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What the Bible says about Spirit in Man
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Humanity has one characteristic that other living creatures lack. Job's young friend Elihu describes this extra element in Job 32:8: "But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding." When God breathed the breath of life into Adam, he must also have imparted a spirit, an essence, that gave humans all the abilities beyond what animals have.

The apostle Paul also mentions this in the New Testament: "For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?" (I Corinthians 2:11). This "spirit in man" endows humans with the ability to understand, reason, plan, and create. It joins with the physical brain and assists in our thinking. The Bible often uses the word "spirit" to refer to a person's mind, intelligence, or attitude.

What happens to this spirit in man when we die? Wise Solomon had the answer: "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Why does God take it back? Because—somehow—it is a perfect recording of each person's entire life! All the person's memories, actions, words, attitudes, strengths, weaknesses, victories, defeats, decisions, and plans are recorded by man's spirit!

When God chooses to resurrect us, He will return our human spirit to us, and it will be as if we had never died (Ezekiel 37:5, 10). Some, of course, will be raised to immortality, and they will be completely composed of spirit, both body and mind (John 3:3-8; I Corinthians 15:35-49; I John 3:2). Others will, however, be raised back to physical life—like the "dry bones" in Ezekiel 37—and have a chance to receive the Holy Spirit and prove themselves to God (Ezekiel 37:11-14; Revelation 20:11-13).

William R. Gray
Taking It Through the Grave

Related Topics: Spirit in Man


 

Three major differences exist between God's Spirit and our spirit. The first and most obvious is that God's is holy, and holy means "different." But as "holy" is used throughout the Bible, it becomes clear that its real application is not merely different, but "peculiar," "a cut above." So God's Spirit is transcendentally pure and infinitely good in all that it motivates and energizes. Is Satan's spirit that way? Is man's? Not at all. The second difference concerns the amount of knowledge that it is capable of transmitting and using, and for God's Spirit, it is virtually infinite. The third difference is that God, unlike man, is infinitely wise and mature, and therein lies His morality, His character, which He transmits through His Spirit. Thus, God's Spirit possesses three kinds of power: purity, knowledge, and character.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Holy Spirit and the Trinity (Part Two)

Related Topics: Holy Spirit | Spirit in Man


 

Genesis 1:26-27

Not only is man shaped differently from animals, but also no animal can talk or has hands like a human. Greater than anything else, man has intelligence so far exceeding any animal's that there is no possibility of comparison. Because of these things, we can easily conclude that God created man to have dominion, to rule. He is a creation patterned after the God-kind, having both intelligence and freedom of will.

Animals are not self-determining; their actions are predetermined by God-created instinct. Thus, their wills are limited by what God has imposed on them. They cannot determine to meet a companion animal in two weeks at a certain location, then plan each day as to what they will do and what route they will take to meet their animal friend. It was man's high quality of intelligence combined with freedom of will that qualified him to be given dominion over every other form of life on earth.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Genesis 1 and Free-Moral Agency

Genesis 1:31

God Himself said that man was very good. This is an expression of pleasure; He was pleased with what He had accomplished. If we were very good when He created us, then that must include the nature He created us with.

Does God take pleasure in a nature that is enmity against Him (Romans 8:7)? Not at all, which indicates very strongly that, as He created us and as we are born, we do not have the nature that we later come to have that is enmity against Him. Hateful, human nature is something that develops because God put a spirit in us that other spirits, either God Himself or the spirit of this world, are able to communicate with (I Corinthians 2:10-12).

If the spirit that He is talking about in Genesis 1:31 was very good, then why has human history been a recording of violence, disease, anguish of spirit? Why is there so much bitterness, anger, prejudice, resentment, doubt, self-pity, vanity, envy, greed, jealousy, pride, and lust? Nowhere in God's Word are these called good or even acceptable.

Those traits do not come from God. He did not create us that way. God is love. He is kind, generous, good, merciful. We can honestly conclude that they do not come from man either, as he was created by God, because God judged man to be "very good." Yet, mankind expresses these very attributes.

Again, would something God pronounced "very good" produce what we see? We can conclude that these traits must have come from the spirit of this world, from Satan, who is invisible, soundless, but is able to communicate with our spirits.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 3)

Genesis 2:7

We must briefly consider whether man has an immortal soul. Our understanding of the Scriptures compels us to maintain that he does not for several reasons:

» Job recognized that man has a spirit (Job 32:8), which Paul shows in I Corinthians 2:11 endows humanity with intellect. This spirit in man comes from God (Zechariah 12:1) and returns to Him when we die (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Acts 7:59). It records our experiences, character, and personality, which God stores until the resurrection of the dead. However, the Bible never describes this spirit as immortal or eternal; in fact, I Corinthians 2:6-16 explains that man needs yet another Spirit, God's, to be complete and discern godly things.

