SPIRIT. We can best study the concept of “spirit” in the Bible under the following headings:
1. The terms used. Nearly 400 times the OT uses the word רוּחַ, H8120, which derives from a verb meaning “breathe” or “blow.” The noun may be tr. “breath” (e.g. Ps 18:15) or “wind” (e.g., Gen 8:1) or “spirit.” The Gr. word πνεῦμα, G4460, (connected with the verb πνέω, G4463, meaning “blow” or “breathe”) is used just as frequently as רוּחַ, H8120. It may mean “breath” (e.g. 2 Thess 2:8) or “wind” (e.g., John 3:8), but most frequently “spirit,” associated with God or man or other spiritual beings.
2. Spirit as incorporeal, intelligent being. A definition of πνεῦμα, G4460, in the NT (which is true also of רוּחַ, H8120, in the OT) that covers a wide range of its meanings is that it speaks of “an incorporeal, sentient, intelligent being, or the element by virtue of which a being is sentient, intelligent, etc.” (E. de W. Burton, ICC on Galatians, p. 490). Spirit involves life, but is not necessarily associated with material form, and thus the Bible often describes as “spirit” some incorporeal nature or being which has direction and purpose and power.
a. God as spirit. It is the NT which makes the specific statement that “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). It is the NT which has the developed doctrine of the Holy Spirit; but the OT, in spite of its rich anthropomorphisms in speaking of God, implies frequently that God is spirit, and speaks of the Spirit of God as manifest in activity in nature and in the lives of men in a variety of ways. (See Holy Spirit.)
b. Other spiritual beings. The Bible also speaks of creatures which are “spirit” or “spirits,” created by God and subject to Him, but not having corporeal form. Their existence and their influence on human life is referred to in a number of places (e.g. 1 Kings 22:21; Job 4:15; Luke 24:39; Acts 23:8). They may be good spirits ministering to men (Heb 1:14), or they may be evil (Judg 9:23; 1 Sam 16:14ff.; Matt 10:1). Men may be indwelt by and subject to the Spirit of God, or to the one who is described as “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph 2:2). False teachers are those who are led by “deceitful spirits” (1 Tim 4:1), and because of the existence of such it is necessary for Christians to “test the spirits to see whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1).
c. The disembodied spirit of man. A few Biblical passages speak of the spirit of man as separate from the body at death; for example, Hebrews 12:23 speaks of “the spirits of just men made perfect,” and 1 Peter 3:19 of “the spirits in prison.” Such references are not contrary to the ultimate hope, expressed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, that beyond this life man will not be naked spirit, but clothed with a heavenly body.
3. The life principle of man. Many uses of “spirit” in both OT and NT indicate that it is the life principle or life energy of man (just occasionally of beasts, e.g. Eccl 3:21). God gives this life spirit to man (Isa 42:5; Zech 12:1), and He sustains it (Job 10:12). In life, and at death when the spirit departs from the body, man can only commit his spirit into God’s hands (Ps 31:5; Eccl 12:7; Luke 23:46).
In a less absolute way the spirit of man is also the animation and vivacity that he possesses, physically or psychically; man’s fainting, or his losing heart and courage can be described as the failing or the departing of the spirit within him (e.g. Josh 5:1; 1 Kings 10:5; Ps 142:3; 143:4, 7; Ezek 21:7). Correspondingly, restoration from such a state is described in terms of the spirit returning or being revived in him (e.g. Gen 45:27; Judg 15:19; 1 Sam 30:12). The physical raising of the daughter of Jairus is described as the returning of her spirit (Luke 8:55). Moreover, renewal of life in its right relationship with God is cited as the giving of a new spirit (Ezek 11:19; 36:26; Rom 7:6), while God’s continuing work of grace is the reviving of “the spirit of the humble” (Isa 57:15), and in Christian fellowship one is refreshed in spirit by another (1 Cor 16:18; 2 Cor 7:13 KJV).
This significance of “spirit” leads appropriately to the consideration of the contrast between flesh and spirit found both in OT and NT. Body and spirit, or flesh and spirit, can be said to make up the whole man. Both body and spirit can be defiled (2 Cor 7:1); both can be holy (1 Cor 7:34). Spirit is the life principle, the real person, the inner self, and the body is the outward personality. The body without the spirit is dead (James 2:26). The flesh can be destroyed and the spirit saved (1 Cor 5:5). A person can be absent in body but present in spirit (Col 2:5). In such passages as John 3:5-8; Romans 8:3-14; and Galatians 4:21-5:26 the distinction between flesh and spirit is between the will and power of man apart from God doing what he chooses, and the life and will and power given by the Spirit of God enabling man to do what God chooses.
