The Spirit: Dead or Alive
At The Principal Truth Institute, we are extremely interested in the best understanding on the way God made man as a “Living Soul”. This is what we might call “Animation” when all of the other complex systems began to function only AFTER “and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7
The breath would be understood and the “Spirit” that caused life or animation. We can understand from a simple explanation, that the spirit of man is built into man as his lifeforce; and when the spirit leaves, the body goes back into the ground, and the Soul will migrate to its forever abode. So, where can we find the spirit and what is its function?
Our best understanding from Scripture is that the Spirit is a faculty of the Soul, and the Soul is one of the major systems of the Inner Man (your non-corporeal side). The Faculty of the Spirit is one of eight faculties that we will not fully explain here. We must note, however, that there is another dominant faculty, which is called the Flesh. Dominant faculties exert heavy influence over the other faculties providing direction in our daily decisions and practices.
Now Adam had an active Spirit with God, but note that God had told Adam and Eve that if they eat of the forbidden fruit, they would SURELY DIE. But, when they did eat of the forbidden fruit, they did not die instantly falling to the ground. So, how do we understand this contradiction since we are already convinced that God does not and cannot lie or deceive?
Moving forward in time, the Bible tells us that “We are dead in our trespasses and sin” (Eph 2:1, Col 2:13) Adam didn’t die physically, his Spirit died leaving a vacancy for godly living impotent. That is the deficiency that we all received from our ante-father, Adam. The Spirit faculty that is our God connection is “Out of Order”, which leaves the other dominant faculty of the Flesh to control our lives. Thereby, we are educated, cultivated, and motivated by the “kosmos” which we understand as “Society”.
Society is man’s best effort to provide for the safety, security, and benefit of the common man. It is expressed in the many regions and types of local communities and gradually shared by all mankind. There is good things in society’s program. When good people control, regulate, and contribute to the local or world community, life and communities will make our present experience better. When bad people, selfish schemers, and abusive types are in control, life is going to get bad … and even very bad.
So, we should always want good, noble, and fair-minded people to populate and lead in our communities, including government. But, remember that the kosmos system is often in control of men and women who are not connected to God with little more than a moral code that is formed from birth to the present in the World System or kosmos. This is why the best of man’s organizations, governments, noble causes, and even religions trend downhill to the point that they no longer represent when well-intended founders built grand projects to benefit mankind.
Jesus spoke to the religious leader, Nicodemus, about the New Birth which this well-trained religious leader struggled to understand. After all, Nicodemus was a moral man, a religious man, who was following all the rules to his best ability. This was not enough because it was “Form over Substance” meaning we can follow the rules without any passion or allegiance to the authority.
When Jesus, the second Adam, made peace with God by paying our sin debt on the cross, He afterward sent the Holy Spirit to all believers. This is very evident at Pentecost and Antioch as the saints were newly empowered, but here’s the inside view. The Holy Spirit gave a New Birth or regeneration of the dormant faculty of the Heart giving us a new form of leadership and access to God.
This is one very important part of understanding how the Inner Man works to enable anyone to literally change their life, change their eternal future, and to discover the parade of victories mentioned in II Cor 2:16. You were meant for more. Each of us can be fortified to achieve “Victory at All levels of Life.” Join our open program of amazing truths at The Principal Truth Institute.