» The Bible flatly asserts that all people die: "It is appointed for men to die once" (Hebrews 9:27). Ezekiel says clearly that souls die: "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4, 20; see Romans 6:23). Jesus warns in Matthew 10:28 that God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

» In death, life and consciousness are gone. "The dead know nothing," says Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9:5, and he later adds, "There is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going" (verse 10). In Psalm 146:4, the psalmist writes about a man's death, "His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish" (see Genesis 3:19).

» Scripture also confutes the idea that people go to heaven or hell after death. Peter says to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. . . . For David did not ascend into the heavens" (Acts 2:29, 34). Our Savior confirms this in John 3:13: "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." The biblical usage of Sheol and Hades simply means "the grave."

» Men cannot have immortality unless God gives it to them. Paul writes, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). In I Corinthians 15:53 he tells the saints, "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." At the first resurrection God will give "eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality" (Romans 2:7). If we already had immortality, why should we put it on or seek it?

» Only God has immortality. He is, Paul writes to Timothy, ". . . the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality" (I Timothy 6:15-16). John says of the Word, "In Him was life" (John 1:4), meaning as Creator of all things (verse 3), He had life inherent. Jesus affirms this in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Men must go through Him to receive eternal life.

With such overwhelming proof, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul proves false. Man is not immortal, nor does he possess any "spark of God" unless God has given it to him through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:11). A Christian's hope of life after death rests in the resurrection of the dead (I Corinthians 15:12-23). Conversely, the wicked only await eternal death as recompense for their evil lives, not eternal life in torment.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh


Genesis 2:7

From our childhood, we carry an image of God kneeling over the created but inert Adam. He is lifeless until God performs the first mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and then Adam springs to life! His eyelids flutter, he takes a deep breath, and then he bends from his waist and sits up.

Nowhere does the Bible show God breathing life into any animal that He created. When He created them, they started breathing. Why should man be any different?

He is different because he is in the likeness of God. He did something to man that actually made man into the image of God. While he was lying there on the ground, he was still yet a creature. But when God knelt down and breathed into him, the infusion of the spirit in man occurred. That is what made man in the image of God! That is what gave man the power to have dominion. It gave man the intellect he needed to rule what God has created.

Man has creaturely life, but with the infusion of the spirit in man, he is more—a living being with intelligence. Man was given the power to govern his actions, not by instinct, but by memory, by conceptualization and thinking spatially. A man can appreciate beauty, communicate verbally, or write. A human being has feelings that are—in the expression of their subtly and power—far above an animal in terms of love or hate, and above all of the emotions that fall in between.

We can create and destroy. The power is in a man to do these things. The power is in the spirit when combined with the brain, but it has to be developed.

God shows very clearly that, as we are, we are nothing more than a pale representation of what we can be. Yet, we are endowed with powers that lift us so far above the animals on earth that we can have dominion over them.

Mankind is then commanded to fill the earth and subdue it. Subdue means "to tread upon," which implies "to bring into subjection." It does not mean "to destroy" or "to treat violently," but "to control and direct." In Genesis 1:26 and 28, God implies that He has conferred powers to mankind not given to animals.

It is also the first indication, when combined with Genesis 2:7 and 15, that when God confers a responsibility, He also confers the powers to carry out that responsibility.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Right Use of Power

Genesis 3:4-5

We must acknowledge a foundational truth: Contrary to conventional wisdom, the human soul is not immortal. This is a false teaching that was implanted into human religion when Satan convinced Eve of it in the Garden of Eden. Essentially, the Devil tells her that God is a liar, she will not die, and in fact, eating of the Tree of Knowledge would make her like God, a goddess with the same abilities as the Creator Himself. Satan's deceptive assurance that she would not die—taking the sting out of God's command—was central to her decision to eat of the fruit.

Elsewhere, the Bible flatly asserts that humans are physical, mortal beings. First, of course, is God's own warning in Genesis 2:17 that, upon eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, "you shall surely die"—in other words, sin ultimately ends in death, both the physical death of the human body and in due course the destruction of man's spiritual component in the judgment (see Revelation 20:14-15; John 5:29). The apostle writes in Hebrews 9:27, "It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment." Twice in Ezekiel 18, God declares that souls die: "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4, 20), which the apostle Paul echoes in Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death." Finally, Jesus warns in Matthew 10:28 that God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

In fact, the Bible says only God has true immortality (I Timothy 6:15-16). Human beings can have immortality only through Christ and only through the resurrection from the dead, according to the pattern set by Jesus in His resurrection to eternal life (I Corinthians 15:22, 45-52). So, while true Christians have eternal life in them through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it is only an earnest, down payment, or guarantee of the fullness of eternal life that will be given at the resurrection (see II Corinthians 5:1-5; Ephesians 1:13-14).

