Faith Bible Study Guide
1 PETER 3:4
4 But let it be the hidden man of the HEART, in that which is not corruptible….
Notice the word “heart” again. Notice also that Peter says, “. . . the hidden MAN of the heart …” (1 Peter 3:4). Peter used the words “hidden man” because, really, the spirit or the heart is the real you. The body is not the real you; it is just the house you live in.
Remember Paul said in First Corinthians 9:27, “… I keep under my body, and [I] bring IT [the body] into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away.” If your body were the real you, Paul would have said, “I keep myself under. I bring myself under subjection.” But he said, “I keep my body under. I bring it under subjection.”
In First Corinthians 9:27, “I” is the man on the inside. It is the “hidden man of the heart” in First Peter 3:4. It is the spirit – the real man, or the inner man. The “hidden man of the heart” is called that because he is hidden to the natural man or to the natural mind.
The Inward Man
ROMANS 7:22
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
In Romans 7:22, the spirit of man is called the “inward man.” So this inward man and the hidden man gives us God’s definition of the human spirit. Remember the real man is a spirit; he has a soul; and he lives in a body (1 Thess. 5:23). With our spirit we contact the spiritual realm; with our soul we contact the intellectual and emotional realm; and with our physical being we contact the physical realm. You can’t contact God with your mind. You can’t contact God with your body. You can only contact God with your spirit. And God contacts and communicates with you through your spirit.
Certainly, you know that when you hear the Word of God preached, you hear it with your physical ears and it goes through your natural mind before it goes into your heart or your spirit. Can you remember as a sinner how the Word of God affected you on the inside, in your spirit? The Holy Spirit through the Word, spoke to your heart or your spirit. You heard the Word with your physical ears, but it affected your spirit.
That explains something for us. First Corinthians 2:14 says, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. . . .” Another translation reads, “The natural man or the natural mind under-stands not the things of the Spirit of God. . . .” The rest of that verse reads, “… for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). The Word of God is of the Spirit of God, and the Bible says the Word of God is foolish to the natural mind. The reason the Word of God is foolish to the natural mind is that you don’t understand the Bible with your head; it is spiritually understood. You understand the Bible with your heart or your spirit. That’s the reason you can read certain verses over and over again and not understand the meaning. Then one day you can be reading along, and suddenly you see the truth of a particular verse of Scripture, and you say, “Why didn’t I ever see that before?” Well, you just then understood it with your heart.