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 eighteen years, and was bowed together and utterly unable to lift up herself.
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit.
For the Saducees say, there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both.
Therefore there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and death. read more. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God hath done: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be a sacrifice for sin, he hath condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. They that are after the flesh, mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Now to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if the Spirit of God dwell in you. And if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Now if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, will also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God. For ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The same Spirit beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God.
to another the gift of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another the discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.
I say then, walk by the Spirit, and fulfil not the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desireth against the Spirit, but the Spirit desireth against the flesh (these are contrary to each other) that ye may not do the things which ye would. read more. But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, strifes, divisions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of which I tell you before (as I have also told you in time past) that they who practise such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, Meekness, temperance; against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh with its affections and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
And he came and preached peace to you that were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
Quench not the Spirit.
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance, to stir up the gift of God which is in thee, by the laying on of my hands.
but raised to life by the spirit, By which likewise he went and preached to the spirits in prison,
to be reserved to judgment, And spared not the old world, (but he saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness) bringing a flood on the world of the ungodly;
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 they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What word is this, that with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out!
and nothing shall in any wise hurt you.
And behold, there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together and utterly unable to lift up herself.
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have.
And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
who was of the seed of David, according to the flesh, But declared the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead,
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks unto God and the Father through him.
And then will that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the Spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming:
Are they not all ministring spirits, sent forth to serve for them who shall inherit salvation?
and to an innumerable company, To the general assembly of angels, and to the church of the first born, who are inrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men 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 born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit.
And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, will also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
The first man was from the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.
having forgiven you all trespasses, Having blotted out by his decrees the hand-writing against us, which was contrary to us; and having nailed it to his cross, he took it out of the way.
And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly: and may the whole of you, the spirit and the soul and the body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, animal, devilish.
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 having called to him his twelve disciples, he gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal every disease and every malady.
Then goeth he and taketh with him 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 also to this wicked generation.
And there was in the synagogue, a man who had a spirit of an unclean devil; and he cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone:
And in that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues, and of evil spirits, and to many that were blind he gave sight.
God is a 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 from men, but from God.
But now we are freed from the law, that whereby we were held being dead, so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
Therefore there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and death. read more. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God hath done: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be a sacrifice for sin, he hath condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. They that are after the flesh, mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Now to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if the Spirit of God dwell in you. And if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Now if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, will also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God. For ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
For ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The same Spirit beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God.
The same Spirit beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ: if we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.
For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man which is in him? So the things of God also knoweth no one, but the Spirit of God.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit; for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
in the cloud and in the sea, And all ate the same spiritual meat, And all drank the same spiritual drink (for they drank out of the spiritual rock which followed them; and that rock was Christ) Yet, with the most of them, God was not well-pleased;
For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my Spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.
Otherwise if thou givest thanks with the Spirit, how shall he that filleth the place of a private person, say Amen to thy thanksgiving, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?
It is sown an animal body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is an animal body, and there is a spiritual body.
Yet the spiritual body was not first, but the animal; afterward the spiritual.
who were dead in trespasses and sins, Wherein ye formerly walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in time past,
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the world, of the darkness of this age, against wicked spirits in heavenly places.
For this cause from the day we heard it, we do not cease to pray also for you, and to desire that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
By whom also ye are circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, by which ye are also risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God, who raised him from the dead.
For which things the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart unto the Lord.
Are they not all ministring spirits, sent forth to serve for them who shall inherit salvation?
and to an innumerable company, To the general assembly of angels, and to the church of the first born, who are inrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
but chosen of God and precious, Ye also as living stones are built up, a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God thro' Jesus Christ.
but raised to life by the spirit, By which likewise he went and preached to the spirits in prison,
We are of God; he that knoweth God, heareth us: he that is not of God, heareth not us: hereby know we 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 eighteen years, and was bowed together and utterly unable to lift up herself.
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have.
And they stoned Stephen, invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
For the Saducees say, there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both.
to another the gift of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another the discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.
Are they not all ministring spirits, sent forth to serve for them who shall inherit salvation?