As Job 32:8 says, man has a spirit that provides him with understanding, and Paul explains in I Corinthians 2:11 that it endows humanity with intellect. This spirit in man comes from God (Zechariah 12:1) and returns to Him when we die (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Acts 7:59). It records the events of our lives, our characters, and our personalities, which God somehow stores until the resurrection, when it will be returned, restoring each person's full memory and characteristics. However, the Bible never describes this human spirit as immortal or eternal; in fact, John 6:63 and Romans 8:10-11 explains that man needs that other spirit, God's Holy Spirit, to achieve eternal life.

So, what happens when a person dies? Again, the early chapters of Genesis provide a fundamental answer: "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19). Humans, then, die and their bodies naturally decompose, breaking down into the elemental components of which they are made. The biblical usage of the Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek Hades—which some, following pagan thought, contend is a place where the spirits of the dead live on after death—actually means "the grave" or "the pit," describing the place of burial.

Every human that has died, with the exception of Jesus Christ, remains in his grave, whether it is in the earth or in the sea. Even David, righteous and beloved of God, awaits the resurrection in his grave. In Acts 2:29, Peter says to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. . . ."

Scripture also explains that in death, life and consciousness are absent. Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 9:5, "The dead know nothing," and he later adds, "There is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going" (verse 10). The psalmist writes in Psalm 146:4 about a person's death, "His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish." Thus, while God retrieves our human spirit for safekeeping, it has no inherent life, self-awareness, or any kind of functionality. It requires a living body to work, so once the body dies, it is inanimate, a mere record of a life but without life in itself.

In addition, while it is a record of a person's life, it is not the person himself. The Bible declares that people do not go to heaven (or to hell, for that matter) after death. In the same Pentecost sermon in Acts 2, Peter asserts, "For David did not ascend into the heavens" (Acts 2:34). Jesus Himself confirms this in John 3:13: "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." These direct statements confirm that all the dead, rather than going to heaven or hell or some sort of purgatory, await the resurrection in the sleep of death. They all await this call, which Paul bases on Isaiah 26:19: "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light" (Ephesians 5:14).

It is encouraging to see what Isaiah 26:19 says: "Your dead shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; . . . and the earth shall cast out the dead." In that great resurrection, just as in the first resurrection, God will give "eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality" (Romans 2:7). Thus, not only a Christian's hope of life after death rests in the resurrection of the dead, but even though they do not realize it, it is also the hope of all those who have never had the opportunity for salvation.

When that occurs, it will be clear that, indeed, "Death is swallowed up in victory" (I Corinthians 15:54)!

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Seven)

Genesis 11:4-6

How technologically developed the people were at this time is sketchy. The Great Pyramid of Giza, whether built before or after the Flood, is evidence of a high degree of technology. Whatever the case, God's statement that "nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them" implies the builders of Babel were at least on the verge of great technological leaps. How much can a person discover and develop in a seventy-year life span? Yet these people lived hundreds of years! Since knowledge accumulates from generation to generation, imagine how it would build in a person over 500 years!

Consider what man has accomplished in the last 150 years. He has learned how to harness the power of mighty rivers by building dams to produce electricity. He has built soaring bridges across great chasms. He has drilled deeply into the earth to tap its stores of oil and gas to transport ourselves from place to place, heat our homes, and fuel our factories. Man has put satellites hundreds of miles into the heavens and placed men on the moon. We can watch the astronauts on television though they are 240,000 miles away!

The list of our technological accomplishments seems endless. Technology, though, is not the answer to mankind's problems. By the time the Millennium begins, the world will have realized that knowledge of physical things cannot solve our problems, especially those of the spirit. Each new technological stride merely titillates us for a while, failing miserably to give a sense of meaning to our lives. Technology cannot rid us of competition and inordinate desire. Instead, it only seems to accelerate the plunge toward oblivion and meaninglessness.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Preparing to Rule!

1 Kings 22:19-23

Did the false prophets see a ghost? Did something cause them to have a dream? There is no indication of that. Because so many of them were involved—four hundred—it must be that the demon somehow stirred up the men's spirit and put the thoughts into their minds, making them think it was theirs. When they all came up with the same answer, surely it must have been right. But, alas, they were unanimously wrong, being led by a lying spirit.

We can see by this example that spirit beings can and probably are influencing mankind. It is not enough for us just to understand that they are capable of it. God's Word shows that they are actively doing it—good ones and bad ones—and some people are so unaware of what is going on that they give themselves over to the bad ones and become possessed—the slave, the tool, of a spirit being that will use them for its own ends. We are beginning to see established proof that Satan manipulates our minds.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 3)

Ezra 1:1

This says clearly that God was able to stir the spirit of Cyrus. There is no indication that Cyrus was aware that God was stirring him up. He just somehow was motivated to issue this proclamation. He may have thought the idea really came from him or from one of his advisors. But for some reason, all of a sudden, he had an inclination to give the Jews the opportunity to go back to their own homeland.

