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Spirit
Ian:
Hello,
I had another question... What exactly is the spirit in man? I was reading a Bible two nights ago (Living Streams...) and I am now confused. I believe the spirit has no intellect, thanks to Ray's articles and Kat. But I found a few verses the stumped me (again).
1 Corinthians 2:11
Mark 2:8
Mark 14:38
I apologize for being uh...unintelligent.
Dave in Tenn:
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,11605.0.html Is a collection of email answers related to the body/soul/spirit question.
Maybe a little 'reverse engineering' would be helpful. I've seen a few dead people and many dead animals. That tells me pretty much all I need to know about what spirit is in man. My 'life' is a combination of spirit and body. Put them together--no, intricately intertwine them--and that makes 'me', a living soul. Kill my body, and the 'package' is destroyed. My spirit 'knows' and 'thinks' because it is a part of 'me'.
That's about the best I can do. I've spent a lot of the last 3 and 1/2 years 'de-religifying' all kinds of theological notions. Just me talking, but it's irksome to think that religion has people so confused they don't even know who THEY are anymore.
1Co 2:11,12 For is any of humanity acquainted with that which is human except the spirit of humanity which is in it? (Do we know who we are?) Thus also, that which is of God no one knows, except the spirit of God. Now we obtained, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we may be perceiving that which is being graciously given to us by God... (Are we becoming acquainted with God in the same way we are acquainted with ourselves and the rest of humanity?)
THAT'S the best I can do. :)
Kat:
Hi Ian,
Here are a few places Ray speaks on this.
http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,655.0.html ---------
You are not paying attention to my writings. The consciousness is not in the body, and it is not in the spirit. The consciousness of man is in his soul, and his soul is resultant outcome of our spirit being united with a body. God breathed the breath and spirit of life into the man formed from the dust of the ground, and the man then BECAME a living soul. He BECAME conscious of his own being. At death we are no longer conscious of our being or our death. Our spirit must be reunited with a new body in resurrection before we will regain the soul and consciousness that we had before we died.
http://bible-truths.com/kennedy2.htm -------------
The words "soul" and "spirit" have become corrupted through theology so that they are now used interchangeably, as if they were synonymous. They are not synonymous. There may be certain similarities between soul and spirit, but similarities do not make them one and the same.
The "soul" is the seat of sensation, consciousness, and feelings, not the body or the spirit. It is the spirit that imparts life to the body and the body then becomes a living soul (Gen. 2:7).
A thorough study of the word "soul" in the Scriptures proves that it is used of consciousness, feelings, and emotions. Hence, "sensation" is a good word to define its usage.
v
TV ANALOGY
Here is an analogy that is applicable and easy to understand: God's spirit gives life to the body. Only in life does a man have consciousness or sensation. When God takes back His spirit, the body and soul are dead.
Picture a TV console as representing the human BODY with all its intricate circuitry and components.
Now picture ELECTRICITY as the invisible, powerful force representing God's life-giving SPIRIT.
Picture the blank PICTURE TUBE as representing the SOUL.
Without the electricity (God's spirit), the TV and picture tube (body and soul) are dead. All the time I hear preachers talking about our souls and our spirits as if they were one and the same. Soul and spirit are not one and the same.
Next plug in the electricity (God's spirit). The TV comes to life, and we see the picture tube (soul) animated. We see color, sound, dancing, singing, talking, intelligent conversations, all live via satellite. The dead TV becomes a living, visible, animated, intelligent entity-"Soul." But notice very carefully, the Soul (the animated picture in the TV tube) is not one of the original components. It is not a component in and by itself, but is rather the result of two other vital components, Body and Spirit (the TV console and electricity).
At bedtime I sometimes tell my daughter to give the TV a rest. When one turns off the "on/off" switch the TV goes to "sleep." The power light is still on, but the TV is blank and silent.
But now, pull the plug and take away the electricity (spirit) and what happens to the TV console (body)? It dies. It's just a box of circuits. Not even the power light is on anymore. If left unplugged it will, in time, decay and return to the dust of the ground.
And what happens to the colorful animated picture on the screen (soul) when we take away the electricity (spirit)? Want the real answer? Ask a child. Let several children watch TV together, then pull the plug and ask them where the picture went? A child will shrug his shoulders or say "I don't know" or say "It disappeared." Guess what? He is Scripturally correct on all three counts.
Without spirit there is no life and no consciousness. Without power a TV has no life and no animated picture. It's dead.
If you were to ask an ancient Hebrew person what happens to the soul (the thinking, feeling, animated, sentient personality of a man) at death, he would shrug his shoulders or say "who knows" or just say "it disappears." That's what "Sheol" meant to the Hebrews. It was a question mark. And the Greeks had their word for the same idea (Hades-the UNSEEN, the IMPERCEPTIBLE), and hades and sheol are synonymous in Scripture (Acts 2:27).
v
In Scripture, death is called a "return" [Heb. shub]. Before we were born we had no body, no soul, and no perception of any kind. At birth God gave us a body, implanted to us His spirit, which gives the body perception (through the brain and the five senses). At death, we [shub] RETURN. The reversal of what happened at birth. The spirit returns to God (Ecc. 12:7), the body returns to the dust (all the elements of man's body are found in the ground or earth) (Job 10:9, Ecc. 3:18-21), and the soul returns to no perception again (the imperceptible or unseen-hades) (Acts 2:27 and Psalm 49:15). This is what the Scriptures very plainly teach: where all that man "is" came from, that's where all that man "is" returns to.
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mercy, peace and love
Kat
Ian:
Kat, ah, so does that mean the last two verses I mentioned are metaphors? (Could be wrong term. I'm not thinking straight).
Also, is Psalm 6:5-6 a "poem"? I was looking at a Wikipedia article about the soul in the Bible (big mistake; it's biased towards a conscience afterlife). It stated:
"The verse is simply affirming that from a human point of view, a dead body does not praise God. How ridiculous to suggest this poetic verse was intended to give a detailed doctrinal roadmap of the state of the dead."
Honestly, that makes no sense to me...Why all the lamentation if David doesn't actually die?
Also, do righteous people also go to the "pit" ("Heb: bowr")? The article stated that only wicked do.
And, um, what do Job 26:5 and "Rephaim" mean?
I do apologize for asking stupid questions, and possibly repeating myself.. I don't mean to. :-[
Kat:
Hi Ian,
--- Quote ---so does that mean the last two verses I mentioned are metaphors?
--- End quote ---
Mar 14:38 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. Truly the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
The spirit gives the body physical life and so then we are able to reason with our mind, have preception.
Job 32:8 But a spirit is in man giving them perception, even the breath of the Almighty.
--- Quote ---Also, do righteous people also go to the "pit" ("Heb: bowr")? The article stated that only wicked do.
--- End quote ---
I think that to be cast into the pit/grave is just a crude way of implying what happens to the wicked.
mercy, peace and love
Kat
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