Does it matter whether we have a human spirit within us that is distinct from our soul?

We may not feel it does.

In my own case, I can certainly recall reading in Hebrews 4:12, a few months after I was saved, that our spirit can be divided from our soul; at that time I thought to myself, “Oh, so our spirit and our soul are two different parts of our being.” But I did not consider it at all beyond that, and just kept on reading.

Others may feel, even after being saved for many years, that it is enough, surely, for us to have the Holy Spirit dwelling somehow within us, and to follow the command, as the Lord said, that you should love God

“From all your heart
And from all your soul
And from all your mind
And from all your strength.”
— Mark 12:30; cf.
Deuteronomy 6:4-5, 10:12, 30:6

To those who have such a concept I would only reply, that was certainly not the view of the apostle Paul!

At the very beginning of his epistles in the New Testament—at the beginning, in fact, of what many consider to be the most foundational of all his epistles—he boldly declared,

God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son….
— Romans 1:9

Paul does not say here that he served God “by the Holy Spirit,” but rather, that he served God in his own spirit. No doubt, it was his spirit regenerated, renewed, uplifted, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, but nonetheless, he still stressed to us here that he served God in his own human spirit. He is telling us, in fact, at the beginning of his epistles, that all of his service is to God is by his human spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Can we say the same thing as the apostle? Or do we serve God only by the Holy Spirit, apart from our human spirit?

And the very last statement Paul ever made in writing was this word to his spiritual son, Timothy:

The Lord be with your spirit! Grace be with you.
— 2 Timothy 4:22

Again, he does not say, “The Holy Spirit be with you,” but rather, he prayed for the Lord to be with Timothy’s own spirit. How the apostle appreciated and stressed the importance of our human spirit!

So, to answer the question we began with: Yes, it really does matter that we have a human spirit within us. In fact, to appreciate the progressive aspect of our salvation, we must be clear about the distinction between our soul and our spirit, and the different role each plays in God’s full salvation. This is a great topic, but in the next Note in this series we shall provide a very brief outline regarding it.

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— 21 March 2026 —