Exchanging of Spirits

Psalms 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me."

Some Churches teach that when a person is born again that he receives a "new spirit" and that his "old spirit" is automatically destroyed (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26). It is not true that our old spirit is destroyed. Our spirit (Hebrew ruach, Greek pneuma) is our personality, our being, the part of us that existed before we were born and which will exist after we have died. It is the real self.

Ezekiel 11:19, "And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:"

Ezekiel 36:25-27, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."

There can be little doubt that all these passages refer to the Holy Spirit which "cleanses" and "purifies." There is no evidence either here or elsewhere in the scripture that our own spirits are exchanged for new ones.

Rather, the consistent picture of the Scriptures, no better illustrated than in Jesus' parable of the leaven (Lk.13:20-21), is that God's Spirit -- the Holy Spirit -- enters a believer and begins to effect a gradual change on his own spirit, as he is true and faithful to the commandments. The Holy Spirit, like the leaven in the lump of dough, which is the human spirit, gradually transforms the soul to become more Christ-like. This process is called sanctification (1 Thes.5:23).

Here are some examples of our "spirit" being our personality, to describe certain feelings or acts:

An evil spirit (Judges 9:23), the spirit of the dead (Lev.20:27), spirit of jealously (Num.5:14), a sorrowful spirit (1 Sam.1:15), a contrite spirit (Psalm 34:18), a broken spirit (Psalm 51:17), a haughty spirit (Prov.16:18), a spirit of judgment and burning (Isaiah 4:4), a perverse spirit (Isaiah 19:14), the spirit of deep sleep (Isaiah 29:10), a troubled spirit (Daniel 2:1), the spirit of whoredoms (Hosea 4:12), an unclean spirit (Mat.12:43), a dumb spirit (Mark 9:17), a foul spirit (Mark 9:25), a spirit of infirmity (Luke 13:11), a spirit of divination (Acts 16:16), a spirit of bondage (Romans 8:15), the spirit of the world (1 Corinthians 2:12), seducing spirits (1 Timothy 4:1), the spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7), a foul spirit (Rev.18:2), a spirit of error (1 John 4:13), or the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2).

This teaching on the "exchanging of spirits" is a very dangerous one because it leads to the terrible illusion that a man has, in some way, been completely transformed into a Christ-like person instantaneously upon profession of faith in Christ. And this, in turn, can lead people to believe that they are no longer capable of sin, that they have automatically made it to heaven, and many other pernicious heresies.

The Saviour and the apostles consistently taught that the transformation of a soul into the image of Christ is a gradual process. To get this point across He consistently used allegories like the growth of crops (Matthew 13:31), and the birth of a baby (Hebrews 5:13-14), which goes through a process of gestation after conception, and growth after birth. Common sense alone ought to tell us that we continue to sin -- only Christ has lived a life without sinning (Hebrews 4:15). Those who say they are without sin are not only deceiving themselves and others, but they are trying to win over to the Gospel (1 John 1:8) by puffing themselves up in vanity (Colossians 2:18). And vanity is iniquity (Jeremiah 2:5).

Once again we can see how false doctrine leads to a complete perversion of the Gospel and takes souls deeper into sin. One of the fruits of false doctrine is invariably arrogance and a lack of humility: "For the Lord taketh pleasure in His people: He will beautify the meek with salvation" (Psalms 149:4).