This verse also suggests that our spirit can be communicated with without our being aware of it happening. Understand, however, that we will not always be blind to this or insensitive to it. It is God's intention that we become very sensitive to the fact that something or someone is trying to communicate with us on a level that is not discernable by the eye or the ear. Nonetheless, our spirit can be stirred to go in a certain direction for good or for bad. We need to begin to realize that we may or may not be aware that our spirit is being communicated with.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 3)

Job 32:8

The spirit mentioned here is not the Holy Spirit. This “breath of the Almighty” is a separate and distinct spirit that enables people to have qualities in God's image while remaining merely human. It enables communication to take place, even between God and humans. God, however, is not the only being who can communicate with and to us. Of course, other humans can communicate with us, as can angels. Such communication is not only verbal, but it can also be through the influence of other spirits and attitudes, be they evil or righteous.

A living spirit possesses the power to sway another's attitudes and conduct. A spirit that places the desire to sin in a person's mind can be resisted, but if his guard is not up, he can allow that influence to enter his heart and become part of him. This is what happened to Adam and Eve when Satan came calling to influence them toward the desire to take of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

As long as Adam and Eve were only in the presence of the holy and righteous God in the Garden of Eden, sin was not a problem because God's communication with them was entirely righteous, encouraging, and positive. But when the personification of evil showed up, they did not resist his appeals to join with him in sinning against the holy God. Their spirits picked up on what he was communicating to them, and they joined him in sin.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and Christian Living (Part Fourteen): A Summary

Job 32:8

Job's young friend utters a truth that is self-evident to those whose minds God has opened but is hidden from carnal perception. God has endowed man with a human spirit that places him higher than the animals, giving him intelligence, emotion, speech, skills, and abilities similar to but lower than God's own abilities. This spirit allows humans to function with free moral agency, to choose what behaviors they will follow.

This human spirit, however, has no moral compass in itself; it is essentially neutral, though it tends to be dragged down by the needs and desires of our flesh. A young child can become a saint or a sinner, depending on the training he receives, but if he is left to his own devices, as Proverbs 29:15 warns, he will ultimately bring shame on his family. This principle results from the fact that Adam and Eve, who, as mankind's representatives before God in the Garden of Eden, set the pattern of choosing the knowledge of good and evil rather than God's offer of knowledge that leads to eternal life (Genesis 3:1-6; 22).

Human beings, then, come in an array of moral hues, from black as sin to white as the driven snow and every shade in between. Humanity has produced Adolf Hitler, who attracted millions to his cause, as well as Mother Theresa, who repulsed millions with her Catholic beliefs. At base, we are all mixed bags, capable of the heights of altruism and the depths of egoism. It all depends on what we choose to do, yet our record tends toward the dark rather than the light.

In I Corinthians 2:11-13, Paul explains that man's essentially neutral spirit is distinct from God's Spirit. The human spirit understands only what the human mind can discover. If a man wishes to understand and do truly godly things, he must have God's Spirit, which He freely gives upon repentance and conversion. This Spirit from God is "not the spirit of the world" (verse 12), which is "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2). Paul goes on to say that God's Spirit teaches us things beyond any wisdom discovered by the human spirit (I Corinthians 2:13).

Within this passage, Paul hints at the fact that the human spirit, when it is under the inspiration of the spirit of this world, can counterfeit the wisdom that comes from God's Spirit alone (see II Corinthians 11:13-15). A carnal person's works may seem "right," but they are still acting under the guidance of the "natural spirituality" that is part of the spirit in man.

Consider the Ten Commandments. Most of us probably know people who agree that they are fine laws and strive to keep them. Does this mean they are converted? No! At best, men naturally follow at least the last six because they can see by the human spirit that they produce an ordered and peaceful society. The first four commandments, however, require God's Spirit to understand fully.

Paul confronts this issue head-on in Romans 2:14-15, admitting that the unconverted often follow God's law even if they have no knowledge of it. He calls them "a law to themselves," meaning that the rules they follow are their own, not God's, though they may agree with God's law at points. How? Because the spirit God breathed into Adam in the Garden of Eden allows them to reason out a correct moral sense—at least partially. Generally, though, man's moral sense is partly right and partly wrong, yet fundamentally hostile to God (Romans 8:7).

