God has revealed in His Word that He wants to dispense Himself into man. We are God-containers. Without God as our content we are empty. Through Christ’s redemption we can receive God into us, be filled with God, and even be saturated with God in our entire being. In this chapter we will see from the Holy Scriptures how God fills us.
In order for God to come into our being, He must be something like the air. The word Spirit is used in both the Old Testament and the New Testament in reference to God. Genesis 1:2 mentions the Spirit of God. John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit.” Matthew 28:19 names the Holy Spirit as the third of the Trinity. First Corinthians 15:45b says that in resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit. The Hebrew word for Spirit in the Old Testament is ruach. The Greek word for Spirit in the New Testament is pneuma. Both ruach and pneuma can mean “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” This indicates that the Spirit of God and the spirit of man are like the wind or the air. John 3:8 says, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The wind is a mystery. We are like the wind because we are born of the Spirit.
We cannot see or touch the air, but we recognize that the air is real and present. The word pneumatic means “filled with air.” A pneumatic tire is a tire that is full of air. As believers, we should be full of the Spirit. When we are short of the Spirit, we are like a car that cannot move because its tires are short of air.
Both God and man are mysteries. The mystery concerning God and the mystery concerning man are altogether a matter of the spirit. Animals are not a mystery because they do not have a spirit. Our human spirit is the deepest part of our being. Externally, we have a body, which is visible and knowable. However, within our physical body are many mysteries. In addition to our physical heart, we have another heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, / And it is incurable; / Who can know it?” This verse speaks of our psychological heart. Our physical heart may be strong, but our psychological heart is rotten and incurable. The location of our psychological heart is a mystery. Furthermore, 1 Peter 3:4 says that there is a hidden man in our psychological heart. This hidden man is the spirit. When our heart wants something, the spirit within our heart does not always agree. Our heart is corrupted, but our spirit is the lamp of Jehovah (Prov. 20:27).
In 1 Corinthians 2:11-12 Paul says, “Who among men knows the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him? In the same way, the things of God also no one has known except the Spirit of God. But we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things which have been graciously given to us by God.” Our mind cannot know the things concerning man. Unregenerated professors and doctors of philosophy know many things, but they do not know where they came from, what their destiny is, or the real meaning of human life, the real purpose of human existence. We cannot know these things by exercising our mind, because the things of man can be known only by man’s spirit. Atheists say that there is no God, but when they are alone, something deep within them causes them to wonder, “What if God does exist?” This question does not come from their mind. We cannot know God by exercising our mind, just as we cannot know the air by exercising our eyes or ears. We are able to sense the air by exercising the right organs—our mouth, nose, and lungs—to breathe in the air. Only the spirit of man can know the things of man. We need to forget about our mind and turn to the deepest part of our being, our spirit, to know that God is real and that He is our source and our destiny.
As believers, we have two spirits within—our human spirit and God the Spirit. It is not easy to understand the Bible, because the Bible contains spiritual mysteries, including the things of man, the things of God, and the two spirits. Most people do not know anything about the two spirits. Even Bible translators who are Hebrew and Greek scholars have mixed up the things concerning the spirit. Some Bible translations confuse the heart, the soul, the mind, and the spirit. These four terms refer to four distinct inner parts of the human being. Scholars may have strong minds, but they do not know God, the two spirits, or the things of man if they do not use their spirit.