made to see our need. The Believer who is going through
struggles and failures is the one who is being shown his need. He is the one who
is being lovingly handled and controlled by his Lord in a very personal way. He
is being led through the experiences of having his OUTER MAN revealed to him.
This, and this only, will bring us to the death of SELF.
Satan does not cast out Satan, and self does not cast out and crucify
self. Therefore, it remains a work that God himself must do for us. How painful
it is to die to self. How humiliating it is to have our weaknesses exposed and
our failures aired. But know this Little Bride; if there was a better way, our
Lord would make use of it.
Every failure and every sin that we fall into must be repented of and
then counted as a stepping stone on the path to Grace. II Cor. 4:11. “For
we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake--.” In other
words, He always leads us so that we are aware of death that lives in our OUTER
MAN.
What a blessing to read the Holy Scriptures and realize that all our
Father calls and uses are led through the depths of failure and despair. Without
bitter experiences of our own sinfulness and failure in our OUTER MAN, we are
not prepared to receive His Grace. His plan always involves showing us our need!
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