Reference: Spirit
American
A word employed in various senses in Scripture.
1. For THE HOLY SPIRIT, the third person of the Holy Trinity, who inspired the prophets, animates good men, pours his unction into our hearts, imparts to us life and comfort; and in whose name we are baptized and blessed, as well as in that of the Father and the Son. When the adjective Holy is applied to the term Spirit, we should always understand it as here explained; but there are many places whether it must be taken in this sense, although the term Holy is omitted. See HOLY SPIRIT.
2. BREATH, respiration; or the principle of animal life, common to men and animal: this God has given, and this he recalls when he takes away life, Ec 3:21. See SOUL.
3. The RATIONAL SOUL which animates us, and preserves its being after the death of the body. That spiritual, reasoning, and choosing substance, which is capable of eternal happiness. See SOUL.
The "spirits in prison," 1Pe 3:19, it is generally thought, are the souls of antediluvian sinners now reserved unto the judgment-day, but unto whom the Spirit preached by the agency of Noah, etc., 2Pe 2:5, when they were in the flesh. Thus Christ "preached" to the Ephesians, whom he never visited in person, Eph 2:17.
4. An ANGEL, good or bad; a soul separate from the body, Mr 14:26. It is said, Ac 23:8, that the Sadducees denied the existence of angels and spirits. Christ, appearing to his disciples, said to them, Lu 24:39, "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."
5. The DISPOSITION of the mind or intellect. Thus we read of a spirit of jealously, a spirit of fornication, a spirit of prayer, a spirit of infirmity, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of fear of the Lord, Ho 4:12; Zec 12:10; Lu 13:11; Isa 11:2.
6. The RENEWED NATURE of true believers, which is produced by the Holy Spirit, and conforms the soul to his likeness. Spirit is thus the opposite of flesh, Joh 3:6. This spirit is virally united with, an in some passages can hardly be distinguished from the "Spirit of Christ," which animates true Christians, the children of God, and distinguishes them from the children of darkness, who are animated by the spirit of the world, Ro 8:1-16. This indwelling Spirit is the gift of grace, of adoption-the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts-which emboldens us to call God "Abba, my Father." Those who are influenced by this Spirit "have crucified the flesh, with its affections and lusts," Ga 5:16-25.
Distinguishing or discerning of spirits consisted in discerning whether a man were really inspired by the Spirit of God, or was a false prophet, an impostor, who only followed the impulse of his own spirit or of Satan. Paul speaks, 1Co 12:10 of the discerning of spirits as being among the miraculous gifts granted by God to the faithful at the first settlement of Christianity.
To "quench the Spirit," 1Th 5:19, is a metaphorical expression easily understood. The Spirit may be quenched by forcing, as it were, that divine Agent to withdraw from us, by irregularity of life, frivolity, avarice, negligence, or other sins contrary to charity, truth, peace, and his other gifts and qualifications.
We "grieve" the Spirit of God by withstanding his holy inspirations, the impulses of his grace; or by living in a lukewarm and incautious manner; by despising his gifts, or neglecting them; by abusing his favors, either out of vanity, curiosity, or indifference. In a contrary sense, 2Ti 1:6, we "stir up" the Spirit of God which is in us, by the practice of virtue, by compliance with his inspirations, by fervor in his service, by renewing our gratitude, and by diligently serving Christ and doing the works of the Spirit.
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And, behold, there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; and she was bowed together, and was not able to raise herself up at all.
See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me have.
That which is begotten of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is begotten of the Spirit, is spirit.
For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection; neither angel nor spirit: but the Pharisees acknowledge both. And there arose a great clamor. And the scribes, on the part of the Pharisees, arose and contended, saying:
There is now, therefore, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin, and of death. read more. For what the law could not do, because it was weak through the flesh, God has done, who, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for a sin-offering, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh, mind the things of the flesh; but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. Those, then, who are in the flesh, can not please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if any one has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead, on account of sin, but the Spirit is life, on ac count of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised the Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh; for if you live according to the flesh, you shall die: but if, through the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not again received the spirit of bondage, that you may fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself testifies with our spirit, that we are the children of God;
to another, the working of mighty deeds; to another, prophecy; to another, the discerning of spirits; to another, different kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of tongues.
I say this: Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. For the desire of the flesh is against the Spirit, and the desire of the Spirit is against flesh; and these are opposed, the one to the other, so that you can not do what you would. read more. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. Now the works of the flesh are well known, and they are these lewdness, uncleanness, wantonness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strifes, jealousies, anger, party-spirit, divisions, sects, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; with respect to which, I tell you now, as I also told you in times past, that those who practice such things shall riot inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
and having come, he preached peace to you who were far off, and to those who were near:
Quench not the Spirit.
