Knowing our spirit, in all its forms and functions, is the key element that allows us to grow as sons of God.
The knowledge of how our interbeing was designed has been a hidden mystery for centuries. After much searching, I have come to the conclusion that nothing has been written to shed light with respect to this topic. I was only able to find antique writings by Dr. watchmen nee, a pioneer in his time, who only superficially covered the true reality and configuration of our spirit. Dr. Paul trulin also touched on this theme, but neither one had what I long for.
I wanted to know our inner anatomy, the spirit and soul, with the same passion a medical doctor longs to know the human body.
1 Corinthians 2:10 – but God has revealed them to us through his spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the spirit of God.
It was then that I began to seek God deeply, asking him to show me the spirit of man. After much fasting, much prayer, and hours and days of meditating on this, the Lord visited me and revealed before my eyes, our entire internal configuration. These were days of ever-increasing revelation and it filled me with light and understanding.
Those visitations opened up the Scriptures to me in an extraordinary way. This is the revelation he gave me in his infinite grace, to make known to those who thirst to know their own spirit. To the eternal father be all the glory, for the majestic work he did in every single one of us, giving us the privilege of being conformed into his image and likeness.
How we were created
Who are we? We are spirit.
Who are we, really? That is the philosophical question that has motivated the minds and scrutiny of the most distinguished thinkers of all times.
If I were to ask you who you are, at first glance it would seem like an easy question for you to answer. You may respond with, I am John Smith. Then I would say, yes, that is your name, but who are you?
Then you would think twice, and say, I am an engineer and I work as a manager at a large firm. Then I would say to you, yes, that is your profession, but who are you?
And that is where the true conflict begins to take place on the inside. Who really is this being, covered by those things we think we are?
In order to understand this, which is not easy to figure out, we must turn our eyes to the origin of man, back to the original design created by our maker.
Our being is defined by the source of its origin. A baby lion is defined as such because he comes from his father and mother, who are both lions.
In the same way, the great I am, our God the creator, determined that from him would come forth a creation composed of his substance in nature.
This being would have within himself the ability, authority, intelligence, wisdom, creativity, power and all of the attributes of the father inherit in his divine genetics.
The origin of man
Genesis 1:26 – then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
In God’s image
God created man in his image. This means that whoever looked upon man, would recognize God in him. As Jesus, the last Adam, would say to his disciple Philip, he was seen me has seen the father.
Jesus came to restore what had been lost as the result of the fall. In his work and in his own being, Jesus reflects the identity and attributes lost by the first Adam.
It is in the understanding of where we come from and in whose image we were created, that we will find the answer to our true identity. That image is what answers the question of who we truly are; that is, sons of God.
God made a family for himself according to who he is, in order to give his children dominion and authority over all things. Our spirit is that divine substance from which we were formed.
In essence, that is who we are: spirits that come from God.
Hebrews 12:9 – furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the father of spirits and live?
In the natural, only a father can impart identity in his children. Growing alongside a true father allows us to have a firm and secure identity to go through life. When a father is loving, cares about his child, corrects, affirms and teaches them, the child develops a stable personality.
That person will feel secure and proud to be the child of that father. The maternal figure, regardless of how loving and devoted she is, or how much she gives her children, she will never be able to impart on them their identity.
We take our last name from our father and that determines our genealogy and origin; which is part of our identity, or what identifies us to what family we belong.
However, our basic nature is not the natural one, but the spiritual one. Before we were humans, we were spirits known and named by God.
Jeremiah 1:5 – before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
Ephesians 1:4 – just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
Isaiah 43:1 – but now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel: fear not, for I’ve redeemed you; I’ve called you by your name; you are mine.
He is the father of all spirits, and this is the true and eternal nature, which gives us the identity and the understanding of our origin.
God created man just as he is, with a divine ability to know all things. Nowadays, scientists confirmed that man only utilizes 2% of his mental ability. A gifted person, such as Elbert Einstein, utilizes approximately 10%.
However, this is not the design of God for his most sublime creation. The spirit and soul of Adam were cloaked with all intelligence, wisdom, knowledge and power to govern all creation. He was created to understand and move in 2 dimensions simultaneously; the natural and the spiritual. Adam could perceive the natural world through his physical senses, but at the same time he had his spiritual senses totally activated and could see the spiritual reality in all its dimensions. At the same time, he could see all the trees in the paradise God provided for him to eat from, as well as the spiritual trees. These spiritual trees were the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life.
