The Bible reveals that man's spirit is distinct from his soul (Heb. 4:12; 1 Thes. 5:23a). Our experience also tells us this. According to our mind, we may feel to buy something. We may really like it and desire to have it according to our emotion. Then we may decide to get it according to our will. Thus, our mind thinks about it in a good way, our emotion loves it, and our will determines to get it. At this juncture, however, there is something else deep within that tells us not to get it. This is our spirit, the deepest and inmost part of our being. This is the distinction between the soul and the spirit.
The highest part, the high peak, the highlight, of a man is the spirit. The lowest part, the meanest part, is the body. In between, in the middle, is the soul. If you live by your body, you become a low person. If you live by your spirit, you become the highest person, a person of the highest grade. Or you may be in the middle. You may be quite logical, knowledgeable, and reasonable. This is to live according to your soul. You are neither low nor high; you are in the middle.
If you live by the body, you live like a beast. If you live by the spirit, you are a genuine saint. Every believer should be a saint who lives by the spirit. But if you live by the soul, you are merely a gentleman, like a disciple of Confucius. You are very logical, reasonable, and full of knowledge. A gentleman is a logical and reasonable man. When you lose your temper without limitation by the desire and lust of the flesh, of the body, you are like a beast. When you are losing your temper and restrict it by your logic and reason, you are a gentleman in the soul. When you restrict your temper by exercising the spirit, you are a saint.
God is Spirit for man to contact Him and receive Him into man, and man has a spirit for man to contact God and contain God that God and man may have an organic union (John 4:24; 1 John 4:13; 2 Tim. 4:22a; 1 Cor. 6:17). If God were not the Spirit, He could not contact us, and we could not contact Him. God the Father is the source; God the Son is the course; and God the Spirit is the flow to reach us (2 Cor. 13:14). Thus, the Spirit is the reaching of the Divine Trinity to man. God reaches us in the Son as the Spirit. Ephesians 2:18 says, "For through Him we both have access in one Spirit unto the Father." The Spirit is the access for us to contact God, receive God, and contain God.
This is so that we and God may have an organic union. Our union with God is not like the union in today's American labor unions. That union is in an organizational and coexisting way, but our union with God is organic. It is a union not only of coexistence but also of coinherence. Today we are coinhering with God. He lives in us, and we live in Him. In John 15 the Lord said, "Abide in Me and I in you" (v. 4a). First John 4:15 and 16 speak of God abiding in us and us in God. This is a mutual abiding, and this mutual abiding is coinherence. It is only after being regenerated to have God in us as our life and nature that we are in union with God organically. This union is a coinherence, a mutual abiding. This is the Bible's revelation concerning God and man. We all have to know Him and know ourselves to such an extent.