The Spirit of Man

When God (Elohim) created man and woman, they were created with three parts—a spirit, soul, and body—to make them whole.  Adam's body was created from the earth, and Eve's was made from Adam's.  God breathed His Spirit into Adam and Eve, who became living souls.  These events are recorded first in Genesis 1:7: "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being," and further in Genesis 2:21–22, "So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.  The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man."  And also described in 1 Corinthians 15:45, "So it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living soul." 

     When Adam and Eve were given life, they were perfect human beings, living the ideal life they were created to live—connected to God's intended purpose for making them.  They were spiritual beings formed from the earth.  Their souls were perfectly connected to God, who lived within them.  They were not self-conscience; they were God-conscience.  Their lives and the lives of all humans born from them would be the same, living the perfect life as God intended for all mankind to live.  Man would know nothing about fear, sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and more.  Instead, they would live in God's love, with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  They would be in harmony with their Creator and one another forever.  But that did not happen.

     We read that God gave them one rule in Genesis 2:17, "but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."  Adam and Eve disobeyed this one rule, and sin interred into man and the world.  However, they did not die.  They did not fall over dead!  So, what happened?  Well, something happened because the scripture reads in Genesis 3:7, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked."  They became self-conscious!  Their souls shifted focus and, thus, lost their consciousness of God.  The death God spoke of was not death as we know it, a death that was seen.  It was a death that was unseen because it was a death of the spirit within the body.  That death caused a separation between the spirit of man and the Spirit of God.  Man's spirit was now "fallen."  The soul no longer knew life through the spirit, so it focused on something it had never focused on before, the body!

     God removed His connection to man's spirit, and man's spirit was corrupted and died.  Man's soul was also corrupted but did not die, and the same results of sin became manifest in man's body (male and female).  When Adam tasted the forbidden fruit, Eve and he died and lost their innermost connection with God's Spirit.  The death that took place at that moment is the reason scripture recorded what Jesus said in John 3:5, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."  When a man or woman is "born again," their spirit is filled with the life of God again, and God reconnects His Spirit with their spirit. Once again, they become whole.  With God's Spirit living inside them, fully reconnected to their spirits, men and women feel and are aware of Him within their innermost being.

     So many never feel the rebirth and change of the "born again" experience nor understand the language of those who have felt God's presence through it.  In Job 32:8, we read, "But it is the spirit in a man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding."  And in 1 Corinthians 2:14, it is written, "But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised."  Reconnection happens when the man or woman seeks, finds, and accepts their Creator Jesus Christ, sent from the Father.  The Apostle Paul prayed this for us in Ephesians 3:14–19: "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God."

     But God did not wait until Jesus said we must be "born again" to redeem man to Himself, nor did He say those who lived for, walked with, and had relationships with God before Jesus came to earth were not born again.  Jesus simply and clearly stated in John 35:8, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'  "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."  Are we to say that Adam's spirit remained dead?  Were Noah, Moses, Abraham, and King David's spirits dead?  The spirits of all the prophets and judges were not alive within them.  Are we to accept that these men will never see the kingdom of God?  It can never be said that they were not whole men walking with God.  Jesus was their redeemer, even before His birth, through God's love and promise of His coming.

     God promptly redeemed Adam and Eve by creating a covering for them.  Thus began God's redemption for all men and women yet to be born.  Adam or Eve or any person yet to be born could not save themselves from their sin of disobedience.  Only God Himself could forgive them because they disobeyed only Him.  This sin was and still is against God's rule, and only He could redeem mankind.  And He did so at once in Genesis 3:21: "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them."

     God forgave Adam and Eve!  Immediately after, they confessed that they had eaten the fruit!  Their spirits were redeemed, for God would not abandon man, but life would be much different. For now, they would have two influences that would battle against one another.  The first is the life and truth that would come from God within their spirit that was redeemed to Him, and the other from their corrupted bodies that would influence their life through taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight.  The battle would now be a battle for their eternal life.  They were meant to live an uncorrupted life and forever be connected to God, their Creator.  But now they would know death.  Their spirit died and needed redemption if they were to live forever; their soul needed to be reconnected to the Spirit of life.  Now, their bodies would die and be buried in the earth from which they were created.