Nevertheless, the human spirit is so incredible that, in varying degrees depending on the individual, it can reason out parts of God's truth on its own and put them into action. But by no means does this mean such people are converted! Jesus and the apostles are unambiguous about conversion being a special calling by God (John 6:44; II Timothy 1:9), marked by the indwelling of another Spirit (I Corinthians 3:16; II Timothy 1:14), God's Spirit, that is holy and begets us as His children (Romans 8:9-14).

In Acts 5:29, 32, Peter provides the key to the difference between the converted and the "good" yet unconverted of this world: God's people obey Him rather than men, and God gives His Spirit to those who obey Him. In other words, a converted person will have and use God's Spirit and obey His law diligently and increasingly, while natural man will be guided only by his "natural spirituality" and be a law to himself. Because He will do what feels right "in his heart," he will occasionally perform good works with which God would be pleased. As Jesus so bluntly puts it, even evil men give good gifts to their children (Matthew 7:11). Even a blind squirrel finds an occasional nut.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Man's Natural Spirituality

Psalm 128:1-6

Psalm 128 illustrates how properly honoring and working with God within marriage and the family produces the finest product for His Kingdom. Notice how positive this psalm is! The whole process begins with a proper fear of the Lord, and from that foundation, blessing radiates out to the whole family. When the fear of the Lord forms the basis for a marriage, the couple is starting out their marriage properly, and they can expect good results—positive fruit—in time.

Because a man and his wife begin on the proper footing—and it is assumed that they continue in it—they will find happiness, satisfaction, unity, and of course, blessedness. There is even the good possibility of a long, fulfilling life. God presents a family that is content and fruitful, full of potential for growth and expansion.

Moreover, the last sentence in Psalm 128 suggests that such families bring peace to the whole nation! James 3:18 reads: "Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." An environment of peace—what is found in a God-fearing home—provides the ideal setting for the growth of righteousness and its fruit. Such homes produce upstanding, productive individuals who build society, not tear it down with hostile acts that disturb the peace. Ultimately, the entire nation benefits from the godly fear practiced and taught in Christian families.

This is what God wants. He is looking for a home for His offspring in which this peaceful environment will be created in order to produce children in His image—godly seed. In Malachi 2:13-16, God is quite displeased with His people because their marriage relationships had degenerated to the point that husbands were treacherously divorcing their wives for inconsequential reasons, breaking the covenant, the vow, that they had made. They were not creating the proper environment for producing godly seed for His Family.

A primary purpose for marriage is to produce the right environment for raising children, not for just one's own family, but for God. Again, we see that the physical mirrors the spiritual in this relationship. Even though we are physical beings, God has given us a spiritual component that makes us different from animals. When He calls us into His church, He gives us an additional element, His Spirit, that elevates our purpose to a far higher plane. Thus, there is always a higher purpose in everything we do. We cannot avoid it, as it is the overriding purpose of God Himself.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Four)

Ecclesiastes 3:18-19

This is quite a cynical perspective of death. Solomon penned Ecclesiastes in his old age, when he could look back on his wearisome years of searching for answers and experimenting and come to a few conclusions about life. An inference about death appears in Ecclesiastes 3:20-21: "All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animals, which goes down to the earth?"

Again, his outlook seems negative. He concludes that in many ways human beings are no better than animals, which is certainly the case when they try to live without God. Men simply die like beasts. Like animals, people are air-breathing, fleshly creatures, and when we can no longer breathe or our flesh is starved, diseased, wounded, or exhausted, we die like them. When we die, our bodies decompose, returning to dust just as their bodies do.

Yet, in Ecclesiastes 3:21, Solomon raises a question (paraphrased): "What do we really know about the human spirit as opposed to the spirit of a beast?" Do we actually know that a man's spirit goes upward and a beast's spirit returns to the earth? What can we observe? If we use scientific methods, what can we really find out? Nothing, because such a question involving spiritual matters is beyond science, beyond man's ability to measure or record.

Previously, in Ecclesiastes 3:11, Solomon had written that God has put eternity in man's heart—a yearning to live forever—so he has already conceded that God gives man the edge over beasts. He realizes that man is a special creation of God, made after the God-kind, who has been given dominion over the earth and all in it (Genesis 1:26), so his skeptical question conceals the fact that he believes that man's chances for life after death are far better than an animal's.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 reveals that, by the time he reaches the end of the book, Solomon has made up his mind on this question. He writes, "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." His conclusion is that, yes, there is a possibility of life after death for humanity. A person's spirit returns to God for safekeeping, yet that is as far as his understanding can take him. He does not know what happens next. However, he is wise enough to know that his conclusion leads to a truth: Since we do have a chance to live again, depending on God's judgment of our works, we had better fear God and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Four)

Ecclesiastes 11:5

It is likely that "wind" is not properly translated. It should be rendered "spirit," which fits better with the context of verse 5.