Wherefore I exhort you to kindle up the gift of God that is in you by the laying on of my hands.
in which- also he went and preached to the spirits in prison,
and if he spared not the old world, but brought a flood on the world of the ungodly, and saved Noah, the eighth person, who was a preacher of righteousness;
Easton
(Heb ruah; Gr. pneuma), properly wind or breath. In 2Th 2:8 it means "breath," and in Ec 8:8 the vital principle in man. It also denotes the rational, immortal soul by which man is distinguished (Ac 7:59; 1Co 5:5; 6:20; 7:34), and the soul in its separate state (Heb 12:23), and hence also an apparition (Job 4:15; Lu 24:37,39), an angel (Heb 1:14), and a demon (Lu 4:36; 10:20). This word is used also metaphorically as denoting a tendency (Zec 12:10; Lu 13:11).
In Ro 1:4; 1Ti 3:16; 2Co 3:17; 1Pe 3:18, it designates the divine nature.
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And amazement came upon all, and they spoke one to another, saying: "What teaching is this? for with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.
However, rejoice not in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
And, behold, there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; and she was bowed together, and was not able to raise herself up at all.
See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me have.
And they stoned Stephen while he was calling on the Lord, and saying: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
but declared to be the Son of God with power, according to his holy spiritual nature, by his resurrection from the dead,
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
and then shall that lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy by the spirit of his mouth, and will utterly over throw by the brightness of his coming:
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who shall inherit salvation?
to the general assembly and church of the first-born, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect,
Fausets
Hebrew ruach, Greek pneuma. Man in his normal integrity ("whole," holokleeron, complete in all its parts, 1Th 5:23) consists of "spirit, soul, and body." The spirit links man with higher intelligences, and is that highest part receptive of the quickening Holy Spirit (1Co 15:47). The soul (Hebrew nephesh, Greek psuchee) is intermediate between body and spirit; it is the sphere of the will and affections.
In the unspiritual, the spirit is so sunk under the animal soul (which it ought to keep under) that such are "animal" ("seasonal," having merely the body of organized matter and the soul, the immaterial animating essence), "having not the spirit" (Jg 1:19; Jas 3:15; 1Co 2:14; 15:44-48; Joh 3:6). The unbeliever shall rise with an animal (soul-animated) body, but not, like the believer, with a spiritual (spirit-endued) body like Christ's (Ro 8:11).
The soul is the seat of the appetites, the desires, the will; hunger, thirst, sorrow, joy; love, hope, fear, etc.; so that nephesh is the man himself, and is used for person, self, creature, any: a virtual contradiction of materialism, implying that the unseen soul rather than the seen body is the man. "Man was made" not a living body but "a living soul." "The blood, the life," links together body and soul (Le 17:11).
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That which is begotten of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is begotten of the Spirit, is spirit.
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised the Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwells in you.
The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man, the Lord from heaven.
having blotted out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us, which was opposed to us, he also took it out of the way, driving a nail through it by means of his cross;
Now the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This wisdom comes not from above, but is earthly, animal, demoniac.
Hastings
The term is applied to God as defining His nature generally (Joh 4:24), and also as describing one element in that nature, His self-consciousness (1Co 2:11). It expresses not only God's immateriality, but also His transcendence of limitations of time and space. In the phrases 'Spirit of God,' the 'Spirit of the Lord,' the 'Spirit of Jesus Christ,' the 'Holy Spirit,' the 'Spirit of Truth,' the third Person in the Godhead is described (see Holy Spirit). The term is applied to personal powers of evil other than man (Mt 10:1; 12:45; Lu 4:33; 7:21; 1Ti 4:1; cf. Eph 6:12), as well as personal powers of good (Heb 1:14), and to human beings after death, either damned (1Pe 3:19) or blessed (Heb 12:23). It is used also as personifying an influence (1Jo 4:6; Eph 2:2; Ro 8:15). Its most distinctive use is in the psychology of the Christian life. The contrast between 'soul' and 'spirit,' and between 'flesh' and 'spirit,' has already been noted in the articles on these terms. While soul and spirit are not to be regarded as separate faculties, yet 'spirit' expresses the direct dependence of the life in man on God, first in creation (Ge 2:7), but especially, according to the Pauline doctrine, in regeneration. The life in man, isolating itself from, and opposing itself to, God, is soul; that life, cleansed and renewed by the Spirit of God, is spirit; intimate as is the relation of God and man in the new life, the Spirit of God is distinguished from the spirit of man (Ro 8:16), although it is not always possible to make the distinction. In Acts the phrase 'holy spirit' sometimes means the subjective human state produced ('holy enthusiasm'), and sometimes the objective Divine cause producing (see 'Acts' in the Century Bible, p. 386). As the Spirit is the source of this new life, whatever belongs to it is 'spiritual' (pneumatikon), as house, sacrifices (1Pe 2:5), understanding (Col 1:9), songs (Col 3:16), food, drink, rock (1Co 10:3-4); and the 'spiritual' and 'soulish' (rendered 'carnal' or 'natural') are contrasted (1Co 2:14; 15:44,46). Spirit as an ecstatic state is also distinguished from mind (1Co 14:14,16), as inwardness from letter (Ro 2:29; 7:6; 2Co 3:6). The old creation
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And he called to him his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits, so that they might cast them out, and care every disease and every infirmity.
