The human spirit is probably the least understood component of the inner human, even though the Bible reveals many fascinating things about it. We will now discuss what it is, what it does, and why we need one. The short version is that humans cannot interact with God without it, since it makes us spiritually alive. And without it humans are spiritually dead.
The previous chapters have mostly discussed the soul, but believers have two parts to their immaterial being, both a soul and human spirit, which are separate but connected. The human spirit and soul are differentiated as two separate parts of the inner human in both the Old Testament and New Testament since there are different words for each in both original languages of the Bible (Old Testament Hebrew: nephesh and ruach, New Testament Greek: psuche and pneuma, for soul and spirit respectively). As a result of the original sin of Adam his descendants are born without a human spirit, however Jesus Christ was the exception.
A human spirit is gained at salvation, so unbelievers have only a soul without a human spirit, since the human spirit is the product of spiritual regeneration at the point of salvation. That is what regeneration means, because the human spirit was lost through the original sin by Adam and Eve, and is only regenerated or restored at salvation in their descendants. John 3:3 says: "Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." Being "born again" is the rebirth or regeneration of the human spirit at the moment of salvation. This is why salvation must be a gift from God, not something to be earned over time, since no unbeliever can please God in any way or earn anything because they lack a human spirit and therefore are not spiritual beings. And the human spirit is given all at once, not gradually over time. Only God can make humans into spiritual beings at the point of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, not as a result of anything the person does to try to earn it, since salvation cannot be earned or deserved. At the moment of belief in Christ the human spirit becomes regenerated, and that is the event which makes us a spiritual being and locks in our eternal salvation. Forever. Once it is regenerated, the human spirit can never again be lost by sin.
The Bible makes it clear there is a difference between the soul and human spirit. Hebrews 4:12 says: "For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says: "May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 8:16 says: "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children." 1 Corinthians 2:14 says: "The person without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God." And Isaiah 26:9 tells us "My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you." The soul and spirit are therefore separate and distinct immaterial entities with different functions and purposes. The human spirit is not the same as the Holy Spirit indwelling and mentoring the believer, but rather it is a second portion of the immaterial life of the believer, and although it is interconnected with the soul it is entirely separate.
Therefore we understand that the soul is primarily the humanity part of the believer which enables interaction with God's creation while the human spirit is the spiritual part of the believer which enables interaction with God. "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24) Spiritual truth from the Word of God is stored in the human spirit, not in the soul, and it is the Holy Spirit working within the human spirit which turns that information into a spiritual format. Growing in God's Word is not like other types of learning which results in knowledge of the universe. The truth from the Bible is actually and literally "alive and powerful" as Hebrews 4:12 says. Unlike learning math or physics or a hobby, the Word has spiritual power in and of itself, which can only be harnessed if it resides in the human spirit where the Holy Spirit indwells. 1 Corinthians 8:1 says "We know that we all possess knowledge. But knowledge puffs up while love builds up." Therefore it is learning the Word and growing by it which gives us power from God to live a life focused on God's plan for us. Growing spiritually allows us to have greater and greater fellowship with God. Only spirit can interact with Spirit, so it is our human spirit which interacts with God. However, the human spirit must use the soul to reach God, so these two parts of the inner human are required to act in unison. We must pray and worship and apply spiritual truths out from our human spirit, which in turn uses the Heart of the soul to reach God. And the Holy Spirit indwells our human spirit, not our soul, so when a believer is living the spiritual life that person is living out of their human spirit, the location of both the Holy Spirit and spiritual truth from the Word. The human spirit filled with truth must therefore direct the soul, so that we do not live from the soul alone.
The human spirit is therefore necessary to understand spiritual information and to have interaction with God. The focal point for interaction between God and humans is the human spirit, since only spirit can interact with Spirit. God cannot interact with humans who lack a human spirit, including prayer, worship, thanksgiving, good works or any other spiritual matter since they have no spirit interface. So the most an unbeliever can have are soul thoughts about God in a general sense, but they are not spiritual thoughts, since that requires a human spirit. And they cannot understand God in any meaningful way or understand His spiritual truth, because as 1 Corinthians 2:14 says "The person without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the spirit." Unbelievers have no human spirit, and are not spiritual beings, only soulish ones. As such they can have no interaction with God. If unbelievers never believe in Christ as their Savior, they never gain a human spirit (except for those who die as children and those with very low mental function, who are given a human spirit at the point of death due to lack of opportunity for salvation -- God is fair). That is why unbelievers cannot ever have interaction with God, either while alive on earth or during eternity. They can only interact with what God has created in the Universe by using their soul. If they want to become a spiritual being, they must first accept the salvation offered by God through belief in Jesus Christ, at which point God gives that person a human spirit. Note that it is a belief which saves us, which is the subject of this book. Beliefs are powerful things.
