Part
6 of 14
The
Essential Spirit - The Created Man
As stated earlier,
God’s spirit is in every created man by breathing God’s breath of life
into Adam’s body of clay. Some refer to God as the Father of all mankind
but this is not accurate. Actually, God is only “a
father of sorts” to the original created unregenerate man. Adam and
Eve were created by God; they
were not
born of God’s Seed, Jesus Christ. Only a birth
father is
a genuine father. A father is one whose seed
births the child to life. That which God “sort of fathered” when He
created humanity was the “spirit of
man” in the created man. This
occurred when God breathed His own “breath
of life” (neshamah, spirit
life) into Adam, such that Adam became a living soul. Adam’s body and
soul became lively and animated by God’s one breath (Spirit), but this is not
what it is to be born of God’s One
“Seed,” which is the
resurrected
“spirit of life in Christ.”
God’s
breath breathed into man is called “the
spirit of man.” Apart from God’s breath (spirit-life) in man
there is no life at all in the created man. Adam’s physical creation,
beyond his spirit, was as his outer clothing. Man’s body and soul derive
their life from man’s spirit
that was given by God’s spirit-breath. The core of men is their human
spirit, because the spirit is man’s
human life source – the core of man’s whole created living being.
Paul contrasts our
human physical fathers, “fathers
of the flesh” as he calls them, with God as the “father of sorts”
of every human spirit. Paul writes in Hebrews
12:9 Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits
...?” The spirit of man is God’s Spirit. It was spirit-life that
God breathed into Adam’s clay-formed body as noted in Gen 2:7. Genesis
2:7 And
the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
The “life” that is of the “breath
of life” is the God’s Spirit-life.
The New Testament
Greek word, Zoë,
is “God’s
spirit-life.”
The very same word is used of
the “spirit
of man” (e.g., 1Cor 2:11) and
the “spirit
of God” (e.g., 1Cor 3:16), as well as the “spirit
of life in Christ Jesus.” This one Zoe,
or spirit-life, only comes from
God Himself. These are each of God’s one spirit.
The
word for “life” in “breath
of life” in Gen 2:7 is a masculine and therefore
“plural” word in
the Hebrew “chay.” Thus, this
phrase could be more properly transliterated the “breath
of lives.” The one “breath
of life” that God breathed into man kindled three kinds of life in
man. The source of life in man’s soul and body is his spirit that Adam
received from God’s breath. 2
Corinthians 3:6b (KJV) …the
spirit giveth life. In the
Greek the word for “physical
life” is “bios,” and
for the “soul life” is “psuche.”
The Greek word for “spirit-life”
is “Zoë.”
The
Father and the Son are One Spirit (Eph 4:4). Jesus prayed that each believer
would be one with them. John
17:21 That they
all may be one; as thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that
they also may be one in us: that the world
may believe that thou hast sent me. This oneness is only possible in and
by a spirit-union between ours and Christ’s “Spirit
of life.” The believer who believes to receive
“the spirit of life in Christ Jesus” is one with both, the Father
and the Son, by the addition of the all-inclusive “Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus” into his human spirit.
Romans
8:9
But ye are not in the flesh, but in
the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Man then has gained
Christ’s resurrected “spirit of life,” which then makes man eternally
justified, righteous, and one with God the Father.
