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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After singing a hymn they went out of the city and up the Mount of Olives.
and there was a woman there who for eighteen years had had a disease caused by a spirit. She was bent double and could not straighten herself up at all.
Look at my hands and my feet, for it is I, myself. Feel of me and see for yourselves, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
Whatever is born of the physical is physical, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spiritual.
For the Sadducees hold that there is no resurrection, and no such thing as an angel or spirit, but the Pharisees believe in all of them.
So then there is no condemnation at all for those who are in union with Christ Jesus. For the life-giving power of the Spirit through union with Christ Jesus has set us free from the power of sin and death. read more. For though the law could not do it, because it was made helpless through our lower nature, yet God, by sending His own Son in a body similar to that of our lower nature, and as a sacrifice for sin, passed sentence upon sin through His body, so that the requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live by the standard set by our lower nature, but by the standard set by the Spirit. For people who live by the standard set by their lower nature are usually thinking the things suggested by that nature, and people who live by the standard set by the Spirit are usually thinking the things suggested by the Spirit. For to be thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means death, but to be thinking the things suggested by the Spirit means life and peace. Because one's thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God's law, nor indeed can it. The people who live on the plane of the lower nature cannot please God. But you are not living on the plane of the lower nature, but on the spiritual plane, if the Spirit of God has His home within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. But if Christ lives in you, although your bodies must die because of sin, your spirits are now enjoying life because of right standing with God. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead has His home within you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through His Spirit that has His home within you. So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to our lower nature to live by the standard set by it; for if you live by such a standard, you are going to die, but if by the Spirit you put a stop to the doings of your lower nature, you will live. For all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons. For you do not have a sense of servitude to fill you with dread again, but the consciousness of adopted sons by which we cry, "Abba," that is, "Father." The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are God's children;
to another, power for working wonders; to another, prophetic insight; to another, the power to discriminate between the true Spirit and false spirits; to another, various ecstatic utterances; and to another, the power to explain them.
I mean this: Practice living by the Spirit and then by no means will you gratify the cravings of your lower nature. For the cravings of the lower nature are just the opposite to those of the Spirit, and the cravings of the Spirit are just the opposite of those of the lower nature; these two are opposed to each other, so that you cannot do anything you please. read more. But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the practices of the lower nature are clear enough: Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, quarreling, jealousy, anger, intrigues, dissensions, party-spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I now warn you, as I have done before, that those who practice such things shall not be heirs of the kingdom of God. But the product of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Jesus the Christ have crucified the lower nature with its passions and evil cravings. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk where the Spirit leads.
When He came, He brought the good news of peace for you who were far away and for you who were near;
Stop stifling the Spirit.
For this reason I now remind you to rekindle and keep burning the fire of the divine gift which came upon you when I laid my hands upon you.
in which He went and preached to the spirits in prison,
and if He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others when He brought the flood upon the world of godless people;
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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Amazement then seized them all and they continued to talk it over among themselves, and to say, "What does this message mean? For with authority and power He gives orders to foul spirits, and they come out."
However, you must stop rejoicing over the fact that the spirits are submitting to you, but continue to rejoice that your names are enrolled in heaven."
and there was a woman there who for eighteen years had had a disease caused by a spirit. She was bent double and could not straighten herself up at all.
and they were so startled and terror-stricken that they were beginning to think that they saw a ghost.
Look at my hands and my feet, for it is I, myself. Feel of me and see for yourselves, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
They continued stoning Stephen as he continued praying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"
proved to be God's Son in power by the resurrection from the dead -- I mean, Jesus Christ, our Lord,
And whatever you say or do, let it all be done with reference to the Lord Jesus, and through Him continue to give thanks to God the Father.
Then the representative of lawlessness will be uncovered, and the Lord Jesus will destroy him with the breath of His mouth and put a stop to his operations by His appearance and coming;
Are not the angels all attending spirits sent forth to serve for the sake of those who are going to be unceasing possessors of salvation?
to the festal gathering and assembly of God's firstborn sons enrolled as citizens in heaven, to a Judge who is the God of all, to the spirits of upright men who have attained perfection,
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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Whatever is born of the physical is physical, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spiritual.
If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead has His home within you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through His Spirit that has His home within you.
The first man was made of the dust of the earth; the second Man is from heaven.
canceled the note that stood against us, with its requirements, and has put it out of our way by nailing it to the cross.
May God Himself, who gave you peace, consecrate your whole being. May you be safely kept, spirit, soul, and body, so as to be blameless when our Lord Jesus Christ comes back.
This is not the kind of wisdom that comes down from above; no, it is earthly, human, demoniacal.
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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Then He called His twelve disciples to Him, and gave them authority over foul spirits, so that they could drive them out, and so that they could cure any disease or ailment.
"Then it goes and gets seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and make their home there, and so the end of that man is worse than the beginning. This is the way it will be with the wicked leaders of this age."
