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THE SPIRIT OF MAN - PART I SIB Metro
Church Leadership Training Class – Lesson 9 on 12th June 2008
at 8.00pm “THE SPIRIT
OF MAN (Part
I)” – by Ronny Cham DEFINITION The Greek word for spirit is 'pneuma'. The Hebrew word for spirit is 'ruach'.
The primary meaning of both words is ”invisible
force”. When something is invisible (which
can mean ‘not easily noticed’ or ‘something hidden from
view’), it does not mean intangible (which means ‘lacking material
qualities and so not able to be touched or seen’). For example, the wind, it is something
you can say is invisible, but you cannot say it is intangible. In John 3:8,
Jesus said, “The wind blows where
it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from
and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Here Jesus referred to a
“spiritual man”, not the “natural man”. Why do we need to understand what is
“the spirit of man”? It
is because, if you understand what is the spirit of man,
it would be easier for you to grasp the mystery of that “spiritual man”
within a person who is born of the Spirit. Difference
between “soul” and “spirit” Both the “soul” and
“spirit of man” are immortal and they are closely related. It is hard to distinguish the finest
details of the difference between them, but there is a difference. Let us look
at some scripture. First, in 1
Thessalonians 5:23, we read, “Now
may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole
spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ.” This means that the spirit, soul and body are three distinct
elements or substance within a man.
If we think of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, they are three
distinct persons but one! Such is the mystery of a human person. The spirit, soul and
body, three but one. Secondly, we read in Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and powerful,
and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and
spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents
of the heart.” Here, we
see the Word of God dividing between what belongs to the “soul” and
that belongs to the spirit. So, these scriptures show that the
‘soul’ and the ‘spirit’ are two distinct things. From the Scripture, it is clear that the
“spirit” is that which “knows”, for example, in 1 Corinthians
2:11-12 we read, “For what man
knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so
no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. This shows that it
is the spirit of a man who knows the things of a man. It is the Spirit of God who knows the
things of God. On the other hand, the
“soul” is that which “feels”, for example we read in Job
14:22, “But his flesh will be in
pain over it, and his soul will mourn over it." The pain and the
mourning, that emotional expression of sorrow belong to the realm of the
‘soul’. We must first of all, therefore
grasp this principle that the ‘spirit of man’ is the ‘intellect’,
‘the will’, ‘the mind’, ‘the
conscience’ and other ‘invisible mental faculties’ that make
him a free moral agent and a rational being. Thus, the realm of the spirit of a
man is the realm of his mental faculty. THE WORD
'SPIRIT' IS USED OF IN THE BIBLE:- A. God's personal spirit “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (Ps 139:7). “Teach me to do Your
will, For You are my God; Your Spirit is good.” (Ps 143:10). Here the “Woe to the rebellious children," says the LORD, "Who take
counsel, but not of Me, and who devise plans, but not
of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” (Isa 30:1) “Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counsellor has
taught Him?” (Isa 40:13) The above scriptures show
undoubtedly that God Himself has “personal spirit” and His personal
spirit ‘knows’ wherever I am.
His personal spirit ‘teaches’ and ‘counsels’. B. The Holy Spirit Now we are entering into the mystery
zone. In Genesis 1:2, we read,
“The earth was without form, and
void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was
hovering over the face of the waters.” Here it introduces from the
very beginning, the ‘spiritual person’ of the “Holy
Spirit”. The Holy Spirit is distinct from God. In Isaiah 48:16, we read, “Come near to Me,
hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that
it was, I was there. And now the Lord GOD and His Spirit have sent Me."
The highlighted word “have” means a reference to a
“plural” subject, and that is “Lord God and His
Spirit”. Furthermore, in Isaiah
61:1, we read, “The Spirit of the
Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to
the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” This
Scripture talks about the empowering “Spirit”. C. Angels & Cherubims In Psalms 104:4, we read, “Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers
a flame of fire.” In Ezekiel
1:12, we also read, “And each one
went straight forward; they went wherever the spirit wanted to go, and they did
not turn when they went.”
Ezekiel's vision of the four cherubims
was described in details in chapter 1. Because of the fact that they went
wherever the spirit was to go, one can conclude that these cherubims are
spirits or spiritual beings. D. Demons Likewise, in Leviticus 19:31, we
read, “Give no regard to mediums
and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the
LORD your God.” We also
read in Leviticus 20:6, “And the
person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person
and cut him off from his people.” The word 'demon' means “evil
spirit'. The phrase 'familiar
spirits' refers to the 'evil spirits'.
E. Other spirit beings In Zechariah 6:5-6, we read, “And the angel answered and said to me,
‘These are four spirits of heaven, who go out from their station before
the Lord of all the earth.’” G. The New Nature of the Child of
God Most important of all, we must
understand that in 1 Corinthians 6:17, the Bible tells us this
truth, “But he who is joined to the
Lord is one spirit with Him.”
Whoever is born of the Spirit is of the Spirit, this is the new nature
of a child of God. H. Man's personal spirit No doubt, always, man has a personal
spirit, the spirit of man. In Numbers
16:22, the Word of God says, “Then
they fell on their faces, and said, "O God, the God of the spirits of all
flesh, shall one man sin, and You be angry with all
the congregation?" And in Numbers
27:16, “Let the LORD, the God of
the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation”. I. The resurrected body Finally, in 1 Corinthians 15:45, it
is written, “And so it is written,
‘The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a
life-giving spirit’.” The last Adam here refers to the Lord
Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 3:17,
we read, “Now the Lord is the
Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Conclusion While the ‘spirit of
man’ is the ‘intellect’, ‘the will’, ‘the mind’,
‘the conscience’ and other ‘invisible mental faculties’
of the man, his spirit also makes him a free moral agent and a rational being. But an important truth we must
know. In Hebrews 2:7, the Word of
God says this about Jesus, “You
have made him a little lower than the angels; You have
crowned him with glory and honor, And set him over
the works of Your hands.”
Jesus was born of the virgin Mary in human
bodily form, just as you and I. We
are likewise, made by God, ‘a little lower than the angels’. However, when God made Adam, this
was what happen as recorded in Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” God’s Spirit was given by way of a
breath into Adam and Adam became a ‘living being’. What was Adam like then? Well, if Jesus is the last Adam, would
it be reasonable to say, Adam then was like the Resurrected Jesus in the New
Testament? Isn’t that we the
Bible says about “the corruptible change into incorruptible and the
mortal changed into the immortal in 1 Corinthians 15? Therefore when Adam
‘died’ that “spiritual source” that made him a
“living being” within him was cut off. The incorruptible became corruptible the
immortal became mortal. What
remains inside of the corruptible and mortal Adam and the human race since Adam
is his own spirit, knowing ‘good and evil’. Throughout the Old Testament, when
God gave His Spirit to a man, that man is “connected” to the
“spiritual source” of life and power, but NOT a spiritual being. However, through Christ (which we
will learn in another lesson), we became connected to the “spiritual
source” again and become “spiritual being” within this mortal
body. In the next lesson, we deal in
details ‘the spirit of man’. Ronny Cham |
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