Article of the Month
"The Spiritual Beings, the Spiritual Laws & the Spiritual World
as described in the Bible with acceptable Facts & Figures"
By Dr. John Williams
 

Introduction
The physical, natural & artificial things are known and experienced by people living on the planet earth daily. All these things including
· The men and women living on this earth
· The animals living in the forest
· The birds flying in the air
· Fishes swimming in water
· Plants and trees in the forest
· Water in the rivers, ponds and sea etc., are known to us very well. 

But the force or the power or the energy that coordinates, controls and regulates the formation and the existence of every thing listed above, in a very orderly fashion and a systematic way on a daily basis, by supplying adequate oxygen to breath for the living creatures and for the trees and plants to take in the carbon dioxide exhaled by the living creatures and to inhale oxygen for the existence of the people, living on this planet earth and for the other living creatures, in a conducive environment to get the supply of food and water needed by each living creature is certainly something marvelous and incredible.

Further, as we dig deep into the earth, we can discover several chemicals, metals and other substances as well as some living worms and micro organisms, which play a vital role for the plants to exist and the presence of these innumerable chemicals and substances in minute particles which are collected by men to make huge metal structures and to use some of them to make a wide variety of medicines which have the characteristics to cure a wide variety of sicknesses and diseases that come up human beings and other living creatures. Certainly it will not be acceptable to any intelligent human being to assume that everything that is existing on planet earth is nearly something that developed by itself from something unknown over a period of millions of years, because there is a design, plan and coordination for the continued survival of all the living creatures on this earth, and for their continued existence for several thousand years.

At this juncture I would challenge anyone that has no exposure to the contents of the Bible to take a look at the facts and figures given in the Bible with archaeological, geographical, geological, historical and documentary evidence. The hypothesis that I would like to make, and to subject the same to a rigorous test, is stated below:
"There is an unknown factor, force or power that is operating on this planet earth which regulates and governs everything that happens not only on this planet, but also in the entire universe in which the world is just one of the millions of planets, that are there surrounding the earth, some of which are even millions of miles away, and the sun in particular provides for the existence of the living creatures on the planet earth just adequate light and heat for the survival of the living creatures living on the planet earth and to sustain the life of the plant kingdom as well, which is referred to in the Bible as "The Spirit"."

We may put this hypothesis to test by addressing the subject of the spiritual reality under the following 3 headings:

1. The Spiritual Beings
According to the Bible the supreme spiritual being that created and controls the entire universe and its destiny is referred to as God. God is described in the Bible as omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (present everywhere) and omniscient (knows everything). God who is governing the whole universe, is also governing the planet earth. God's special focus, interest and identification with human beings is also clearly stated in the first chapter of Genesis which is the first book of Bible, in which it is stated that God created man in his own image and after his likeness. Further details about the creation of man is given as follows:
God took some cosmic dust in his hand, formed a man out of it, and breathed his spirit into his nostrils, when he became a living soul. At this point some clarifications and amplifications have to be given for certain things. Even though man has been endowed with a human body he has been given a soul and a spirit. Therefore, man is a spiritual being living on earth in the human body, with a soul. The Bible says that this soul of man consist of a mind, emotion and will. Now we can identify the relationship between God the supreme spiritual being and the man who is a human being living on this earth with a soul and a spirit. The human body that was created by God originally was designed and built in such a way to have perpetual existence on this planet earth. However, because our God is a holy God and the man whom he created in his own nature and likeness as a spiritual being was corrupted and contaminated by unholiness or unrighteousness called sin, God set a certain time limit for the existence of man on the planet earth which was initially a little over 900 years, but later on, because of the sinful activities committed by men, God further reduced the life span of man to 120 or even less than that. It is interesting to know through the recent research and discovery of stem cells, which are in the superficial layers of the skin as well as in the bone marrow, and also in larger quantities in the umbilical cord, which is, in our days, preserved by the parents in hospitals in their names under controlled conditions in order to keep them healthy and live for future use of their family members who may fall sick and require administration of these stem cells into their bodies to regenerate and to restore some organs in the human body. Before God pronounced death in the life of the human being, these cells stored in the human body, had the ability to reach the human organs through the blood stream and to rebuild or restore the infected or worn out tissues in the vital parts of the human body, which proves the fact, that man was created to live eternally like God.

The term soul is clearly defined in I Thessalonians Chapter 5 verse 23 as constituted by 3 compounds namely, the Will, the Mind and the Emotion. There is no other explanation in any medical or other literature for the term soul, even though these 3 compounds are universally accepted as present in every body, and each one of them has certain specific abilities and a role. Further, the Bible states that when a person dies, the human body goes back to the dust of the earth whether the body is disposed of by burial or cremation, but the soul and the spirit of the man leave the body because it has eternal life. The scientist and the doctors in the hospitals are not able to explain scientifically neither what life is nor what death is until now, but they pronounce a man or a woman as dead when all the vital signs of the human body such as the pulse indicating the breathing of the lungs and the breathing of the heart, are not there..

It should be noted at this juncture that only human beings are spiritual beings and all the other living creatures are not.

