Spirit Spiritual
Spirit Spiritual
(, )
1. In the Acts and the Epistles very frequently refers to the Divine Spirit, conceived either as a power proceeding from God (Act 2:17, Rom 8:11) or as a definite personality (Act 8:29, Eph 4:30). See, further, Holy Spirit.
2. It is applied to created beings other than human, whether angels (Heb 1:14) or evil spirits (Act 5:16; Act 19:15, 1Ti 4:1, Rev 16:14; cf. Eph 6:12, the spiritual hosts [ ] of wickedness).
3. It is used of disembodied human spirits (Act 23:8 f.), whether in a state of blessedness (Heb 12:23) or of condemnation (1Pe 3:19).
4. It personifies various kinds of influence, as in the phrases spirit of bondage (Rom 8:15), spirit of stupor (Rom 11:8), spirit of the world (1Co 2:12), spirit of fear (2Ti 1:7), spirit of truth and spirit of error (1Jn 4:6).
5. It is employed in contrast with the letter () to denote inward reality as opposed to outward form (Rom 2:29; Rom 7:6, 2Co 3:6).
6. Psychologically it occurs in a sense not to be distinguished from soul, to designate the whole of mans inner nature as Something separate from, or contrasted with, his body (Act 7:59, 1Co 2:11; 1Co 5:3; 1Co 5:5; 1Co 7:34, Jam 2:26). See article Soul.
7. In St. Pauls theology spirit receives a specific religious meaning that must be distinguished from the psychological one just noted. The Apostles doctrine of salvation, with its antithesis between sin and grace, leads him to recognize an opposition between flesh and spirit which is much more than the natural contrast between spirit and body (Rom 8:1-13). Flesh (q.v. [Note: .v. quod vide, which see.] ) stands for fallen human nature, human nature as defiled and determined by sin (cf. Rom 8:3, sinful flesh, lit. [Note: literally, literature.] flesh of sin), in contrast with which spirit stands for the Christians new or regenerate nature, in which the Spirit of God dwells (Rom 8:9) in such a way as to bring deliverance from the law of sin and of death (Rom 8:2). And the Apostle had so keen a sense of the difference between the unregenerate and the regenerate condition, and of mans fallen and sinful estate as affecting his whole nature, that he found it necessary to express the contrast in a way which would make it plain that the soul as well as the body is subject to the dominance of sin. For this purpose he makes an antithesis between spirit and soul-though for ordinary psychological purposes he treats the words as synonyms-and therefore opposes (1Co 2:14 f., 1Co 15:44-45) the spiritual () to the psychical or soulish (, Authorized Version natural, sensual). The soulish man is the merely natural man, the spiritual man is one into whom the Divine Spirit has entered, transforming the natural and raising it to a higher power by this indwelling. This distinction which the Apostle makes between soulish and spiritual is not an arbitrary one, however, though he has adopted it for theological purposes of his own, but rests upon a differential use in the OT of nephesh (soul, Septuagint ) and ra (spirit, Septuagint ). Soul in the OT stands for the natural life regarded from the point of view of its separate individuality (Gen 2:7; Gen 17:14), while spirit is the principle of life considered as flowing from God Himself (Job 27:3, Psa 51:10, Ecc 12:7), who is thus fitly called the God of the spirits of all flesh (Num 16:22; Num 27:16). Even in the OT spirit stood, as soul did not, for both the Divine and the human essence, and thus lent itself more readily to the thought of a vital connexion between the two, in which life is imparted from the higher to the lower. Hence St. Paul was only carrying OT usage and suggestion into a region of clearer theological definition when he contrasted the soulish with the spiritual, applying the former to man as he is by nature apart from Divine grace, and the latter to the new man in whom the Spirit of God has taken up His abode (Rom 8:9). This theological use of spiritual, which is characteristic of St. Paul though not wholly confined to him, is extended from persons to things, so that we read of spiritual meat and drink (1Co 10:3 f.), a spiritual body (15:44), spiritual songs (Col 3:16), a spiritual house and spiritual sacrifices (1Pe 2:5), In all these cases spiritual points to the presence of the Divine Spirit or to the activity of a human spirit that has been Divinely quickened and renewed.
Literature.-H. Cremer, Bib.-Theol. Lex. of NT Greek3, 1880, p. 503 ff.; J. Laidlaw, Bible Doctrine of Man, 1895, pp. 131 ff., 269 ff.; W. P. Dickson, St. Pauls Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit, 1883. p. 168ff.; B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the NT3, Eng. translation , i. [1882] 346 ff.
J. C. Lambert.