It is all too often that the carnal or unregenerate man is thought of as non-spiritual. As was said in a previous post, man in his unregenerate state is a spiritual creature. We looked at the spirit of bondage which keeps man ensnared to religion with its ceremonies, ensnared with lusts and substances, and just generally ensnared in prideful ignorance. In this post we will look at the spirit of the world which is one of the seven spirits with which every person is born on this earth.
He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end, Ecclesiastes 3:11. God put the world into man's heart. How? Did he cram all of our society and culture into man's heart? No, the Apostle Paul explains that verse in I Corinthians 2:12, Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. What he put into man's heart was a spirit, the spirit of the world. Paul shows us how that in salvation God gives us the antidote to that spirit, he gives us the spirit which is of God.
Part of the vexation to fallen man is that because the spirit of the world is in his heart, he cannot find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. In other words, when a man picks up a fossil of a sea creature from the top of a mountain, he will not figure out that the water was once higher than the mountain like the Bible says. The spirit of the world in his heart will force him to conclude that the mountain was once lower.
In his pride and ignorance he will feel a spiritual union with nature that is based on a patently false assumption. He may be a tree hugger or he may be a devoted adherent to one of the world's great religions, but nevertheless the spirit he follows is the spirit of the world. He will closely follow the latest scientific theories and trust them far more than the bible. The graveyards are full with the bodies of them who lightly regarded the bible but gushed over the latest theories, all of which have since been disproven by the next generation.
Notice what God gives, the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Notice also that it is a small "s" spirit and that it is from God. It is the personal spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is alive in a body of flesh seated at the right hand of the Father. He is alive, that means that the spirit that he yielded to the Father in Luke 23:46 is back in his body. If you are truly saved, you share that spirit with him. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit, I Corinthians 6:17.
With that spirit, a person can freely know the things of God. Think of a person's brain as being a computer filled with data. A person's spirit is like the cursor that he moves with his mouse. It flits from one thing to another to highlight a train of thought. With salvation another cursor is given to the believer. It works side by side with the believer's spirit. It actively points things out as God sees them.
The believer has two responsibilities. He must fill his brain with things pleasing to God, and he must be yielded to the spirit which is of God. Then, and only then can he begin to discern good from bad and understand the scriptures, the unseen world, the facts of this life and his own life. It is this understanding of the spirit that is under attack by Bible printers as they recklessly slash at what they do not understand.