Son of Isaac Restoration Ministry

Occasionally I hear a preacher condemning the common expression “the Man upstairs” as a reference to God. They will say something to the effect that there isn’t a “Man upstairs” but an Almighty God who created all that exists, and is the Supreme Ruler of creation. While I understand and even appreciate what is being said, every time I hear such a discourse, I want to scream at them, “But there is a Man upstairs — in heaven! And if there isn’t, neither you nor I have any eternal hope!”

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Jesus, the Christ (Messiah, Anointed One), the Son of the Living God is still both fully God and fully man. The Man Christ Jesus was raised from the dead, and that included the resurrection of His physical body, which was “in the likeness of sinful flesh” [see Romans 8:3], after He died on the Cross of Calvary for our sins. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Some might be tempted to say that He was both God and Man, but once He was resurrected, He became “just God” again, as before the incarnation. If that were true (and it isn’t) what would one do with Romans 8:29, which says that Jesus Christ is “the firstborn among many brethren”?

He is still both the Son of God and the Son of Man, seated at the right hand of God the Father, a high priest forever after the order of Melchizadek, ever living to make intercession for us!

Hebrews 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.

1Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

While we don’t want to dishonor our Lord and Savior with cheap talk, unworthy of His stature, it must be stated:

“There is a Man upstairs!”

And He is our Lord, Savior, and Redeemer; our Great High Priest, our Mediator and Intercessor; and, the Author and Finisher of our faith!

Not too long ago, during my devotional time with the Lord, I was praising God and telling Him, “I love You with all my heart.” Deep inside me, I heard that “still, small voice” ask me, “Which one?”

“Lord, You know! Of course I don’t mean my physical heart, the blood pump.”

Again I heard the question, “Which one?”

Before continuing, I must inject that in the Charismatic/Pentecostal circles in which I have spent my 29 years as a born-again believer, most teachers have instructed that the “heart” is the reborn spirit of a man. Until recently I accepted that without any real question. Back to my dialog with the Holy Spirit in me.

“Which one, Lord? If not the blood pump, then I must mean my spirit.”

This time I “heard” (not audibly, but within), rather loud and clear, something that I’d never heard before. “You have three hearts, son. There is the heart of the spirit, the heart of the soul, and the heart of the body.”

“Uh oh…am I hearing a deceiving voice? Am I in danger of becoming a heretic? Well, I’ll have to check this one out. And, there ain’t no way I’m gonna tell anyone about this!”

“Son, doesn’t My Word tell you that you are tri-part — spirit and soul and body?”

I immediately thought of what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians:

1Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The dialogue now ceased; I became just a listener. I believe it was explained to me that each of the three parts of a man (male or female) has a “heart.” The heart of the body is the organ that pumps blood. The heart of the soul is the place of affections and emotions. The heart of the spirit is that which pumps the “zoe” life of the Holy Spirit through person who is “born-again” (more literally “born of the Spirit” or “born from above” in the original Greek).

As I sat there, I meditated upon what I had “heard.” Suddenly I remembered something which had once troubled me — and probably still would have except that I just refused to think about it. It was this often quoted verse from the Old Testament:

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Remember, I said I had been taught the “heart” was the “spirit.” When I’d hear the above verse quoted from the pulpit, in a New Testament church, it would trouble me. The reason? My spirit has been born again. If the reborn spirit is my heart, how can that which is born of God still be desperately wicked?

The Hebrew word translated “heart” in Jer. 17:9 is “labe” (leb) which Strong’s (3820) tells us is used figuratively of the feelings, the will and the intellect. Huh? That sounds like a common Christian description of the soul. Could it be that “the soul is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”? This verse has nothing to do with the “spirit” whether or not reborn. Are there any New Testament Christians who’d deny constant battles with the soul? Paul, writing to believers in the young Church, urged:

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

By this point I began to accept that what I had heard was really from the Lord, and I had just learned something new that I didn’t previously know!

Jeremiah 33:3 Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know [”says the LORD” see verse 2].

Since that day I have studied this concept (”The Three Hearts of Man”) extensively. The more I study and research, the more sure I am that it is true revelation from the Lord.

There is a lot of additional material I could share, but I will save more of that for another article, another time.

In the interim…Selah!