So how do the soul and human spirit interact? How and where do they connect? Once again the Bible provides the answers. We have seen that Hebrews 4:12 says: "For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow." The "joints and marrow" reference is instructive regarding how the two are separate but work together, and also how they are designed. I have not seen anyone adequately explain what this means, so we must proceed as the verse says, to look at the joints and marrow, and how they are designed and interact.
It is quite fascinating to look at this analogy and how it relates to the inner human design of the soul and human spirit. Note the word order in the verse above is "soul and spirit, joints and marrow" setting up the analogy with the soul analogous to the joints, and the human spirit analogous to the marrow. The specific sections of the body in view are the hip and shoulder joints, which are the major joints of the body which affect mobility. The structure of both the shoulder and hip joints show that the bones involved, which are the femur (upper leg) and humerus (upper arm) bones, have marrow housed inside them near the joint. Therefore the structure of the shoulder and hip joints and associated bones provide a picture of the human spirit inside the soul, but not part of it, since they are distinct and can be divided. Joint is not marrow, and marrow is not joint. One is bone and the other is a spongy blood-making tissue.
While children have active "red" bone marrow throughout the long bones of their legs and arms, adult humans have much less active red marrow inside those particular bones, concentrated at the hip and shoulder joints near the ends of the upper leg and upper arm bones. While there is also marrow inside the pelvis, sternum, and a few other locations, these are not "joints" as in this analogy. And it is the red marrow which makes the blood cells which flow throughout our bodies, giving it sustenance, delivering oxygen, and providing immune protection. The long bones such as the upper leg (femur) and upper arm (humerus) have ball-and-socket joint connections, with marrow inside the bone near the ball joint, so these are the ones in view in this Bible verse. The "dividing joints and marrow" is an analogy to how the soul and human spirit are related by design, since the verse discusses how they are separate and distinct, yet closely related.
This would indicate that the human spirit is fully contained inside the soul just like the marrow is located fully inside the joint bones. Recall that humans are born with only a soul, but not a human spirit, so there is an "empty space" where the human spirit is later inserted if the person becomes a believer and is regenerated, meaning the human spirit is put in place into a specific space designed for it inside the soul. Believers have that "empty space" filled by a regenerated human spirit which is provided at the point of salvation, which is the "new birth" or being "born again" relating to the rebirth of the human spirit, which makes the person spiritually alive and therefore capable of interacting with God. Without this analogy from the Bible we would have assumed the soul and human spirit were completely separated, and only connected at a single interface, somewhat like a dumbbell connected by a bar or two balloons tied together. Instead, the Bible shows the human spirit fully inside the soul, but still separate and distinct in a separate chamber designed to hold it.
Adam and Eve were created with both a soul and human spirit. And their souls were created as male and female as well as their bodies. Genesis 1:27 says: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." And this was before the woman Eve had been formed out from the DNA of Adam, so it is discussing the creation of the soul and human spirit. This passage in Genesis therefore refers to the inner human as the image of God, not the body, when male and female are mentioned as being created. When these two eventually sinned by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the one forbidden tree, their human spirits are what died, but not their souls or bodies. At that point they had a soul but no human spirit, so they were "spiritually dead." As God had warned them if they ate from it "you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17), and God meant their human spirit would die, causing spiritual death, resulting in no ability to interact spiritually with God. This is what defines spiritual death, that the human spirit is dead and the person only has a soul. They remained physically alive after sinning, so it did not mean physical death. Both eventually regained their human spirits when they accepted the salvation offered to them by God through the "seed of the woman" which was the original reference to the Messiah in the Bible, who would eventually be Jesus Christ. (Genesis 3:15) Old Testament salvation was by believing the promise from God that a Messiah would be sent in the future, and after the cross salvation is by believing the Messiah Jesus Christ has been sent. Again, this shows the importance God places on beliefs.
