The Spirit/Flesh Connection

My focus, here, is a single verse. It is Luke 1:35. This verse describes the conception of the son of God. Here, the wording is critical, for the same words that describe the conception of Jesus Christ also describe the creation of Adam.

What are we looking at? Luke 1:35 says, “And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

These are the questions we should ask. How are spirit and flesh connected? How does a spiritual entity engender a mortal offspring? What part of that engendered being is holy? How is the creation of Adam like the conception of Jesus,and finally, why did the angel express distance from Mary's child?

Let's take it slow – one step at a time. First, I wish to restate my long-held belief that our spirit and mind are one and the same. All that I will iterate in this study is predicated on that belief. It is the mind, that is to say: the spirit within a man, that connects us to God. Jesus clearly declared that flesh and spirit are like oil and water.

He said in John 3:6, “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.” They are separate, unlike, distinct. If the flesh, therefore, is a non-spiritual entity, how may God, a spirit, find a place in mortal man? It is through the mind, not the brain, that God connects himself to flesh. It was that way from the start.

Recall the creation of Adam – who was no more than flesh until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This is found in Genesis 2:7 and it is only after the fleshly element and the spiritual element are combined that Adam is called a living soul. From this, I gather that before the breath of life was administered, Adam was just another soul, as might have been said of any of the animals God had created without an application of the breath of life. I also gather from this – that is, a breath of life from a totally spiritual entity – that the life we are actually considering, here, is spiritual life. In other words, a living soul is a soul with spiritual life added.

Another consideration is this, how can a spiritual God, who is in no way, shape or form anything even remotely resembling flesh, say 'let us make man in our image, after our likeness?' For that matter, what exactly would be the image and likeness of an invisible spiritual entity?

Jesus, on the other hand, was a very physical identity. He was a flesh and blood man born of a flesh and blood woman. Yet, it is said he was engendered by an entity who was not flesh and blood. How does that even work? This is how the angel explained it to Mary: ' the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.'

Still confused? Is that meant to read the Holy Ghost and the power of the Highest, or the Holy Ghost as the power of the Highest? I believe it is the latter and for this reason – the Bible is written in such a way that many things are repeated, but they don't simply say the exact same thing: they say the same thing a different way. What the angel said was that the Holy Spirit was the power of God.

It was the Holy Spirit that would overshadow Mary and make something like Adam, but with a twist. Whereas Adam, and all men, have been flesh with a spiritual insertion, Jesus was to be a spirit with an extension of flesh. In our cases, even though we share a part of God, it is still the flesh that rules. The flesh has quite a will and bends all reason to its own advantage – we are the swine in the parable of the swine and the pearl. That is a tragically difficult obstacle for our spiritual element to overcome. Our minds are overwhelmed by our flesh.

Christ, on the other hand, was configured differently. He was the same flesh as any of us, but it was his mind, the Holy Spirit, that activated and actualized the flesh, reigning it in to the creative will of the Father from the beginning.

What was the reasoning of the angel on this point? He told Mary that because the Holy Spirit was holy the flesh would be also, and flesh Christ was because the angel referred to him as that holy 'thing'. It sounds a bit snooty on the part of the angel, as if it placed distance between the child to be born, as flesh, and itself, as spiritual, or as if the angel had to reassure itself of its own superiority, being no part flesh.

It is only the spiritual part of a Christ man that makes him holy: his flesh is an extension of all that holiness. So, here is the surprising good news – the spirit that was breathed into Adam, the spirit that drew flesh to itself and bent it to the will of God, or the spirit that was breathed upon the disciples when Christ imparted the Holy Ghost: it is all one and the same spirit. You and I share with Jesus the Very spirit of God. Sure, we have a lot to overcome, but we also have a good reason to move forward. Thank you, Holy Spirit.