The Spirit in You and Me

Picking up where we left off last week, it seems to me that the tiny part of God’s Spirit that is implanted by God into each human is an eternal something because it is of God from God. I have been thinking quite a lot about this something we call spirit. In our culture the term “spirit” connotes a substantive quality because it is always modified by an adjective to give its substance relevance, such as kindred, competitive, broken, poor, generous, evil. Even the Apostle John warned of testing the spirits to see if they are from God, or possibly of the antichrist (1Jn. 4:1-6). We muddy the water further with our English definitions of soul and spirit as synonyms (see OED). Quickly we get off the track and become confused.

Spirit, naked of adjectival bias, is purely ethereal like the wind or a breath. It has no density, no mass, no chemistry, no properties of velocity or inertia. However, its presence can be sensed by humans in the nervous system. It is utterly mysterious and can be defined only by what it is not. The Greeks termed it πνευμα (pneuma). The term soul, on the other hand, is nakedly substantive without adjectival bias. And while the English language defines soul as immortal like spirit, the Greeks knew the soul as the inner self of mortal life. They called it ψυχὴ (psyche). All this is relevant only because the New Testament (except Matthew) was written in Greek. The letter to the Hebrews reveals the distinction clearly, “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit…” [ psyche from pneuma in the Greek] (Heb. 4:12). Luke’s gospel records Jesus’ cry from the cross, “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.” [pneuma in the Greek] (Lk. 23: 46).

So, here is my take. This is for me. I am not preaching, but sharing with you where I am. The spirit is implanted in us by God at birth, perhaps through the spirit of the mother. I don’t know. The spirit is a blank presence except for a very basic code from God’s Holiness Code in Leviticus of what is right and wrong. The spirit is both a presence and a force during our mortal time here, but we can choose to listen and obey or disregard. The soul becomes the repository of all that each of us is in our inner self…our hearts if you will. The soul is naked before God. When our mortal time is at an end, the eternal spirit that is within us by God’s work becomes the force that carries the soul with it to God. So for me, my soul is my log book that my spirit will carry to God. Thank God that Jesus loves us, even me.