Zechariah 12:1 tells us that in God’s creation there are three main items. First, God stretched forth the heavens. Second, God laid the foundation of the earth. Third, God formed the spirit of man. In God’s creation there are these three main things. With the heavens there are a lot of things, with the earth there are a lot of items, and with man there are many parts, but Zechariah 12:1 just mentions the heavens, the earth, and the spirit of man.
With man the most important part is the spirit because the spirit of man is the center of his being, and this center is the very spot where God comes into man (John 3:6; 2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17). This is the strategic point. If we miss this point, we miss the mark. Although electricity has been installed into a building, there is one crucial spot-the switch. The receiver of a radio is the strategic spot where the radio waves come in. In like manner, the very central spot where God comes into man is the spirit of man.
Job 12:10 mentions the soul of all the living things and the spirit of man. The King James Version says “the breath of all mankind” because the word ruach can mean breath as well as spirit. Darby’s translation renders it as “the spirit of all flesh of man.” The American Standard Version renders it as “the breath of all mankind” in the text, but in the note it says our spirit, the spirit of man.
All the other living things just have a soul; they don’t have a spirit. Only we human beings have a spirit. A dog has a soul, but a dog doesn’t have a spirit. A monkey is quite clever because a monkey has a soul, but a monkey doesn’t have a spirit. Have you ever seen some little monkeys put up a shrine with an idol and worship it? Throughout history there has never been such a thing. No animal has ever worshipped something, but all human beings, whether cultured or barbarian, worship something because they have a worshipping spirit. There is a spirit within man that makes him special. A dog doesn’t have this. A cat doesn’t have this. Only we human beings have such a spirit.
Job 12:10 says that in God’s hand is the soul of every living thing and the spirit of all mankind. All the living things have a soul, but we, the human beings have not only a soul but also a spirit. We are absolutely different. In this matter, we totally disagree with Darwin. We are different from the monkeys. The monkeys just have a soul, but we have a spirit.
In Numbers 16:22 and 27:16 God is the God of the spirits of all flesh. All flesh means fallen mankind. We all became and still are the flesh, but praise the Lord, within the flesh we have a spirit. The Lord God is not the God of the flesh; He is the God of the spirits. So if we are going to know God, to contact God, and to deal with God, if we are going to take God as our life, we have to know our spirit because God is the God of our spirit.
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