Man: An
Eternal Spirit
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness:... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created
he him.
—Genesis
1:26, 27
Man is a spirit being. He is made in the likeness of God.
Jesus said that God is a Spirit (John 4:24). So man must of necessity be a
spirit.
Man is a spirit, he has a soul, and he lives in a physical
body (1 Thess. 5:23).
When the physical body of man is dead and in the grave, the
spirit lives on. That part of man is eternal. Spirits can never die, and man is
a spirit. Paul is speaking of physical death here:
PHILIPPIANS 1:23,24
23 For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to
depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:
24 Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for
you.
Paul is going to live. Whether in the body or out of the
body, he is still going to live. If he abides, or lives in the flesh he can
teach the church at Philippi and be a blessing to them. That would be more
needful for them. It would be far better for Paul himself, however, to depart
and be with Christ. Paul was actually saying, "I am going to live in the
body or I am going to depart and be with Christ."
Who is going to depart?
"I" am going to depart. Paul was not talking about
his body. His body was not going to depart. Paul is talking about the inward
man, the spirit man, who lives inside the body.
People sometimes ask, "Will we know one another in
Heaven?"
I always quickly ask, "Do you know one another down
here?"
You see, you are the one who is going to be there. If you
know one another down here, you will know one another there. You are the one who
is here, and you will be the one who is there.
"I am going to depart," Paul says, "and be
with Christ which is far better." I like that! If he had just said it was
better, that would have been good. But he said, "It is far better!"
Some false cults teach that when a man dies he is dead like a
dog is dead when it dies. No, man is not. Man is more than a body. He is a
spirit, he has a soul, and he lives in a body. Others say that when man dies he
is in "soul sleep." The Bible does not teach that. Some say the
spirit does depart all right—but it comes back as a cow, a dog, or as someone
else. Reincarnation is unscriptural and unbiblical. Stay with the Word of God
and it will solve all your problems along this line. Paul said, "I am
going to depart. I am going to be with the Lord, which is far better."
Paul preached the same truths and taught the same facts to
all the churches. Here he uses different words to teach the same blessed truth
to the church at Corinth:
2 CORINTHIANS 4:16
16 ...but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man
is renewed day by day.
There is an inward man. And there is an outward man. The
outward man is not the real you. The outward man is only the house in which you
live. The inward man is the real you. The inward man never grows older. He is
renewed day by day. The inward man is a spirit man.
What is our spirit? Keep in mind our introductory texts.
Romans 8:14 says, "... as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are
the sons of God." Then verse 16 gives us a little insight into how the
Spirit of God leads us: "The Spirit itself [Himself] beareth witness with
our spirit, that we are the children of God." In other words, the Spirit
of God bears witness with the spirit of man. Proverbs 20:27 says, "The spirit
of man is the candle of the Lord...." According to these scriptures God
will guide us through our spirits; therefore, we must find out what our spirit
is.
Jesus said to Nicodemus, "... Except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).
Nicodemus, being natural, could only think naturally. So he
said, "... How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second
time into his mother's womb, and be born?" (v. 4).
Jesus was not talking about a physical birth. He said,
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit" (v. 6). He was talking about a spiritual birth.
The part of man that is born again is his spirit. Man's
spirit receives eternal life—the life of God, and the nature of God. It is
man's spirit that is made a new creature in Christ.
Paul calls man's spirit "the inward man." Peter
calls man's spirit "the hidden man of the heart."
1 PETER 3:4
4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is
not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the
sight of God of great price.
In many places when the Bible speaks of the heart, it is
speaking of the spirit. This is the real man. It will help you in your
believing and in your faith to think like that. In the New Testament, wherever
the word heart is used, substitute the word spirit and you will get a clearer
picture of what the Bible is talking about. It is the spirit of man that is
born again.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:17
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
This is talking about the inward man. It couldn't be talking
about the outward man. When you are born again and become a new creature, you
do not get a new body. The outward man is just like it was before. If you were
bald before you were born again, you are still bald afterwards. If you had
brown eyes before, you still have brown eyes. The outward man does not change.
God does not do anything with the outward man. (You have to do something with
the outward man. You find out what God wants you to do with the outward man
from the Bible—and then you do it.) God does something with the inward man. He
makes the man on the inside a new man in Christ, a new creature—a new creation.
Source: How-to-be
led-by-the-holy-spirit by Kenneth E. Hagin
