"Human" Spirit Makes the Difference!
Man was created to have a special relationship with God that is utterly nonexistent with animals. Man was made in the similitude of the GOD kind. He was made in God's image so that he might one day be born into God's divine family!
God's purpose in making mortal man after his own likeness demanded mind power in man patterned after God's own mind. That is why the most remarkable thing about man is his mind.
What is it then that separates humankind from the animal kingdom? What gives him this God-plane power of intellect?
It all boils down to a nonphysical component in the human brain that does not exist in animal brain. It is this nonphysical component that makes man so vastly different from animals. It is what makes man truly UNIQUE!
Man does not have an immortal soul within him that enables him to live on apart from his body after death (remember man is a mortal soul). But the Bible nevertheless does speak of a "spirit IN man" (Job 32:8, 18; Zech. 12:1:1 Cor. 2:11).
Many passages of Scripture show that there is a "spirit" IN man! This spirit is not the man — it is something that is IN the man. Joined with the physical brain of the man, it forms human MIND. It imparts to man's brain his unique powers of intellect and personality — the ability to think rationally and make freewill decisions. It imparts the ability to learn mathematics, languages or other types of knowledge such as music, art, carpentry, flying.
But that's all. The spirit that is IN man has no consciousness of itself. It is not an "immortal soul." This spirit is not the "man."
The spirit that is IN man can be called "human" spirit, for it is in each human, even though it is spirit essence and not matter. It is not a "ghost," spirit being, or the Holy Spirit. It is not the man, but spirit essence IN the man. It is NOT a soul — the physical human is a soul.
The human spirit, added to every human being at birth, does not supply human life — the human life is in the physical blood, oxidized by the breath of life (Lev. 17:11). But the spirit in man does impart the power of intellect to the human brain. This nonphysical component in the human brain does not exist in the brains of animals.
The spirit in man is spirit essence; just as in the material world air is a gaseous essence. But this "human" spirit cannot see. The physical brain sees through the eyes. The human spirit in a person cannot hear. The brain hears through the ears. This human spirit cannot think. The brain thinks — although the spirit imparts the power to think far above the level of brute animals' brain function. Without such spirit animals cannot do original thinking.
The "human" spirit acts as a computer. Whatever knowledge enters the brain through the five senses is instantly stored (memorized) in the spirit within the person. It enables the brain to have instant recall of stored-up knowledge in the spirit, and thus enables the brain to utilize bits of related knowledge in the process of THINKING and REASONING.
The human spirit imparts the power of intellect to the physical brain in two ways: 1) it gives the brain instant recall of whatever the brain calls for in the knowledge stored in this memory — or "human computer"; 2) it supplies the brain whatever energy is needed to cause it to think — that is, to put the pieces of information stored in the spirit together in the process we call "thinking," "reasoning" and "drawing conclusions. “ The human spirit also is the means God has instilled to make possible a personal relationship between human MAN and divine GOD.
The truth about the "spirit in man" is so important that Satan twisted and perverted it long ago. He clouded the minds of men and led them into believing his "big lie" as far back in time as the first human beings in the garden of Eden.
Here was the origin of the "immortality of the soul" teaching so prevalent today! Satan told the first woman she would "not surely die" (Gen. 3:4). In other words, she had an "immortal soul" that would live forever. Eve believed this lie. And most of the world today continues to believe some variation of that ancient "big lie"!
A Second Spirit Needed
Man has the intellectual capacity to design spaceships to take him to the moon and back, to invent the computer and to do other marvelous exploits in the physical, material realm. Yet during man's nearly 6,000 years on earth, he has proved that he cannot solve his problems with fellowman.
Why has this been so? Because man's real problems are spiritual in nature and the natural man simply cannot solve spiritual problems. In producing the computer or in flying to the moon, he is dealing with physical matter that he can understand because of the human spirit within him. But he cannot solve problems with fellow humans because this involves knowledge and understanding of spiritual principles, which he cannot comprehend without the addition of another spiritual element to his mind!
Man was made to need another spirit — the Holy Spirit of God! Just as a human could not know the things of human knowledge except by the human spirit within him, so he cannot know the things of God — spiritual knowledge — except by the addition of the Spirit of God (I Cor. 2:9-11, 14).
Just as surely as no animal brain — such as that of a cow, for example — can comprehend or understand human affairs without the human spirit, so no human mind can have comprehension of spiritual truths on the divine plane unless and until it has received the Holy Spirit!
Even the greatest scientific and philosophical minds simply cannot come to know and understand SPIRITUAL truths with their natural minds. They are "foolishness" to them. The natural man with his human spirit is limited to material knowledge.
Spiritual things cannot be seen with the eye, heard with the ear, felt with the hands. The human mind, which can receive knowledge only through these physical channels, can never really comprehend spiritual concepts and principles without the Holy Spirit of God. Only when the Holy Spirit enters man's mind upon conversion, combining with the human spirit, can a man come to know that which is spiritual. Only then can the human mind receive and comprehend the knowledge of and attain God's GREAT PURPOSE for his existence!
Man was created incomplete. He was made to need another spirit — the Holy Spirit of God.
How can one receive the Holy Spirit? Through Christ, the second Adam, we can receive God's gift of his Holy Spirit. Upon repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, whose death paid the penalty for sin in our stead, we may be reconciled to God and receive the Holy Spirit of God, which is added to our human spirit (Acts 2:38; John 7:38-39). Thus we become the begotten children of God (I Pet. 1:3; Rom. 8:14-17).
The human spirit in man and the Holy Spirit of God join to make a begotten child of God, just as the male sperm cell and the female ovum or egg cell join to make a begotten human, but not yet developed or ready to be born as a human being.