"How the bones grow in the womb" is an illustration of how ignorant mankind is regarding even something so close as a child in the womb. Which of us knows when God gives a human being the spirit in man? Is it at conception or when the child takes its first breath? As far as we know, God has not revealed it in His Word. This is similar to Solomon's argument here. He did not know either.

There is much in life that we do not know. There are parts of life in which we must wholly trust God's manifold wisdom and care of each of His creatures because we do not know what He has in mind within His purpose. And His purpose is the key.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and the Feast of Tabernacles (Part 2)

Related Topics: Conception | Ignorance | Spirit in Man


 

Ezekiel 18:4

The church of God does not accept the Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, instead believing God's Word, which says indisputably, “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). One of the very first things God taught Adam in the Garden of Eden was the consequence of sin: “you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17), a truth the serpent hastened to contradict (Genesis 3:4).

In the New Testament, Jesus teaches in Matthew 10:28: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell [Gehenna, a symbol of the Lake of Fire (see Revelation 20:11-15)].” Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Humans are mortal, and God must give eternal life; we do not have it inherently (see Romans 2:7; I Corinthians 15:53-54; I Timothy 6:16).

We believe that man indeed has a spirit (Job 32:8), “the breath of the Almighty [that] gives him understanding,” but that it is not his soul. When combined with a human brain, the human spirit allows a person to have the powers of mind. When he dies, the body returns to the dust, but his spirit returns to God (Ecclesiastes 12:7), who safeguards it as a record of his life.

Solomon also informs us that “the dead know nothing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5), and “there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave” (verse 10), meaning that there is no consciousness in death. The person knows nothing, learns nothing, communicates nothing, does nothing—until the resurrection from the dead when God will unite that spirit with a new body, either a spiritual body or another physical body, depending on the resurrection (see Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 5:24-29; I Corinthians 15; I Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 20).

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
What Happened at En Dor?

John 6:44

It is the work of God to open our minds to enable us to respond in a godly way - that is, by faith - to the manifestation of Himself through His Word, the manifestation of Christ through His Word, the manifestation of God's works through His Word. He does this so that we can see the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, which means that God has given to each one of us the capacity to do what Moses did (Hebrews 11:26-27). Maybe not as well, not having to trust in exactly the same way or to the same degree, but nonetheless, we can follow the same principle.

So, even though we have a spiritual capacity by nature because of the spirit in man within us - all of mankind has this spiritual capacity - a true spiritual relationship can really be made only by those whom God calls. We have been given a gift of God that enables us to have the kind of faith that Moses and the apostle Paul had.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Faith (Part Three)

John 6:63

Here, the difference between God's Holy Spirit and our spirit is noted. God's Spirit (His Word, His thoughts, His way) always produces life—eternal life—the way God lives. Jesus was made a life-giving Spirit, and He is the High Priest. As High Priest, He is in charge of the administration of life (see II Corinthians 3). The difference between the two covenants is that the priesthood under the Old Covenant could not administer life, but the Priesthood under the New Covenant administers life by providing the Spirit of God to the mind of man. Demons and men cannot truthfully claim what Jesus claimed here, that His Spirit is life. Man's spirit, like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, produces death, because it produces sin.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Holy Spirit and the Trinity (Part One)

1 Corinthians 2:9-13

Because of the action God took once Adam and Eve sinned - they were cut off from the Holy Spirit - all of the cultures of mankind have been built on reasoning apart from God's Spirit. Man has been doomed to produce the kinds of cultures that are based on his own reasoning, because access to God's Holy Spirit was closed off, and therefore there is a missing dimension in mankind's reasoning processes.

Thus, the separation can only get wider - unless God acts to heal the breach. Mankind is unable to bridge the gap because spiritual things are not physically discerned; eyes, ears, nose, mouth cannot sense and understand spiritual things. So mankind is trapped - he is doomed in that regard. Even though God created mankind with a spiritual capacity, it is so limited that it cannot find the true things of God. Man, therefore, is easily overpowered by Satan.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Reconciliation and the Day of Atonement

1 Corinthians 2:9-16

In writing to the Corinthians, Paul gives a simple framework for understanding spirit in general, as well as the Holy Spirit. Verse 11 teaches that each person has a spirit: “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?” This echoes Job 32:8: “Thereisa spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.” In this usage, the word “spirit” is synonymous with “heart” or “mind.” This is the intelligent, non-physical part of a person that allows him to think, reason, and comprehend. Verse 11 teaches that a person's spirit is the source and overseer of his thoughts. This spirit in man is not another being within the person but simply the person's center of reason.

Next, verse 12 reveals that the world has a spirit. Like the spirit in man, this spirit is also not a separate being. But this usage of “spirit” is slightly different. Rather than being the center of reason, the spirit of the world is the world's attitude, its inclination, tendency, atmosphere, mood, or frame of mind. The spirit of the world is also the motivating impulse of the culture, which can manifest in many ways, but it will always be anti-God (see Romans 8:7).

