The New Soul Chamber-Part
From Section 9 of The Christian's New Heart
by Frank Allnutt

Your new soul, along with your resurrected personhood, new spirit and new life, comprise your righteous new spiritual heart. Paul alludes to “the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ephesians 4:24). No part of your new heart remained in Adam—in old man unrighteousness and sinfulness.

There are two perspectives of the soul we should consider: the ontological and the conditional. Ontologically, a redeemed soul is a righteous soul—no longer a sin-natured one. When you became a Christian, you became the “righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21; see also Ephesians 4:24). Not a single part of you remained unrighteous. Ontologically, the Christian’s soul cannot condemn him because it is new, righteous, and preserved in Christ. The Psalmist writes, “The Lord redeems the soul of His servants; and none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned” (Psalm 34:22).

Pre-cross saints could have their souls conditionally redeemed into a righteous mode: The Psalmist writes of conditional redemption: “My soul, which Thou hast redeemed” (Psalm 71:23). And Peter writes that Lot had a conditionally “righteous soul” (2 Peter 2:8).

However, when those pre-cross saints were resurrected with Christ, they were resurrected in the newness of Christ and therefore were given ontologically new hearts with righteous new souls.

A “righteous soul” can also refer to the way we function within our heart. Obviously, the contents of your soul—knowledge, memories, beliefs, values, etc.—were not discarded or replaced at the time you received your new heart; how you use your new soul is a conditional/functional matter, not ontological.

Figure 9-1:
The soul of Adamic Man (left) and the new soul of the Christian (right).

The faculties of the soul
As Figure 9-1 illustrates, your old soul’s faculties of mind, emotion, and will were in the flesh and total spiritual darkness. They were vitalized by Adam’s life and had his fallen nature. Your new soul, as part of your new heart, is in the light, in the Spirit, and “in Christ.”

In giving you a new soul chamber-part, God has specially equipped you with the potential to function in the power and total sufficiency of Christ.

Your new soul, when functioning independently of your spirit, functions in much the same way as it did when you were an old man in Adam. Substantively, your new soul has the purity of God’s light; however, its functions and contents can be in conditional light or darkness. The soul is in conditional light when the individual walks in the Spirit and in love. It is in conditional darkness when the individual walks according to the flesh.

In Colossians chapter three, Paul discusses the new soul and the ongoing need of the renewal of its mental, emotional, and volitional functioning. He tells us that, ontologically, since the old self has been “laid aside” and the new self has been “put on,” its mental functioning “is being renewed to a true knowledge” (Colossians 3:9, 10).

Understand that it is not the faculty of the mind which must be renewed, but rather its functioning and contents.

For our part, we are to choose, as a function of our will, to allow the love of God to rule in our heart’s soul, and to “put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other.” Paul goes on to tell us to “put on love...and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.... Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you” (excerpts from Colossians 3:12-16).

Now, let’s examine some scriptures that indicate God gave us new soulical faculties of mind, emotion, and will when He gave us a new heart.

You Have the Mind of Christ
In the process of giving you a new spiritual heart, God removed the fleshly faculty of mind you inherited from Adam and replaced it with the faculty of mind that is substantively like Christ’s. In 1 Corinthians 2:16, Paul writes that, “We have the mind of Christ.” “Have” (Greek, echo) means to “hold...such as possession, ability.” Our old Adamic faculty of mind was removed from us and replaced with the new mind like Christ’s—a mind that has His holy, righteous, and loving nature, as well as the ability to think and to reason in His ways.

How is that mind acquired? By birth. Just as the babe born into the human family possesses potentially the mind of a man, so one born into the divine family is endowed with the mind of Christ.

—Norman B. Harrison, D.D, New Testament Living, page 33

We have been given the mind of Christ as part of our new enablement to relate or fellowship with God and to mentally discern spiritual truths. Spiritual discernment is enabled when our soul is functionally united with our spirit, and both work in harmony with the indwelling Holy Spirit. Having the faculty of Christ’s mind does not mean that we always think and reason in Christ=like ways; rather, that we have the potential to do so. Paul urges us, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed through the renewing of your mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

Our new faculty of mind is perfect in every way, and therefore needs no renewing. What does need renewing is how we function out of our new mind. We must allow the Holy Spirit to teach us His ways of thinking, feeling, choosing, and desiring. This is how we come to “know the mind of Christ” (Romans 12:2).

You Have the Emotion of Christ
When God gave you a new heart, He removed your old fleshly faculty of emotion, inherited from Adam, and gave you a new faculty of emotion that is substantively Christ-like.

Before you received your new heart you could not truly experience the emotions of Christ. But because your new heart came equipped with a new faculty of emotion you can now learn, through God’s Word and the mentoring of the Holy Spirit, to function emotionally in Christ-like ways. The following verses provide scriptural evidence of this:

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (Jesus, quoted in John 15:11).

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful” (Jesus, quoted in John 14:27).

Jesus does not give His feelings to us per se, but rather gives us a new faculty of emotion like His so that we can produce feelings like His. Joy and peace are two of the many emotions available to us through our new faculty of emotion. But when we function independently of the indwelling Holy Spirit, in fleshly ways, we can produce only shoddy imitations of truly supernatural, Christ-like joy and peace—situational or circumstantial happiness and contentment.

You Have the Will of Christ
As a natural person, you had a fleshly will or volitional faculty inherited from Adam. Scripture indicates that, when God gave us a new heart, He removed our old Adamic will and gave us a new will in the substantive likeness of Christ. “The new will,” wrote Andrew Murray, in The Believer’s New Covenant, “is a permanent gift and attribute of the new nature.”

The faculty of the will functions to desire, to intend, to plan, to choose, to obey, to work, to behave, and so forth. These functions produce “fruit”—desires, intentions, plans, behavior, and works.

God’s moral standards are expressed through His law, and He “writes” His moral law in our hearts—incorporated them in our new faculties of the soul, not unlike loading new programs or writing new files into a computer: “I will put My law within them, and in their heart I will write it” (Jeremiah 31:33). He also reveals His will to us through His written word, through other Godly people’s counsel, and through His Spirit as we pray, meditate, and seek His will.

Our old will was capable of producing only natural or fleshly desires, plans, and choices. However, our new will gives us the capacity to willfully function in the holy, righteous, and loving ways of Christ. But we must learn from God how to use our new faculty of will in this way. And as we do, we will discern, desire, and follow God’s will:

“And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:27).

For it is God who is at work in you, both [for you] to will and to work for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

God is at work in us, teaching us how to use our new faculty of will—to choose as Christ chooses, desire as Christ desires, plan as Christ plans, and obey as Christ obeys.

Paul clearly indicates that the choice to obey God is a function of the will of the heart: “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed” (Romans 6:17).

You Have the Loving Spirit of Christ
As Adamic people our soul was controlled by our fleshly, sinful predisposition. But now we are believers, and God has given us a “new spirit” or predisposition of love. We have a love-natured spirit. And when our soul is functionally united with our spirit part, the Spirit of Christ fills our soul with His love and manifests His love in every aspect of our heart, its inner functioning, and its expression through our behavior.

One evidence of this is our love-motivated obedience. Jesus said, “If [since] you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

The gift of love came to us when we received our new hearts; indeed, love and our loving obedience are evident of God’s fulfilled promise to give us a new heart: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you...and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:26, 27).
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