There is also the contrast in Scripture between “the letter” and “the spirit,” outward obedience to the written code of God’s law over against its observance with understanding of its purpose and with love, from the heart (e.g., Rom 2:27, 28 and 2 Cor 3:6ff.).
The distinction between soul and spirit is more difficult. There are times (e.g., Isa 26:9) when in the OT ruaḥ, “spirit,” and nephesh, “soul,” are parallel, just as there are also places where “heart” and “spirit” are parallel (e.g. Isa 57:15; Dan 5:20). At other times ruaḥ is the animating principle, and the nephesh is the living being produced. In the NT there are places where man seems to be regarded as bipartite, made up of body and spirit; soul (ψυχή, G6034) and spirit are regarded similarly and may even be parallel terms (e.g., Luke 1:46, 47); there are other places where man seems to be spoken of as tripartite although even such a passage as 1 Thessalonians 5:23 need not indicate that Paul thought rigidly in terms of three parts of man. Hebrews 4:12 apparently indicates that soul and spirit are to be distinguished though there is difficulty in doing so. The distinction is often defined in terms of the higher and lower aspects of man’s psychical life; the soul is said to be the manifestation of the immaterial part of man toward the world, and the spirit its manifestation toward God. 1 Corinthians 2:14, 15, makes the clearest distinction between psychikoi as men whose lives are uninfluenced by the Holy Spirit, and pneumatikoi as those who are directed by the Spirit of God (cf. Jude 19).
4. Man’s essential being. From being understood as the life principle of men, spirit came to mean also “the source and seat of insight, feeling, and will” (Arndt), man’s essential being. This accounts for many uses of the word “spirit” in OT and NT. Man’s spirit is stirred (Ezra 1:1, 5) or troubled (Gen 41:8); it rejoices (Luke 1:47), or is broken (Exod 6:9); it is willing (Matt 26:41), or it is being hardened (Deut 2:30). A man may be patient in spirit (Eccl 7:8), proud in spirit, or poor in spirit (Matt 5:3). The necessity of ruling one’s spirit is stated (Prov 25:28). It is the spirit of man that seeks God (Isa 26:9), and to man’s spirit that the indwelling Spirit of God bears witness (Rom 8:16).
In this sense the spirit of one person can influence or even possess another. It is possible for others to have the spirit of Moses (Num 11:17, 25) or of Elijah (2 Kings 2:9, 15; Luke 1:17). Similarly also the influence of the spirit of the world (1 Cor 2:12), or of false prophets (Ezek 13:3) can be described.
5. A man’s dominant disposition. As we have seen, many things can be said to describe the action of man’s spirit as his functioning in his essential being. From this kind of description it is a small step to the use of “spirit” to describe some dominant disposition or attitude. Man may possess a lowly or haughty spirit (Prov 16:18, 19), a spirit of jealousy (Num 5:14), a spirit of slavery (Rom 8:15), a spirit of stupor (Rom 11:8) or a spirit of wisdom (Deut 34:9). It is noteworthy in this connection that Heb. frequently used the noun for the adjective in such a way as to make “a spirit of gentleness” (Gal 6:1) equivalent in Heb. thought to “a gentle spirit” (1 Peter 3:4). Finally, in connection with this usage it must be said that there are times when it is difficult to be sure whether what is being described is a disposition or the spirit of evil which produces that disposition of evil, or the Spirit of God that makes it possible if good. When Romans 8:15 speaks of “the spirit of sonship,” and Ephesians 1:17 of a “spirit of wisdom and of revelation,” it is difficult to be dogmatic as to how spirit is used. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in man’s spirit, and gives him “a spirit of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim 1:7).
Bibliography E. de W. Burton, Galatians, ICC (1921), 486-495; H. W. Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, 3rd ed. (1926); N. H. Snaith, The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament (1944), 143-153; E. Jacob, Theology of the Old Testament, Eng. Tr. (1958), 161-166; A. Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament (1958); G. A. F. Knight, A Christian Theology of the Old Testament (1959); A. R. Johnson, The Vitality of the Individual in the Thought of Ancient Israel, 2nd ed. (1964).