Paul describes this spirit in Ephesians 2:2-3, saying that we “once walked according to the course of this world.” The course, or way, of the world is the invisible and immaterial motivating impulse at work in the sons of disobedience. The spirit of the world moves people whom God has not redeemed to conduct themselves in lust, fulfilling the desires of their flesh and mind, putting themselves under the wrath of God. The spirit of the world sweeps mankind along a spiritual channel to keep them in opposition to their Creator.

While spirit cannot be seen, we can see the effects of spirit. It is not a coincidence that the word for “spirit,” pneuma, can also be translated as “wind” or “breath”—just as Job 32:8, quoted above, parallels the spirit in man to “the breath of the Almighty.” We cannot see the moving air molecules in wind, but we can observe leaves and branches being moved and know that wind is present. In the dry areas of the West, tumbleweeds roll along and dust-devils form, spin, and disintegrate, revealing that the wind is at work.

In the same way, we cannot see spirit, but we can see the actions and attitudes of mankind, and thus find evidence of the spirit that is working. The spirit of the world influences and stirs up the spirit in man, inducing the individual to think and feel in a certain way, and ultimately, to act.

Returning to I Corinthians 2:12, Paul mentions a spirit that we have received. This is in addition to the spirit in man, with which we were born, and in opposition to the spirit of the world. This additional spirit is from, and of, God. We can conclude that, like mankind, God also has a Spirit. God has a mind, one of unfathomable depth, capability, and intelligence. But more than simply an overwhelming intellect, God's Spirit includes His attitude, principles, thoughts, feelings, temperament, character, disposition, and will. To put it simply, God's Spirit is the essence of His incredible mind, and it is the new motivating principle that God's children receive.

I Corinthians 2:16 shows that God's Spirit is not another supernatural being. It begins with a quotation of Isaiah 40:13 (“who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?”), but then Paul follows up with, “But we have the mind of Christ.” This is Paul's explanation of the spirit we have received. It is a principle, a disposition, a motivating influence that comes from God Himself. “Spirit,” “heart,” and “mind,” while not identical, are used interchangeably. It is the mind of Christ that we have received that allows us to know the things of God, to know what God has prepared for us, and to know the things that have been given to us. Thus, Paul equates the Spirit of God to the mind of Christ. The essence of His mind enhances our minds, giving us spiritual understanding.

The Father and the Son are one, not in the sense of being the same Person, but in the sense of being perfectly united in will, thought, and intent. They are of the same mind, the same heart—the same spirit. It is that Spirit that we receive when we are baptized and have hands laid on us. As a result, we can begin to understand the things of God, which the world cannot understand. Without God's intervention, mankind is only influenced by the spirit of the world, which has its source in “the prince of the power of the air.”

Because God is holy, His Spirit is also holy. God has many facets and qualities, yet the four living creatures in Revelation 4:8 praise Him day and night for being “holy, holy, holy.” The fact that they say “holy” three times does not mean that He is three persons. It means His holiness is superlative—it is the very highest possible. Our holy God's Spirit, the essence of His perfect mind, is also holy. That holiness is not merely an attribute, but it is also what God's Spirit will incline His people toward: holiness in conduct, in attitude, in speech, in every facet of living. God says, “Be holy, for I am holy,” and His Spirit will move us toward His holiness, if we cooperate.

David C. Grabbe
What Is the Holy Spirit?

1 Corinthians 2:10-12

We see three things here:

1. There is a spirit in man that enables him to understand physical things.

2. God reveals to man through His Spirit, which enables man to penetrate the deep, spiritual things of God.

3. We have received the Spirit that is from God, and there is a spirit of this world.

Here, Paul shows at least three different spirits: the spirit in man, the Spirit of God, and the spirit of this world.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 3)

1 Corinthians 2:10-11

There is a human spirit in which all of mankind shares. It is what, more than any other component of what we are, that enables us to be in God's image, and yet each person is a different personality. We are distinct from each other so that each person's spirit is also distinct. It is his own. Your spirit is yours, and my spirit is mine.

My spirit projects John Ritenbaugh. It projects my personality, my mind, my attitudes, my knowledge, my understanding, my wisdom, and my discernment - things that have come to me as a result of my experiences. Yours is exactly the same way.

What spirit goes back to God when we die? Is the spirit that goes back to God after your death different from the one that goes back to God from me when I die? Of course it is. Mine is mine, and yours is yours. In reference to God, His Spirit is Holy Spirit, but it is uniquely His. Are not He and the Son distinct from one another? They are.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Image and Likeness of God (Part Three)

1 Corinthians 10:3-4

Yes, we walk in the flesh—meaning we have fleshly bodies. God has made us physical, but we are not really supposed to walk according to the flesh. "We walk by faith, not by sight."

