Hello Mike,

When the bible says: A New heart and a new spirit will he give, does it refer to a new human spirit or it refers to the spirit of Christ.

I heard somebody “when we are ‘born again’, our spirit is perfect, it is our soul that needs to be transformed, through a renewing of our mind, then eventually the body.”

What can you say about this, Mike?

M____

Hi M____,

Thank you for your question. You ask:

When the bible says: A New heart and a new spirit will he give, does it refer to a new human spirit or it refers to the spirit of Christ.

The word ‘human’ is the same as the word ”man’ or, as it is in the Hebrew ‘adám’.

Gen 2:7  And the LORD God formed man [Hebrew: adám] of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man [Hebrew: adám] became a living soul.
Gen 2:8  And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man [Hebrew: adám] whom he had formed.

God gave ‘Adam’ a spirit, but it was the spirit of man, and it makes mankind by physical birth “of [their] father the devil”:

Job 32:8  But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.

Joh 8:44  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

In the New Testament this “spirit in man” is contrasted with the “spirit of God”:

1Co 2:11  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

But the understanding of the natural man, “the spirit of man”, is not the understanding of the spiritual man who has been given “the spirit of God”. That is what the very next verses reveal:

Job 32:8  But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.
Job 32:9  Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment. 

Paul verifies that point in the very next verses of 1 Corinthians 2:

1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world [“the spirit of man which is in him:], but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

So when you ask:

When the bible says: A New heart and a new spirit will he give, does it refer to a new human spirit or it refers to the spirit of Christ.” [Emphasis mine]

“A new human spirit” is not a Biblical concept, and it is not “a pattern of sound words”. “A new human spirit”, Biblically, is a contradiction of words. This is called an oxymoron. It is the same as saying ‘a new old man’. You cannot be “the new man” and still be “the old man”. Here is how Christ explained the new birth to Nicodemus:

Joh 3:6  That which is born of the flesh is flesh [“carnal mind[ed]”; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit [spiritually minded].

The birth of “the new man” comes only through the death of “the old man” who is a “brute beast [who was] made to be destroyed”:

Joh 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Joh 12:25  He that loveth his life [his “old man”] shall lose it; and he that hateth his life [his “old man”] in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

2Pe 2:12  But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

What John 3:6 means is that we either think in spiritual terms, or we think in terms of the flesh. But just as we grow and mature physically, in physical stature and in physical knowledge, so do we slowly grow in spiritual stature and in spiritual knowledge. This process continues within us until we draw our last physical breath:

Rom 1:20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

So we are still in natural bodies, but we have an entirely new spirit within these natural bodies and that new spirit is “renewed day by day”.

2Co 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels [“Christ in you the hope of glory”, Col 1:27], that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

2Co 4:16  For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Eph 4:23  And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

Col 1:25  Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;
Col 1:26  Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Col 1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:  [“in earthen vessels”, 2Co 4:7]

Col 3:10  And have put on the new man, which is renewed [“day by day”] in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 

It is our increased “knowledge of [Christ]” which makes us to be “renewed… day by day… after… His… image”, and that is the very definition of “life eternal”:

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

When someone tells you…

“…when we are ‘born again’, our spirit is perfect, it is our soul that needs to be transformed, through a renewing of our mind, then eventually the body”

…that person is obviously unaware that a physical ‘soul’ is made of dust, and that the spirit in that soul is the “spirit of man” which is a carnal-minded spirit, and “the carnal mind is enmity against God”.

Gen 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 [Hebrew, adam] became a living soul.

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:8  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

When anyone tells you, “our spirit is perfect”, that person does not understand that we must “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior… be renewed day by day… in the spirit of [our] mind”, and “be changed into that same image [of Christ] from glory to glory”.

2Co 3:6  Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter [the natural mind], but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

2Co 3:17  Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [from the natural, “carnal mind”]. 
2Co 3:18  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Paul goes on to tell us how we are to think on this matter:

Rom 8:9  But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Rom 8:10  And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

“The body is dead”, simply does not agree with:

“…when we are ‘born again’, our spirit is perfect, it is our soul that needs to be transformed, through a renewing of our mind, then eventually the body.”

If the physical body could be perfected, we would not be told “the body is dead”, and if “the spirit is perfect” then there would be no need to be “renewed day by day”. There would be no need to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior…” If “our spirit [were] perfect” then Christ would not have said this of Himself:

Luk 13:32  And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.

Being in a body of sinful flesh precludes perfection. That is why not even the flesh and blood of Christ could inherit the kingdom of God:

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

“The third day” is the resurrection from the dead, and it is only then that anyone, Christ included, will be perfected. “Then eventually the [physical] body” is heresy of the first degree. If ‘the body’ could be perfected then flesh and blood could inherit the kingdom of God. But the Truth tells us “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God…”

We are not to think of ourselves as living in bodies of flesh and blood, even though we are still struggling against such bodies. We are to think of ourselves as dead with Christ and risen with Him “in newness of life”:

Rom 6:1  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Rom 6:2  God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Rom 6:3  Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 
Rom 6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Rom 6:5  For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 
Rom 6:7  For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Rom 6:11  Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So this is how we are to think of our physical bodies:

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I hope all these scriptures have helped you to see there is no such thing as being perfected, either spiritually or physically, while still in a body of flesh and blood (Luk 13:32 and 1Co 15:50). Just as important, I hope you can see and know that God has, by physical birth, placed nothing within our flesh which is good or worthy of entering the kingdom of God:

Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

We are to acknowledge that we are still “in the flesh”, and it is only by “dying daily” to the mind of our “old man” and having our “minds… renewed day by day” that we have “Christ liv[ing] in [us].

It is all a work that God is doing within those few in whom He dwells, and this is what we are told of what He is doing:

Php 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Your brother in the Christ who will finish the good work He has started in you.

Mike