Now there was a man in the synagogue who was under the power of the spirit of a foul demon, and he screamed with a loud voice,
At that very hour He cured many people of diseases and scourges and evil spirits, and graciously granted sight to many blind persons.
God is a spiritual Being, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and reality."
The real Jew is the man who is a Jew on the inside, and real circumcision is heart-circumcision, a spiritual, not a literal, affair. This man's praise originates, not with men, but with God.
But now we have been freed from our relation to the law; we have ended our relation to that by which we once were held in bonds, so that we may serve in a new spiritual way and not in the old literalistic way.
So then there is no condemnation at all for those who are in union with Christ Jesus. For the life-giving power of the Spirit through union with Christ Jesus has set us free from the power of sin and death. read more. For though the law could not do it, because it was made helpless through our lower nature, yet God, by sending His own Son in a body similar to that of our lower nature, and as a sacrifice for sin, passed sentence upon sin through His body, so that the requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live by the standard set by our lower nature, but by the standard set by the Spirit. For people who live by the standard set by their lower nature are usually thinking the things suggested by that nature, and people who live by the standard set by the Spirit are usually thinking the things suggested by the Spirit. For to be thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means death, but to be thinking the things suggested by the Spirit means life and peace. Because one's thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God's law, nor indeed can it. The people who live on the plane of the lower nature cannot please God. But you are not living on the plane of the lower nature, but on the spiritual plane, if the Spirit of God has His home within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. But if Christ lives in you, although your bodies must die because of sin, your spirits are now enjoying life because of right standing with God. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead has His home within you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through His Spirit that has His home within you. So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to our lower nature to live by the standard set by it; for if you live by such a standard, you are going to die, but if by the Spirit you put a stop to the doings of your lower nature, you will live. For all who are guided by God's Spirit are God's sons. For you do not have a sense of servitude to fill you with dread again, but the consciousness of adopted sons by which we cry, "Abba," that is, "Father."
For you do not have a sense of servitude to fill you with dread again, but the consciousness of adopted sons by which we cry, "Abba," that is, "Father." The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are God's children;
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are God's children; and if children, then also heirs, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ if in reality we share His sufferings, so that we may share His glory too.
For what man can understand his own inner thoughts except by his own spirit within him? Just so no one but the Spirit of God can understand the thoughts of God.
An unspiritual man does not accept the things that the Spirit of God teaches, for they are nonsense to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are appreciated by spiritual insight.
and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink -- for they continued to drink the water from the spiritual Rock which accompanied them, and that Rock was the Christ --
For if I pray in ecstasy, my spirit is praying, but my mind produces no results for anyone.
how is the man who occupies the place of the illiterate to say "Amen" to your thanksgiving? For he does not know what you are saying.
it is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is a spiritual body too.
But it is not the spiritual that comes first; it is the physical, and then the spiritual.
in which you once lived in accordance with the spirit of this present world, and the mighty prince of the air, who is always at work in the disobedient, among whom all of us, we Jews as well as you heathen,
For our contest is not with human foes alone, but with the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark world; that is, with the spirit-forces of evil challenging us in the heavenly contest.
This is why, ever since I heard of it, I have never ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you, through full wisdom and spiritual insight, with a clear knowledge of His will,
And through your union with Him you once received, not a hand-performed circumcision but one performed by Christ, in stripping you of your lower nature, for you were buried with Him in baptism and raised to life with Him through your faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead.
It is on account of these very sins that God's anger is coming.
Let the message of Christ continue to live in you in all its wealth of wisdom; keep on teaching it to one another and training one another in it with thankfulness, in your hearts singing praise to God with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Are not the angels all attending spirits sent forth to serve for the sake of those who are going to be unceasing possessors of salvation?
to the festal gathering and assembly of God's firstborn sons enrolled as citizens in heaven, to a Judge who is the God of all, to the spirits of upright men who have attained perfection,
and keep on building yourselves up, as living stones, into a spiritual house for a consecrated priesthood, to offer up, through Jesus Christ, spiritual sacrifices that will be acceptable to God.
in which He went and preached to the spirits in prison,
We are children of God. Whoever knows God by experience listens to us; whoever is not a child of God does not listen to us. This is the way to distinguish a true spiritual utterance from one that is false.
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 there was a woman there who for eighteen years had had a disease caused by a spirit. She was bent double and could not straighten herself up at all.
Look at my hands and my feet, for it is I, myself. Feel of me and see for yourselves, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
They continued stoning Stephen as he continued praying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"
For the Sadducees hold that there is no resurrection, and no such thing as an angel or spirit, but the Pharisees believe in all of them.
to another, power for working wonders; to another, prophetic insight; to another, the power to discriminate between the true Spirit and false spirits; to another, various ecstatic utterances; and to another, the power to explain them.
Are not the angels all attending spirits sent forth to serve for the sake of those who are going to be unceasing possessors of salvation?