He would speak with the father in the cool of the day, and also with the animals. His spirit and his perception had the ability to discern the meaning and intentions of every sound emitted from creation and know what each species was saying.
God had given him dominion and authority over them, and as a result, he could communicate with them. This was made clear when the serpent spoke, and they were not surprised. It was normal for them.
When Adam named the animals, he did not do it randomly. The name had to do with the nature and attributes of every created being. So, Adam saw the characteristics that defined each species of animal and gave it the appropriate name. He even knew how they thought. He named the serpent, astute which means to have mental ability.
All this was possible because his earthly nature was covered with the glory of his own spirit, which was in itself a deposit at the very life of God. As a matter of fact, Adam and his wife were also covered with Christ. He is the first light, and all things were made by him and all things in him consist. In him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge contained.
Colossians 2:2 – that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Adam’s thoughts were continuously illuminated by the manifold wisdom of God. He simply knew all things. He possessed full creativity, art and inventiveness. His spirit had the ability to search out the most complex universes of the microcosm and macrocosm. He understood the most elaborate formulas in mathematics and physics, as well as the perfect harmony of the ecosystem orchestrated by God in each one of its components.
He was full of joy because his spirit breathed the continuous love of his father, which filled him with plenitude. He was the king of all things and creation would serve him for whatever purpose came from his heart. He was created to be the architect of what would have been cities full of the glory of God. To sum it all up, he was a true son of God.
God’s idea was to create a world full of his sons, where he would be the father and God of us all. Unfortunately, this entire plan was brought down because of the fall.
See – behind-the-scenes
While this entire marvelous scenery was glimmering in harmony and glory, a plan for its destruction was being forged behind-the-scenes.
Lucifer, the arch angel of wisdom had filled himself with evil and had fallen from heaven along with a third of the angels. These angels, however, were not created in the image and likeness of God and as such, were not redeemable, or the most high determined that it would be that way.
Lucifer, stripped of his light, his glory and his rank, was sentenced to eternal darkness. From that place, he would look on with horror at the creation of a new lineage of divine beings to which the father would give his authority.
As a spiritual being, satan did not have access to the natural realm to rule over it as he intended. The serpent in itself was only an animal, Limited and incapable of reigning and taking dominion. Satan needed someone who had a mind and more elaborate intelligence. He needed a vessel designed to contain a highly complex spirit, and this was the human being.
Man is an incarnate spirit
We must understand that unlike angels and demons, man is the only spirit created with the ability to operate in 2 dimensions at the same time because man is a spirit who dwells in a fleshly body.
For the spiritual and the earthly to work together, it is necessary to have a third element that will allow them to communicate and make them compatible with each other.
For this purpose, God created a magnificent device called the soul.
Genesis 2:7 – and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
As God blew his breath in this body made of clay, he formed not only the human spirit, but also this third element within them.
In other words, we were created spirits, which live in a body and have a soul to understand and process both the spiritual and the natural worlds. We are the only creation with this tripartite composition.
In a moment will see why this device was so coveted by the devil.
The soul is made from the same ethereal substance as a spirit. Psychology, oblivious to the life of the spirit, only considers man as body and soul, but the Bible mentions all 3 parts.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 – now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we imagine our soul and spirit, we think of it in the form of a ghost; a humanoid figure similar to us, made from a volatile substance, invisible to the natural eye.
Others, more advanced, such as Dr. watchmen nee in the beginning of the twentieth century, saw the spirit as a composition made up of communion, intuition, and conscience. He also saw the soul as a combination of the mind, emotions and will. This revelation was relevant and undoubtedly a foundation for all of us, but it doesn’t stop there. The revelation has been growing, God is bringing new light so we may analyze it.
We all agree that defining the body is simply a mass made up of a head, trunk and extremities would fall extremely short of what this marvelous machine is, called the human body.
Our organism is composed of 8 systems with multiple organs all interconnected. These are the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, digestive system, nervous system, skeletal system, muscular system, reproductive system and immune system. Also at microscopic levels, there is a great quantity of things occurring within the chemistry of the brain and the cells. The human body is so complex, and is created in such a supernatural form that modern science has yet to discover all of its components.
