In the Chinese Union Version of the Bible, it is difficult for us to tell when the word spirit refers to the Holy Spirit and when it refers to the human spirit. According to the translators of the Bible, whenever the original text used only the word spirit and not the Holy Spirit, they thought it actually referred to the Holy Spirit, and they added the word Holy before the word Spirit to indicate that it referred to the Holy Spirit.
The Bible, word by word and sentence by sentence, is God's inspiration. Why does God not say Holy Spirit but rather spirit in many places? Is not what God does not say as meaningful as what God says? In many places God clearly says Holy Spirit. But why in some places does He only say Spirit? Yet, according to the Bible translators, it refers to the Holy Spirit. We all know that in many places where only the word Spirit is used, it refers to the Holy Spirit, such as the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, etc. But in many verses when the spirit is not mentioned as the Holy Spirit, what exactly does it refer to?
In 1913 a monthly journal which specialized in Bible studies put out six messages concerning the Holy Spirit by a person by the name of Fullest (?). They were all studies of the original text. When he mentioned the word Spirit, he explained the many ways that this word had been used in the Bible. Later on he pointed out the mistake of considering the word Spirit as the Holy Spirit without regard to the context. He said it is wonderful that knowledge seems not to be very useful concerning this big subject because there is no indication whether or not this word spirit should be capitalized when the Holy Spirit was writing the New Testament. Therefore, all the capitalized words Spirit in the English Bible are just the translator's interpretation. All the New Testament experts still hold differing opinions concerning when the word spirit should be capitalized and when it should be lower case.
The capitalized word Spirit indicates the Holy Spirit and spirit indicates that it is not the Holy Spirit but a spirit besides the Holy Spirit, such as the spirit of man, etc. After reading this, do we not understand? In the original text there is no indication that it refers to the Holy Spirit or human spirit whenever just the word Spirit is used. Of course, the answer to this question is not so simple. We still need to read the word preceding it and after it, and determine if there is an article in the original language, before we can determine whether it refers to the Holy Spirit.
However, for our present necessity we may say that the word holy which is before the word Spirit, in some cases in the New Testament, is really the translator's interpretation rather than his translation. Whenever we come across this kind of situation, although we dare not think that it only refers to the human spirit, at least we may say that it sometimes refers to the human spirit.
After seeing the above, we know that the Holy Spirit and the believer's regenerated spirit have a relation which is very difficult to separate. Since the Holy Spirit is working in man's spirit in order to control man's whole being, in some places in the Bible the Holy Spirit and the human spirit are mentioned as one. A person's spirit should dominate his whole being; yet not the spirit alone, but the spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit should dominate his being. The part of man which can work with the Holy Spirit is his spirit, and the part of man where the Holy Spirit can work is also his spirit.