As the first humans showed, a person can live without a human spirit since they did not immediately die physically after sinning, but a person cannot have a relationship with God without a human spirit. After they sinned the two spiritually dead humans hid from God because they had lost the ability to interact spiritually with Him. Then God offered salvation which they both accepted, and at that point their human spirits were revived. But as a result of their original sin, the descendants of Adam and Eve are born without a human spirit, and salvation is required to obtain one by regeneration. Therefore all people are born with a soul but no human spirit. The only exception was Jesus Christ who was born perfect with both a soul and a human spirit (spiritually alive) therefore He did not need salvation, which made Him qualified to be the Savior. At the moment of faith in Jesus Christ (and during the Old Testament by faith in the promised Messiah) the human spirit is revived, and from that time on the person is spiritually alive with both a soul and a human spirit forever.
Angels also have soul and spirit components. This does not refer to the bodies of angels, who are often called "spirits," which is a physical issue. Elect angels have both soul and spirit, while Satan and fallen angels have only a soul without a spirit since they lost it when they sinned and revolted against God. The story of fallen angels and fallen humans is the same -- loss of the spiritual part of the being leading to spiritual death. This separates God's elect angels from Satan and his fallen angels, just as humans are separated by the same issue. Therefore fallen angels have no ability to have a spiritual relationship with God. Angels have the exact same soul (and spirit for elect angels) as humans, just in a different type of body. That is because mankind was created to resolve the conflict between God and Satan, and the only fair way to do it was by having the exact same immaterial components in both humans and angels, although in very different bodies.
Therefore a spiritual life is only possible through use of the human spirit, which has four main purposes:
1) First, it makes the person spiritually alive and therefore enables interaction with God, since only spirit can interact with Spirit. The soul cannot express spiritual thoughts apart from the human spirit. And the human spirit relies on the soul to deliver its outputs toward God.
2) Secondly, the human spirit enables the indwelling and mentoring of the Holy Spirit, so that He can help us understand, store, and utilize spiritual truth from the Word of God. As Romans 8:16 says: "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children" which shows how the Holy Spirit interacts with our human spirit, first to mentor believers who want to learn the Word of God, and then to help that person apply the spiritual information contained in their human spirit. This builds up our faith through an understanding of God, which builds trust and love.
3) Thirdly, the human spirit makes spiritual information from the Word of God understandable. No person can truly and deeply understand spiritual information apart from the human spirit but "considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them." For this purpose the human spirit has its own memory designed for spiritual information only. The human soul cannot store spiritual information since it is not designed to do so. Therefore spiritual information must be stored in the human spirit (where the Holy Spirit also resides in us, or indwells) whereby spiritual information becomes usable in the life of the believer.
4) Finally, the human spirit is the source of spiritual direction to the Heart and Mind of the soul. When the human spirit is filled with spiritual information from the Word of God, it can provide direction to the soul which causes the person to live the spiritual life God wants us to live. Not perfectly, just greatly enhanced because the human spirit gets its power from the Word and from the Holy Spirit.
As mentioned, the human spirit cannot directly interface with God or the outside world, but must go through the Heart and Mind of the soul. The spiritual information in the human spirit can be accessed by the Mind and used by the Heart, and that is the interface between soul and spirit, namely that the Heart and Mind of the soul access the spiritual information which resides in the human spirit and apply it to provide a life of spiritual impact. Which brings up the point that the human spirit has sub-components just as the soul does. The human spirit has a Mind as well, which processes the spiritual information received into the human spirit and stores it in the Memory of the human spirit. So the human spirit's Mind and Memory are necessary to process and store spiritual information inside the human spirit, which is aided by the Holy Spirit who indwells the human spirit. While the human spirit is focused on the spiritual, the human soul is the center of human life and interfaces with the material world. Therefore the believer can interface with God because the soul is supported by the human spirit. This is important to understand, that the human spirit must be present in order for God to recognize the right of a soul to interact spiritually with Him.
