spirit Summary and Overview

(Heb. ruah; Gr. pneuma), properly wind or breath. In 2 Thess. 2:8 it means "breath," and in Eccl. 8:8 the vital principle in man. It also denotes the rational, immortal soul by which man is distinguished (Acts 7:59; 1 Cor. 5:5; 6:20; 7:34), and the soul in its separate state (Heb. 12:23), and hence also an apparition (Job 4:15; Luke 24:37, 39), an angel (Heb. 1:14), and a demon (Luke 4:36; 10:20). This word is used also metaphorically as denoting a tendency (Zech. 12:10; Luke 13:11). In Rom. 1:4, 1 Tim. 3:16, 2 Cor. 3:17, 1 Pet. 3:18, it designates the divine nature.

THE SPIR'IT Both in Greek and Hebrew the word for this implies a "blowing" or "breathing;" its primary sense is "wind." In 2 Thess 2:8 it is used for breath, in Eccl 8:8 for the vital principle; while in other places it denotes the soul. Angels, both good and bad, souls without bodies, are thus designated. Matt 14:26; Luke 24:39. Metaphorically, the tendency or inclination is similarly called; hence we have a spirit of grace and of supplication, Zech 12:10, a spirit of infirmity. Luke 13:11, etc.

Hebrew ruach, Greek pneuma. Man in his normal integrity ("whole," holokleeron, complete in all its parts, 1 Thessalonians 5:23) consists of "spirit, soul, and body." The spirit links man with higher intelligences, and is that highest part receptive of the quickening Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:47). The soul (Hebrew nephesh, Greek psuchee) is intermediate between body and spirit; it is the sphere of the will and affections. In the unspiritual, the spirit is so sunk under the animal soul (which it ought to keep under) that such are "animal" ("seasonal," having merely the body of organized matter and the soul, the immaterial animating essence), "having not the spirit" (Judges 1:19; James 3:15; 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 15:44-48; John 3:6). The unbeliever shall rise with an animal (soul-animated) body, but not, like the believer, with a spiritual (spirit-endued) body like Christ's (Romans 8:11). The soul is the seat of the appetites, the desires, the will; hunger, thirst, sorrow, joy; love, hope, fear, etc.; so that nephesh is the man himself, and is used for person, self, creature, any: a virtual contradiction of materialism, implying that the unseen soul rather than the seen body is the man. "Man was made" not a living body but "a living soul." "The blood, the life," links together body and soul (Leviticus 17:11).