But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? Job 14:10.
An astute reader left a message in the comments regarding the last post titled, A Simple Understanding of the Holy Ghost Part I.
{The statement that "A ghost is the soul and spirit of a person combined" deserves a follow up post.}
Sooner or later, every person calling themselves a Bible Believer needs to take time to understand the terms that are used in the King James bible. The translators were men who were comfortable reading, writing, conversing and thinking in the original languages. Their gift to us was that they selected the exact and scientific terms necessary to convey to us what they so ably understood. A King James Bible never uses arbitrary or uncertain words to describe the inner processes and workings of man.
Is there a difference between thoughts and thoughts of the heart? If you believe your bible there certainly is. Even as you read this using your conscious flow of thought, there is another source of thought within you that never quits. Perhaps as you read this you are uncomfortable about a bill. Perhaps as you think about what I'm saying, you keep wondering when your wife will call. One key to being a successful teacher is to get the student to focus their primary thought process on the lesson. Even as the student concentrates upon his lesson, he wonders what is for lunch.
Your bible seeks to make you aware of your inner workings. The word "heart" is in your bible in both its plural and singular forms 946 times. If you will take the time to look up each and every occurrence, you can understand what the King James translators were reading in the original languages. If you look it up in a commentary, you will know what one insignificant man thought the word meant. Rarely does a commentary's definition of a word line up with a full study of the word throughout scripture.
Even worse is a lexicon. Most lexicons are the attempt by some scholar to superimpose his theology upon his readers by narrowing the meaning of a word to just what he wants you to see. You didn't learn your native language by looking words up in dictionaries. You learned by hearing a word over and over and by discerning its meaning through the context in which it was used. Part of being a King James Bible Believer is knowing that every word can yield up its meaning through that exact process.
Words like "heart", "mind", "thought", "soul", "spirit" and "ghost" all have exact definitions that can be defined by examining them in context. We cannot allow Stephen King and Holywood to define a word like "ghost" for us. Apart from the Holy Ghost in its 90 mentions, the word "ghost" is mentioned 19 times. In each instance it is talking about what a man yields up upon death. Man yields up his spirit and his soul when he dies. The English word for the complete unit for the soul and spirit along with all of a person's memories, feelings, and even appearance is "ghost".
When Samuel yielded up the ghost as all men eventually do, he went to Abraham's bosom to rest and await the resurrection of Jesus Christ wherein he could ascend on high with Jesus Christ. Using a woman with a familiar spirit, Saul disturbed him. And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? 1st Samuel 28:15. Samuel was recognizable, he had his memories and he could think. He was a ghost whose body lay in a grave.
It is not until the death of Jesus Christ that spirit and soul were separated. Using the sword of the spirit, the word of God, Jesus had his soul cut from his spirit so that his soul which was made an offering for sin bore our sins and went into the lower parts of the earth. His spirit was yielded to the Father. That is the spiritual circumcision of Christ. It is through that circumcision that we are able to put off the body of the sins of the flesh. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Colossians 2:11.
There has never been a time when man did not need the grace of God to be saved. What processes happened to men who received the grace of God has surely changed throughout the bible. Samuel did not have his soul and spirit separated and he was not granted immediate access to heaven. Nevertheless, he died in faith and his ghost rested in hope.