We have discussed how the soul is the location of the central processor for the person, called the "Heart" in the Bible, which pulls together inputs from the entire soul and then interfaces with the outside material world, and with God when backed by the human spirit. The soul of the believer is also the instrument of applying spiritual information contained in the human spirit toward both God and the material world, therefore spiritual information flows out from the human spirit through the soul's Heart. When the human spirit controls the outputs from the Heart to a maximum degree it is called "living out from the human spirit" which is the highest level of spirituality. At that point the believer's soul and spirit work in unison, and this working relationship becomes more powerful and effective as the believer grows spiritually, building up the storage of spiritual truths inside the spirit which then flows out through the soul. And that storage of spiritual information in the human spirit is not in a simple form, but rather the human spirit guided by the Holy Spirit manufactures a complex interconnected web out of the spiritual information it receives, combining simple concepts with more advanced principles, which builds up faith as a person matures spiritually. This is what the Bible means when it says the Word of God is "alive and powerful."
This further shows how spiritual thoughts originate in the human spirit and flow out of the soul through the Heart toward God and people, and spiritual learning flows back into the human spirit through the Heart and Mind. The Heart decides whether to allow information to enter the soul and human spirit, and can either accept or reject it, so the Heart acts as the gatekeeper of information for both the soul and human spirit. In all of this the Heart is not just passing everything through, but rather the Heart decides what gets through. If the Heart is distorted by accepting advice from the other soul components when they are in revolt against spiritual truth, the human spirit will not receive inputs of spiritual information and will become malnourished and will not function properly. It will also be prevented from getting spiritual information out through the Heart. The result is a dysfunctional spiritual life because the human spirit is shut down by the Heart. This is called "hardness of heart" in the Bible.
The human spirit of the believer is empty at salvation when it is regenerated, and also in the believer who has never grown spiritually. If the soul goes to the human spirit for spiritual information but finds little or nothing there since it is empty or nearly so, there can be little or no spiritual expression by the Heart. This is why studying the Word of God is so crucial, because it is the basis of spiritual growth and puts information into the human spirit which can be accessed and used by the soul, and also by the Holy Spirit. 1 Peter 2:2 says "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation." Salvation gives us eternal life, but then filling up the human spirit with Bible truth is required to give us spiritual power with which to think and form beliefs consistent with the Word of God. Only then can our spirit-soul processes function in alignment with God's plan for our lives. But if the believer is focused on living under the power of their soul, and is not using their human spirit, the spiritual processes inside the believer are severely restricted, and both the human spirit and Holy Spirit are effectively ignored by the soul.
Spiritual information must be stored and structurally assembled inside the human spirit with the mentoring of the Holy Spirit in order to have the power God designed His Word to have in us. The Holy Spirit turns information learned from studying the Bible into a spiritually powerful form which is then usable to empower the spiritual life. But this does not occur all at once, and requires a long term commitment to the study of the Word of God. For new believers who know very little spiritual information at first, there is not much that can be applied to the life. But as the believer grows spiritually -- assuming the believer actually wants to grow -- the human spirit becomes filled up with the knowledge of the Word of God, which itself is called "alive and powerful" in Hebrews 4:12. Initial spiritual growth results in a basic level of spirituality for that believer, beginning to fulfill God's plan, and a basic level of glorification of God through Jesus Christ. Feeding more and more spiritual information into the human spirit is the only means of increasing this faith to advanced levels, providing for a spiritual impact which works under testing and pressure. Not perfectly, and not all at once. It takes time and persistence in learning the Word, which is our spiritual food for spiritual energy. Therefore believers must grow up spiritually by building up spiritual information inside the human spirit. The process is slow and requires continual learning and applying of God's Word to the life, first small issues and tests, then becoming real faith as the believer reaches higher and higher levels of spiritual maturity. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians who had not grown spiritually after he had started them on the right course "I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready." (1 Corinthians 3:2) Spiritual information must be built up like a wall -- brick upon brick.