Then he goes and takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it be with this wicked generation.
And there was in the synagogue a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a loud voice,
And in that very hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and bestowed sight on many that were blind.
God is spirit; and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.
but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.
but now we are made free from the law, being dead to that by which we were bound, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
There is now, therefore, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin, and of death. read more. For what the law could not do, because it was weak through the flesh, God has done, who, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for a sin-offering, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh, mind the things of the flesh; but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. Those, then, who are in the flesh, can not please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if any one has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead, on account of sin, but the Spirit is life, on ac count of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised the Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh; for if you live according to the flesh, you shall die: but if, through the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not again received the spirit of bondage, that you may fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father.
For you have not again received the spirit of bondage, that you may fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself testifies with our spirit, that we are the children of God;
The Spirit itself testifies with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and, if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.
For what man knows the things of man, but the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God no one knows, but the Spirit of God.
But an animal man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he can not know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
and did all eat the same spiritual food, and. did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was the Christ.
For if I pray in an unknown tongue, the spirit which I have prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.
Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit that is given to you, how will he that occupies the place of the unlearned man say Amen, when you give thanks, since he understands not what you say?
it is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is an animal body, and there is a spiritual body.
But that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is animal; and afterward that which is spiritual.
in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is actively at work in the sons of disobedience:
for our conflict is not with flesh and blood, but with the principalities, with the authorities, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with the wicked spirits in the heavenly regions.
For this reason, we also, from the day in which we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to request that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
in whom you have been also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, when you were buried with him in immersion, in which you were also raised with him by your faith in the energy of God, who raised him from the dead.
on account of these things the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience,
Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, by teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with gratitude in your hearts to the Lord.
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who shall inherit salvation?
to the general assembly and church of the first-born, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect,
you, also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, that you may offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
in which- also he went and preached to the spirits in prison,
We are of God: he that knows God, hears us: he that is not of God, does not hear us: by this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
Morish
See SOUL.
Watsons
SPIRIT, in Hebrew, ??? in Greek, ??????, and in Latin, spiritus, is in the Scriptures sometimes taken for the Holy Ghost, the third person of the Holy Trinity. The word signifies also the reasonable soul which animates us, and continues in existence even after the death of the body; that spiritual, thinking and reasoning substance, which is capable of eternal happiness, Nu 16:22; Ac 7:59. The term spirit is also often used for an angel, a demon, and a ghost, or soul separate from the body. It is said, in Ac 23:8, that the Sadducees denied the existence of angels and spirits. Jesus Christ appearing to his disciples, said to them, Lu 24:39, "Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." And St. Paul calls the good angels "ministering spirits," Heb 1:14. In 1Sa 16:14; 18:10; 19:9, it is said that an evil spirit from the Lord troubled Saul: and we have also the expression unclean spirits. Add to this, spirit is sometimes put for the disposition of the heart or mind: see Nu 5:14; Zec 12:10; Lu 13:11; Isa 11:2. Discerning of spirits, or the secret character and thoughts of men, was a gift of God, and placed among the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, 1Co 12:10; 1Jo 4:1.
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And, behold, there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; and she was bowed together, and was not able to raise herself up at all.
See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me have.
And they stoned Stephen while he was calling on the Lord, and saying: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection; neither angel nor spirit: but the Pharisees acknowledge both. And there arose a great clamor. And the scribes, on the part of the Pharisees, arose and contended, saying:
to another, the working of mighty deeds; to another, prophecy; to another, the discerning of spirits; to another, different kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of tongues.
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who shall inherit salvation?