God's Holy Spirit, when it combines with the human spirit in the human mind, does two things: 1) it begets the human with divine, eternal life to be later born into the God family as a divine being, then composed wholly of spirit; 2) it imparts to the mind the ability to comprehend spiritual knowledge — to understand the things of God.
The first human beings were freely offered this second and much-needed Spirit. Of the two symbolic trees in the garden in Eden, the "tree of life" represented God's Holy Spirit. To have taken the fruit of that tree would have been to receive God's Holy Spirit, which would have joined with their human spirits, impregnating them as begotten (not yet born) children of God.
But by taking of the fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," our first parents rejected God's Spirit, which would have begotten the very life of God in them and would have enabled them to understand revealed spiritual knowledge. Thus they cut themselves and their descendants off from access to God's Spirit and limited themselves and the human race to material knowledge and understanding (Gen. 3:22-24), except for those God specially calls (John 6:44).
The Spirit-begotten Christian now has, conditionally, the presence of eternal life within him (or her) through a portion of the Spirit from the Father. But this does not mean he is an immortal spirit being. He is not yet wholly composed of God's Spirit. He is now an "heir" of God (Rom. 8:16-17) — not yet an inheritor or a possessor, not yet "born again. “ But, if the Holy Spirit dwells in us, God will, at Christ's return to earth as King of kings, give us immortality by his Spirit that dwells in us (Rom. 8:11).
Now just as in human reproduction the impregnated embryo, which later becomes a fetus, is not yet born, but must be nourished for a period of time through the human mother, so the begotten Christian is not yet born into the God family.
The divine life has merely been begotten. It must now grow!
Why We Must Grow Spiritually
Included in God's purpose for creating man is the development of righteous, spiritual character within him! Notice again what God said in Genesis 1:26: "Let us make man in our image. . . ." The original Hebrew here indicates far more than merely the form and shape of God — his outward likeness, ”Image" also refers to mind and character! God intended for man — to whom he gave the gift of a thinking, reasoning mind — to ultimately have the very mind and character of GOD.
God's purpose in creating man is to reproduce himself with the perfect spiritual character only God possesses. Man was therefore created in God's own image and likeness, his own form and shape with a mind similar to his, so God could begin to develop the very character of God in him.
Just as in human reproduction, when the human body and brain gradually begin to form during the gestation period, so now the righteous and holy character of God must begin to take form and grow once one is begotten by God's Spirit (II Pet. 3:18; I Pet. 2:1-2).
Obviously, we cannot become absolutely perfect in character until the resurrection when God will complete the process by giving each of us a new, perfect spirit body with its perfect — sinless (I John 3:2, 9) — nature that will be like Christ's and the Father's. But meantime, God wants us to grow in his spiritual character daily by obeying his commandments and overcoming and rooting sin out of our lives — growing toward that spiritual perfection!
Such perfect, holy character cannot be created by fiat. It must be developed and that requires time and experience. God gives us time in which to learn that only his way of life brings real peace, happiness and a joyful, abundant life. We will have learned that sin causes only heartache, misery, suffering and death. We will have seen the results of Satan's way of life and rejected it, and will have been developing, with the help of God's Spirit, God's own holy, righteous character until our change to sinless immortal life!
We become a spiritual "embryo" when, upon receipt of the Holy Spirit, we are begotten of God. And to grow spiritually, we must take in spiritual nourishment. Just as the embryo in a mother's womb must be nourished with life-giving food through the placenta, so we must be nourished by the Word of God. “ . . . The words that I speak unto you," said Jesus, "they are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Those words are recorded in the Bible — and Jesus said we are to live by every word of God '(Matt. 4:4). We drink in these life-giving words from the Bible through reading, studying and meditating (thinking) on what we read.
Spiritual character development requires time and comes largely by experience — by putting the Word of God into practice in our daily lives. One builds the righteous character of God as he comes to discern, through God's revelation in the Holy Bible, right from wrong — the true values from the false — truth from error, then chooses the right and rejects the wrong and, with the help of God's Holy Spirit, resists the wrong and DOES the right!
Actually, in many this divine character may form so slowly that it seems hardly in evidence at first, except that in some there may radiate a "first love" of spiritual conversion. But, so far as growing in spiritual knowledge and spiritual character goes, that is a gradual process that continues the rest of one's life.
In addition to Bible study, earnest prayer is absolutely necessary.
We also absorb spiritual nourishment through personal, daily contact with God. When you study the Bible, God is talking to you. When you pray, you are talking to him. You get to really know God in this manner, just as you become better acquainted with people by conversation.
God's Church is the spiritual "mother" of all who have been begotten by God's Holy Spirit. God has set his called and chosen ministers in his Church to "feed the flock" so the individual members may grow spiritually (Acts 20:28). Christ has given his ministers the responsibility to instruct, teach and counsel the members of the Church (Eph. 4:11-15). So just as a human mother feeds her begotten child within her womb through the placenta and umbilical cord, God's children are nourished with spiritual food within the true Church.
And as the human mother carries her unborn baby in that part of her body where she can best protect it from physical harm, the function of God's Church is to also protect the begotten children of God from spiritual harm — the false doctrines of false ministers who appear as Christ's representatives, but who actually represent Satan and his way (II Cor. 11:13-15).
Finally, when resurrected from the dead or changed from mortal flesh to immortal spirit at Christ's return, the incredible human potential will have blossomed into reality. We will have been BORN into the divine family of God possessing the fullness of the very character of God!
Now we see clearly the great purpose the Creator God had in making man UNIQUE among all his physical creations. Mortal man has within his reach the glorious reality of attaining to the resurrection of the dead, and receiving immortality — forever being a part of the universe-ruling family of God.