Man was created as God's sons and daughters, specifically for Him to love and to have fellowship with them, and he had fellowship with him daily even in the Garden of Eden where the first man and woman were created. As we look into the other books of the Bible, we find this expression of fellowship (by walking and talking) used in numerous places referring to Abraham, Noah, Enoch etc. etc., indicating that they walked with God, meaning that they had almost continuous fellowship with God, in their life on a daily basis.

It is also mentioned in the Books of Prophecies that:
· When this world comes to an end about 6000 years from the year of creation
· All the saints of God will rapture and will be caught up in the mid air with Jesus Christ and rule this earth along with Him in a glorified body for one thousand years referred to in the Bible as the millennium.

All the truths and facts mentioned in the Bible about the spiritual beings cannot be mentioned in this preliminary chapter, because it will only give an introduction to the vast, infinite and abstract subject for the human intellect to grasp, but will be continued in the subsequent series of this articles on the same title.

Perhaps, it should be mentioned that God created angelic beings before he created human beings, and perhaps they are more in number and they were created as ministering spirits and were given the task of playing instruments and worshipping God in heaven and also to carry messages to the human beings living on earth or to execute an order given to them.

There were some powerful archangels, which had more beauty, authority and had direct access to God himself, and one of them was called Lucifer who excelled all the other angelic beings in beauty, riches and power. This archangel called Lucifer, because of pride, desired to ascend even above God at which time God discerned his attitude and kicked him out of heaven, and he fell on the planet earth and he his called Satan, and when he left heaven he influenced and took with him one third of the angelic forces and only two thirds of the angels still remain with God, and are loyal to him carrying out his orders. Many instances are recorded in the Bible about the assignments carried out by these angels in the life of human beings by communicating messages and even destroying some towns by setting fire as per the instruction of God. Similarly, the works of Satan and the demons on this earth interfering with God's plan and tempting people to sin against God and deceiving people.

In this section of the article some basic explanations and descriptions are given about
· God as the supreme Spiritual Being
· Angels continuously minister to God and carry out his assignments
· Satan and devils which are the fallen angels that rebelled against God, are trying to tempt God's children living on the planet earth
   in the form of human beings to fall into sins
· Human beings living on the planet earth, whose existence began when God created the first man Adam in the Garden of Eden out
  of the dust and breathing into his nostrils his spirit, when he became a living soul with a capacity to love and to have fellowship with
  God and with several other spiritual attributes
· Man has the capacity to grow in the spiritual dimension and more specifically can have the nature of God himself namely, love, joy,
  peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.
· Further man also has the capacity to receive special spiritual gifts of God and exercise them during his life such as the gift of
  prophecy, the gift of interpretation, the gift of diverse tongues, the gift of miracles etc., which cannot be comprehended or
  accepted by an intelligent human being, if he is not filled with the Holy Spirit.

This first chapter on this subject, only a brief introduction has been given about God, the spiritual aspect of man and the spiritual world in which we are living. More information will be given in a series of articles, which will follow.

2. The Spiritual Laws
We should note that the spiritual world overlays, cuts through or is superimposed on this physical planet earth and all the living creatures. While the natural laws are operating on the planet earth such as:
· The law of gravity
· The law of hydraulics
· The law of magnetism
· The law of aeronautics
· The law of motion
· The law of thermodynamics
· The law of heat etc.

the spiritual laws which operate in the whole universe including the earth supersedes a natural law at times which is described by the people living on earth as something supernatural or a miracle.

It is therefore important to understand the fact, that the planet earth on which the human beings and all the other living creatures are living govern by a set of natural laws, God the supreme spiritual being of the entire universe, of which the earth is one of the millions of planets is more interested in watching over every human being, and frequently slices through this planet in a variety of ways suspending temporarily the natural laws that are operating on this earth which puzzles the intellectual mind of the human beings, because their knowledge is merely limited to the natural laws that operate which have been researched and studied intensely by the human beings, and written down as scientific principles, but whenever some thing happens that cannot be explained by the scientific theories, they simply take the position that what ever is reported as in the Bible is just not true.

3. The Spiritual World
The earlier sections of this article has given adequate introduction to undertake seriously a research and study of the spiritual world and the spiritual laws of God, which normally operates in the universe outside of the planet earth, but for various reasons and different times, God had to cut into the world in which we are living for reasons stated above, temporarily suspending the natural laws and many such instances are recorded in the Bible, but to an intelligent and scientific human mind such things are hard to comprehend, accept or digest. Therefore, they simply rule them out as not true, a religious belief and just a fable.

Conclusion
Based on the limited information given in the foregoing sections of this article, the writer of this article, would be satisfied if this article would arose the curiosity of the readers to pursue the study or openness to know more about God the supreme spiritual being, and how he is governing the whole universe including the planet earth focusing his primary attention, interest and even love for the human beings whom he created as spiritual beings on this planet earth, and is continuously watching over them and is regulating the environment to ensure that there is justice and that every one will be born in the spirit and begin their spiritual life, established their communication and fellowship with God and reciprocate their love for him enjoying a little bit of heaven, while they are living on this earth, toiling vigorously as per his will for the life of each human being to propagate the gospel which is the good news to the whole world to redeem them from their sinful life and would live a holy and righteous life having fellowship with God and finally making it to heaven to live with him eternally.

-The End-