In the same way, our spirit and soul are composed of a series of systems and organs, which allow them to discern and know both the spiritual and natural worlds.
As I mentioned earlier, the spirit of man does not have access to the natural world except through the soul.
Let me give you a clear example. I’m going to compare our spirit with a movie recorded on a DVD. If I do not have a DVD player, I will never be able to watch that movie. The DVD player has a decoder that translates what was recorded onto the surface of the DVD disc so the images can be seen on my television set, allowing me to watch the movie.
The soul is the DVD player made from a spiritual substance, which decodes the things of the spirit as well as the dimensions of the invisible kingdom, and makes them visible, audible and understandable.
The soul is what makes a human being different from any other spirit, either angelic or demonic.
It is the perfect machine, joined to the spirit, which gives man the ability to govern and interpret spiritual dynamics from God or the devil.
The soul of man corresponds to everything the spirit of man is. It is like a mirror that reflects everything that is the spirit so it can be decoded. Once the soul interprets what comes from the spirit, it transfers it to the body, because the 3 parts are intrinsically linked together.
The body will then receive either the benefits that come from the spirit of God or the consequences that come from the spirit that is still contaminated.
The soul, having the same components as the spirit, can survive on its own and be independent from the spirit.
Now then, God created the soul of man, so that man could interpret nothing less than the Spirit of God, which lived in Adam. That is what made this extraordinary, never before created, machine so desirable to Satan.
Now since this machine had the ability to interpret, reveal and manifest everything God was, it also had the ability to interpret any kind of spirits from darkness. It was an instrument designed by the creator to govern the earth.
Satan knew that among all the animals he would not find a host where he could place a spirit of humanism, witchcraft, drug addiction or any other spirit. Only the magnificent soul of man could contain them and reveal their thoughts and conduct.
Our identity loses the source of its origin
Satan, seen the greatness and perfection of the soul, coveted it for himself. This was the instrument that, once under his control, would give him access to the government of the earth and the destruction of his new adversaries, the sons of God. So, he came up with a plan and possessed the astute serpent to deceive man and his wife.
Now, the big obstacle was man’s free will, one of the complex organs of the soul. If the devil could sow doubt in the heart of one of them regarding the word God had given them, and chose to believe him instead, he would obtain his objective.
Genesis 2:17 – God had said… But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
Genesis 3:4 – then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
Eating from the tree of life was the divine provision given so that man could live eternally in paradise. Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the alternative; and the trigger from the kingdom of darkness, which would separate man from his father and his God. The consequence of eating from this tree is the separation of the dimensions of the spirit, from the dimensions of the earth, and it continues to do so in those who still eat from it.
When Adam and his wife took this step and decided to eat from the alternative tree, they died to their communion with God. There spirit fell into a state of sleep and their soul, which had been covered by the splendor of their spirit, was left naked and condemned to death. It is the condition of the spirit, whether it is alive or dead (state of sleep), which determines the final destiny of the soul.
After the fall, the spirit lost its dominion and power and its ability to rule. The soul had become now the King and Lord of man, governed by the knowledge and wisdom of darkness. In that moment the eagle or the self rose up within man, which would oppose the spirit, just as the 2 trees oppose each other.
Jesus Christ is the tree of life, who is the light of eternal knowledge. He is the first light that illuminates the understanding of the spirit to know God and his unfathomable mysteries. He is the very life of the spirit that awakens the whole being, spirit, soul and body in order to fill it with his eternal essence.
A man that has been conceived from the life of the Spirit of God, by Jesus Christ, knows he is a son of God, and receives his identity from him.
A soul stripped from God is under the light of science and earthly knowledge. The same is true for a religious or carnal man who is in darkness and feels the emptiness within, as a result of his dormant spirit. He feels like an orphan, and his identity depends on the value others give him, or from his own fantasy world.
The ego became a God, just as the serpent had said to the woman. However, one that does not know how to be a God, has neither the answers nor the power he should have as such. It lives from the lies of a title that exalts it and feeds it; terrified of having to confront its own deception and seeing its house of cards tumbled down.