The mentoring ministry of the Holy Spirit, who resides in the human spirit of the believer, enables the learning, storage, and use of that spiritual information inside the human spirit, providing spiritual power in the life of the believer. The Holy Spirit helps us by ensuring we can understand the spiritual information we learn by putting it into a usable form inside the human spirit where it is stored, categorized, and turned into an interlocking web of spiritual truth which becomes increasingly usable in our lives. But if the believer ignores spiritual growth, the Holy Spirit is said to be "grieved," as the Bible says "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God." (Ephesians 4:30) The Holy Spirit does not impart power directly to the believer, but rather helps the believer learn spiritual truth and grow in grace and knowledge, which then provides power from the human spirit. This enables the believer to put to use the power of the Word from the human spirit through the soul, all with the help of the Holy Spirit. As the believer matures spiritually, the human spirit becomes the dominant influencer of the inner human, and that believer starts living life out from the human spirit rather than merely out of the soul as unbelievers live. It is therefore the spiritual information stored in the human spirit which enables the believer to live the spiritual life which pleases God and allows us to live according to God's Word, resulting in eternal rewards as well. Without maximum spiritual information in the human spirit the believer attempts to live the spiritual life out of the soul rather than the human spirit, which fails to please God. The soul is not spiritual without the backing of a human spirit, and the human spirit cannot function without the Word of God inside it.
Soul Memory can store facts about God and His plan, but that is not spiritual information since it is only in the soul, therefore it is purely informational. Only the human spirit stores spiritual information which is usable in a spiritual form. That is because the Holy Spirit works within the human spirit, where He indwells, to make the Word of God into spiritual understanding and wisdom. The more advanced the understanding of spiritual information, the greater the spiritual power. There is a difference between simply knowing something from the Bible in the soul and truly understanding and believing it in the human spirit, where it has spiritual power with the help of the Holy Spirit. A believer can recite a Bible verse such as 1 Peter 3:9 " Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing" but then not be able to truly apply that verse to their life because it only resides in the soul, and is not embedded as spiritual information inside the human spirit. But when Bible information is stored in the human spirit by continual learning from the Word of God and built into a matrix of advanced spiritual understanding, then slowly over time the believer will gain spiritual maturity and spiritual strength as the human spirit becomes filled up with wisdom. This is spiritual growth, the build-up of spiritual information into a spiritual form and format which becomes more and more an integral part of the life of that believer. Hebrews 6:19 says about the human spirit filled with the Word of God: "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain." The human spirit is the "inner sanctuary" comparing the layout of the Temple of Israel, whereby the human spirit is analogous to the Holy of Holies which housed the presence of God. So the soul of the believer is like the outer areas of the Temple where interaction with the outside world occurred, and the human spirit is like the Holy of Holies where personal interaction and communion with God occurred.
The unbeliever seeks to understand the world from a soulish viewpoint but comes up empty in many ways since the unbeliever is totally incapable of understanding God or spiritual truths from the Bible, which is where real truth is obtained. Life has no meaning since the true meaning of life is based on spiritual principles and having a relationship with God. Unbelievers generally live on worldly Cosmic System thinking under the influence of the Sinful Nature since they cannot understand or use spiritual information. The exception is that God has set up a system of divine laws for all mankind to live under, which includes family, marriage, work, law and order, and general freedom to live life, and the unbeliever can enjoy these gifts from God to all mankind if they accept what God has established, even though it is not spiritual truth to them. But many nations which are primarily filled with unbelievers reject God's system in favor of Satan's Cosmic System, overthrowing God's divine laws in favor of Satan's chaos. It is no coincidence that in such places people live hard lives at a basic level of subsistence.
Having no human spirit makes unbelievers especially vulnerable to the influences of the Sinful Nature. Unbelievers can often be moral and humble and have loving relationships and accomplish great things in their lives, and give lots of money to charity, but none of it impresses God in any way. They cannot interface with God -- who is Spirit -- since the component God originally gave humans to interface with Him is missing in them. They are spiritually dead to God. They require salvation and activation of a human spirit before God will have anything to do with them, or take notice of anything they do which is moral, nice, useful, helpful, and on and on. God has provided a way for them to escape from their spiritual death, but they have refused it. Therefore God cannot help them if they will not simply believe and accept the only Savior. Anyone who rejects God's free gift of salvation has by default accepted the alternative, and they never gain the human spirit, which is required to have an interface with God, during life or eternity, in any way, shape or form.
We will next discuss beliefs. Beliefs are developed from our thoughts, and set the policies for the soul. Our beliefs drive the interpretation of what our senses feed into our soul, and also what we will think in response to those inputs from the outside world. Thoughts and beliefs. They define the real human.