     When redemption is accepted by man, the spirit of man comes alive again and connects to God.  Our spirit is the life that operates within us and gives us the energy to function.  It comes from God Himself.  He is the life in us.  Now, that does not make us a god or God Himself.  We are not gods, nor are we God as Jesus is God.  However, the spirit of man is given as a portion of God through the life He breathed into us.

     God is naturally holy, and because of mankind's disobedience, men and women are naturally unholy.  God is faithful, just, and true.  Mankind is unfaithful, dishonest, and very unjust.  God is loving and unselfish.  Mankind is self-centered and self-protective.  We humans rarely reflect the Spirit of God that lives within us.  Why is that?  We rarely live and walk in the spirit within us.

     God is in constant communication with mankind, whether redeemed or not.  If redeemed, the spirit within mankind is alive and connected to God, so God speaks to the innermost being as told to us in Proverbs 20:27, "The spirit of a person is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the innermost parts of his being." If a person is unredeemed, God speaks directly to the soul of that man.  Scripture reads in Revelation 3:20, "Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him, and he with me."  God is never distant from mankind at any moment.  God is the life (breath) of mankind, both the redeemed and those not accepting redemption.

     Our spirits contain the life and nature of God.  As with our Heavenly Father, our spirits only reside in truth.  Every thought from God comes through our spirit.  It is our connection to Him.  Our minds are influenced by His truth through our spirits.  We strive to be spiritually minded and worship Him in spirit and in truth.

     Your spirit will never lie to you, misdirect you, or lead you away from God.  Our spirit only tells us the truth because God the Father is the truth.  He created us; He is the life in all of us.  Our conscience resides within our spirit; all communication between God and us is from our spirit.  All truth is located within our spirit.  All authority given from our Father is in our spirit.  Some teach that intuition is from the spirit; it may be true.  However, we need to be careful when teaching intuition because it can also be a product of the soulish realm.  Scripture tells us to walk in the Spirit, and we will not fulfill the deeds of the flesh.

     So, we walk in communion with our Heavenly Father when we walk in the Spirit.  We walk in truth when we walk in the Spirit.  We worship in truth when we walk in the Spirit.  And we produce something more.  We deliver a true reflection of God when we walk in the Spirit.  We have and reflect life, as we are taught in scripture, Galatians 5:22, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

     Rejecting God is a very unnatural act of man.  When we reject God's redemption, we become subject to the natural man, controlled by the natural man, and driven by the soul and body. We produce a reflection of a life that we were not meant to live—a life, as stated in Galatians 5:19, of "sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties," and more.

     Mankind was created to always have an awareness of God in Him.  When man disobeyed God, the most natural state of man changed; the spiritual man, the most natural form, was subject to another state.  Now mankind has a fallen nature, which is self-aware and self-protective, rebelling against his creator and himself.  When man rejects God, he also rejects the very life that is himself and thus lives under the doom of the physical death of the body and soul.  Scripture describes this new state as "The Natural Man".

     The natural man is animalistic.  We know that we are animals as a species of the natural man.  We are predators by nature, living according to the laws of the survival of the fittest and the idea of kill or die, conquer, or be conquered.  This is because mankind's nature is no longer spiritual but rather a nature controlled by the body and the soul.  However, even though we may live in this fallen state, we can still have the life of God in us.  He will come into our souls and commune with us, and we will have a restored nature that is aware of Him once again.

     Many people cannot understand how a Christian can feel God and experience His presence.  This lack of understanding is because their spirits have not been born again.  They do not feel God's presence, nor can they understand that another does.  Too many do not know the life of redemption; they reject.  However, while they may leave God's love and redemption, He will never abandon them—not while mankind still has breath in their bodies and is living on earth.