The doctrine of the human spirit

1. The human spirit is the immaterial part of man designed by God to convert, to store, and utilise spiritual phenomena or doctrine. The human spirit is designed to take gnwsij and convert it to e)pignwsisj. E)pignwsij activates doctrine. In the original creation of man it was received along with the human soul — Genesis 2:7, where we have the “breath of lives,” soul and spirit. The human spirit is not the same as the soul and the Bible distinguishes between them in Hebrews 4:12.

2. The variations of the status of mankind based upon the fact that man does not have the human spirit at the point of physical birth.

a) Original man was trichotomous — Genesis 2:7. He had a body, a soul, and a spirit. The body is material, visible, and soul and spirit are invisible and immaterial. All are real.

b) At the time of the fall — Genesis 3:6 — Adam and the woman suffered immediate spiritual death — Romans 5:12. Under spiritual death two things happened to them, namely the loss of the human spirit plus the acquisition of the old sin nature. Therefore when Jesus Christ came in the garden at the time for Bible class the man and the woman had to hide themselves in their fig leaves because they were incapable of learning doctrine, incapable of having fellowship with Jesus Christ as a member of the Godhead.

c) The unbeliever is born in the line of Adam, receives the imputation of Adam’s sin directly, and receives the old sin nature. So the unbeliever, then, is dichotomous — 1 Corinthians 2:14; Jude 19.

d) On the other hand the believer is said to be trichotomous — 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Since the unbeliever does not have a human spirit and the believer has a human spirit it is obvious that the human spirit is acquired at the point of salvation and is one of the 36 things we receive at the moment of salvation.

e) Therefore the believer receives the human spirit at the point of salvation. At the same time that he receives the indwelling Holy Spirit, the sign of royalty and the means of GAP. The human spirit is a staging area, a converter under the concept of GAP. The two spirits, God the Holy Spirit and the human spirit, are the keys to the assimilation of Bible doctrine in the Church Age.

3. Perception through the two spirits is taught in 1 Corinthians 2:12-16. Doctrine in the human spirit cannot be evaluated by human viewpoint or by human IQ.

4. Therefore the reality of spiritual phenomena resides in the two spirits of Romans 8:16 — “The Spirit reaches our spirit.” In other words, the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit. The Holy Spirit is the teacher of Bible doctrine — John 14:26; 16:12-16; 1 John 2:27; 1 Corinthians 2:9-16. The human spirit is the target for doctrine and actually is the converter of gnwsij into e)pignwsij, as well as the dispenser of doctrine into the right lobe and the constructor of materials which go into the ECS — Ephesians 4:2-24.

5. The storage of doctrine in the human spirit. It is stored in the human spirit as the area of refreshment — 2 Corinthians 7:13. Doctrine is not meaningful in the left lobe. It is stored in the human spirit as the basis for all grace orientation. Grace orientation does not come from having doctrine in the left lobe. This is emphasised by James 1— “Be not hearers but doers of the Word.” A doer of the Word is simply a believer converting his gnwsij into e)pignwsij. Cf. Philemon 25. Spiritual IQ is related to doctrine stored in the human spirit — Job 32:8; Romans 8:16. 6. The human spirit is designed to store and distribute categorical doctrines — Ephesians 3:18,19.

7. Since the unbeliever does not possess a human spirit God the Holy Spirit must act like a human spirit for the comprehension of the gospel — Genesis 6:3; John 16:8-11; 1 Corinthians 2:14,15.