Are Human Beings Spirits?

Apart from the erroneous Genesis 1:26 extrapolation that men can speak things ex nihilo just like God it’s difficult to get a full grasp what Word of Faith proponents mean exactly when they say that we are “spirits.” I even had someone tell me this week “we are a spirit, just like God…” We are certainly like God, but we aren’t a spirit, just like God. God the Father is Spirit and does not possess physicality. We know God the Father through Jesus because “in [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). “[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). One of the marks of W-F theology is the redefining of Biblical words and concepts. The word spirit seems to have suffered the same fate. Are we spirits? What about Jesus? Was he a spirit? How did he define spirit?

We know Jesus is not a spirit because he took great pains to prove this fact when he had risen from the dead. Jesus’ disciples thought they were seeing “a spirit” when he appeared to them yet Jesus corrected their misperceptions by saying, “For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Lk. 24:39). His statement is clear. He is not a spirit, but a human being with corresponding physicality. Spirits by nature do not possess physicality. This however is not a denial that human beings are spiritual. We are certainly spiritual because we have a spirit yet we are not a spirit. Our being consists of a body and spirit/soul unity. God meant for us to be physical. This is the point of a promised resurrection with Christ as the first fruits. The resurrection guarantees our continued existence as physical beings yet our physically resurrected and glorified bodies will be completely under the control of a supernatural/spiritual nature yet this does not deny physicality. Therefore it is more accurate to say that we are spiritual beings as opposed to saying we are spirits.

Here’s some further insight from Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology:

In the New Testament spirit is also seen as that dimension of human personality whereby relationship with God is possible (Mark 2:8 ; Acts 7:59 ; Rom 1:9 ; 8:16 ; 1 Cor 5:3-5 ). It is this human spiritual nature that enables continuing conversation with the divine Spirit (Rom 8:9-17).

To be fair here is a larger portion of the earlier mentioned quote,

“…we are a spirit , just like God and therefore, are able to hear God if we are spirits washed in the blood, able to then connect with God, through Jesus.”

If this quote means what the Baker Evangelical Dictionary means then there really isn’t an issue with it. The dictionary however relegates spirit as a “dimension of human personality” and not the totality of it.