The Breath Is Not the Spirit
The breath God gave Adam is the natural life every creature has; the Spirit dwelling in a man is a later gift that comes through Christ.
Scripture shows this in four steps:
- Genesis 2:7
- Genesis 7:22, backed by Genesis 2:19, 6:17 and 7:15
- Job 14:5 and Ecclesiastes 12:7, backed by Psalm 104:29-30 and Acts 17:25
- John 20:22, backed by Genesis 2:7 and John 7:39
It all comes together in Revelation 2:7.
Underneath it all lies 1 Corinthians 15:45-46, 50.
God breathed into Adam, and Adam lived. Many read this as if God put a piece of Himself into the man, or as if Adam began with the Holy Spirit living in him. Others read it as a spark of God that cannot die. The chain shows something simpler. The breath is life, given by God and held by God. The Spirit living in a man is a further gift, and it comes through the last Adam.
Genesis 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 became a living soul.”
Genesis 2:7
Dust, and breath, and man became a living soul. The soul is not a part put inside him. It is what he became. Take away the breath, and there is no living soul left. And nothing here says that the Spirit of God came to live in him.
Genesis 7:22
“All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.”
Genesis 7:22
The flood uses the same words as Genesis 2:7, “breath of life,” “in his nostrils,” for every land creature that died. The animals Adam named are called “living” creatures with the same Hebrew words as “living soul” (Genesis 2:19). Whatever the breath of life is, man shares it with the animals. So it cannot be the sign of God living in a man.
Job 14:5 and Ecclesiastes 12:7
“Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.”
Job 14:5
“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
Ecclesiastes 12:7
My life has a set length. And what goes back to God at the end is what He gave. All along He keeps giving it. “Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created” (Psalm 104:29-30), said of the animals. “He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25).
My breath is not mine to keep. It is lent to me for a time and then returned. I do not own my life. I am given it, day by day.
John 20:22
“And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”
John 20:22
The word John uses for “breathed on” is the very word the Greek Old Testament uses in Genesis 2:7. It appears nowhere else in the New Testament. John is showing us a second breathing. The first gave life at the beginning. This one gives the Spirit, and it comes after a death.
John tells us when: “the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). And Jesus marks the change: “he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17). With you, and then in you.
1 Corinthians 15:45-46, 50
“And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.”
1 Corinthians 15:45-46
“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”
1 Corinthians 15:50
This is what holds the chain together. Paul quotes Genesis 2:7, and he says it of Adam as God made him, before he sinned. So the contrast is not between a fallen man and a restored one. It is between natural and spiritual. And Paul gives the order: natural first, spiritual afterward. Flesh and blood, as it was made, could not inherit the kingdom.
Adam could pass on the life he had. He “begat a son in his own likeness” (Genesis 5:3). But only the last Adam gives life, and He became that when He was raised from the dead.
This does not make Adam faulty. God called His work “very good” (Genesis 1:31). A first stage is not a mistake. The order was God’s plan.
Revelation 2:7
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”
Revelation 2:7
If Adam was given natural life and not yet the Spirit, then life without end was ahead of him, not behind him. And that is how Eden reads. Every tree was open to him (Genesis 2:16). The Tree of Life stood there, not yet eaten. And God barred it “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” (Genesis 3:22). So living for ever was not yet his. Revelation keeps the same order: first the overcoming, then the Tree.
What this means
Adam was given natural life, for a set time, in a garden where the Tree of Life stood open. He was not made with God’s Spirit living in him. What he never took, the last Adam has received, and now He gives it.
I am Adam. My breath is borrowed. One day it goes back to God who gave it. I have no spark in me that cannot die. The life that does not end is not something I was born with. It is a gift, breathed out by the risen Christ, and it is offered to me.
Connected chains
This cluster is built on Brought Forth, The Two Gardens, The Everlasting Dominion and The Spirit Is God's Own.