We live in physical bodies. We have physical lives. We have our physical problems. But the battle we wage is not physical at all! The battle is fought in the realm of belief, ideas, philosophies, teachings, words, principles, and laws. To sum it up, we could say, "We fight the battle in our minds."

That is where our warfare takes place—in our minds. Or as the Bible often says—within our hearts, our emotions, our personalities, our developing character. Why does happen there? "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). A person is what goes through his mind, what he allows himself to do, all the decisions that he makes.

We say, "We are what we eat." We know that what we put into our mouths goes into our bodies, supplying our bodies' needs as energy or raw materials for building and maintenance. We know that our bodies over time replace all the cells that we have! That is the way that God has made us. Our food is the raw material—fuel—that makes us what we are physically.

Spiritually, it is the same thing. We are what we think! We are what we allow into our minds. René Descartes said, "I think therefore I am [Cogito ergo sum]." It is essentially a true statement because it is our thoughts, and the character that our thoughts have helped to form, that will pass through the grave. Our essential being beyond our physical flesh and blood is what will be preserved by God.

Job 32:8 informs us that "there is a spirit in man," and Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 12:7, "Then [at death] the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." And God does whatever He does with it. What is recorded on that spirit? The person's thoughts, his memories, his beliefs, his desires, his habits, and his character traits!

God does not work with us through however many years of our lives just to throw away what He accomplished in us through His Spirit.

When we die, He takes what He has made, and He stores it for the resurrection, so at that time, He can return it to us in a spirit body that will live for eternity with Him. What He stores is what goes on in our minds as the human spirit comes into alignment with God's Spirit: what we think, what we believe, all the experiences we have gone through, the habits we have formed, and the character traits that God, by His Spirit, has created in us. Those are the things that pass through the grave.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Is God in All Our Thoughts?

Revelation 20:10

This verse ostensibly describes the Lake of Fire as a place where God torments people forever. This assumption raises three questions:

1. If the Beast and False Prophet are mortal men, why are they still alive after the Millennium when Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire?

2. If they are mortals, how can they “be tormented day and night forever and ever” in an inferno that would soon consume them?

3. What kind of God would devise such a “cruel and unusual” punishment?

Before answering these questions, we must briefly consider whether human beings have an immortal soul. For several biblical reasons, our understanding of the Scriptures compels us to maintain that they do not:

1. Job recognizes that man has a spirit (Job 32:8), which the apostle Paul shows in I Corinthians 2:11 endows humanity with intellect. This spirit in man comes from God (Zechariah 12:1) and returns to Him upon death (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Acts 7:59). It records an individual's life, character, and personality, which God stores until the resurrection of the dead. However, the Bible never describes this spirit as immortal or eternal; in fact, I Corinthians 2:6-16 explains that man needs yet another Spirit, God's, to be complete and to discern godly things. According to Ecclesiastes 3:21, animals also have a spirit, “which goes down to the earth,” suggesting that it ceases to exist at the animal's death.

2. The Bible flatly asserts that all people die: “[I]t is appointed for men to die once” (Hebrews 9:27). Ezekiel says distinctly that souls die: “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20; see Romans 6:23). Jesus warns in Matthew 10:28 that God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna, a type of the Lake of Fire.

3. In death, life and consciousness are gone. “The dead know nothing,” says Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9:5, and he later adds, “[T]here is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going” (verse 10). In Psalm 146:4, the psalmist writes about men's death, “His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish” (see Genesis 3:19).

4. Scripture also confutes the idea that people go to heaven or hell after death. Peter says to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. . . . For David did not ascend into the heavens” (Acts 2:29, 34). Our Savior confirms this in John 3:13: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” The biblical usage of Sheol and Hades simply means “the pit” or “the grave.”

5. Men cannot have immortality unless God gives it to them. Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23; emphasis ours throughout). In I Corinthians 15:53 he tells the saints, “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality”; that is, immortality is not inherent in us. At the first resurrection, God will give “eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality” (Romans 2:7). If we already had immortality, why should we seek it?

6. Only God has immortality. He is, Paul writes to Timothy, “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality” (I Timothy 6:15-16). John says of the Word, “In Him was life” (John 1:4), meaning as Creator of all things (verse 3), He had life inherent. Jesus affirms this in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In other words, humans must go through Him to receive eternal life.

With such overwhelming proof, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, believed by so many, proves false. Man is not immortal, nor does he possess any “spark of God” unless God has given it to him through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:11). A Christian's hope of life after death rests in the resurrection of the dead (I Corinthians 15:12-23). Conversely, the wicked only await eternal death as recompense for their evil lives.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Eternal Torment?


 




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