In the Patriarchal age, “The Judge of all” had already emphasized the fact that He was far from indifferent to the behaviour of His creatures. He said to Noah, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh”. The flood followed; God made a fresh start with Noah and his family; all other men were destroyed. He proceeded differently in the Mosaic age; He simply separated the descendants of Abraham, causing them to live as a community amongst the wicked nations.
When Moses knew his mediatorship was to end, he pleaded with God whom he called “the God of the spirits of all flesh”, to set a man over the congregation in his place (Num. 27:16). Joshua was duly appointed by God, and he led Israel into the promised land, and after the conquest, into a typical “rest”. The writer to the Hebrews lays hold on this phrase, exhorting the Christian to submit humbly to the discipline of “the Father of spirits”, in order to attain to the true life (Heb. 12:9).
It is evident that “spirit” is a word of many meanings, extending from the Power of God, to the breath of man. He whose name is Holy, and who dwells in a high and holy place, dwells also with him who is “of a contrite and humble spirit”. The following verse is clearer in the New International Version: “I will not accuse for ever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me—the breath of man that I have created” (Isa. 57:15–16). There are other passages (e.g. Job 27:3; 32:8; 33:4; 34:14) containing the same parallel between spirit (Heb. ruach and breath (neshamah). There are also other parallels which elucidate the sense of the word spirit. “The lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man, it searches out his inmost being”; or as the margin has it, “The spirit of man is the Lord’s lamp”. [In one sense, therefore,] man’s spirit is his personality, his “inmost being”.
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Author: Edmund Green
Keywords: Spirit, Spirits, Spirits of just men, Breath, Neshamah, Soul, Ruach, Ruah, Father of spirits, God of the spirits, Inmost being, Perfection, Perfect, Being perfect, Becoming perfect
Bible reference(s): Num. 27:16, Matt. 5:3, John 4:24, Hebrews 12:9, Hebrews 12:23
Source: “The Light of the World,” The Christadelphian, vol. 118, no. 1402, April 1981, pp. 143-144.
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