What? Two spirits? Don’t worry, I’m not selling out to heresy! It’s just that the Bible says that there are two spirits at work in the hearts of Christians — the Holy Spirit and the human spirit. The Holy Spirit gives life as he breathes the Word of God into our hearts, the human spirit acts in response to the Word revealed by the Holy Spirit. The two spirits couldn’t be more different.
The Holy Spirit is God, is therefore perfect and is in sovereign control. Our human spirits, by contrast, are imperfect, they are responsive rather than sovereign, and each person’s human spirit responds differently (and sometimes inconsistently) to different stimuli. For example, Hednesford Town get knocked out on penalties by Salisbury City in the final of the Zamaretto league play-offs. My human spirit — despair; Salisbury City supporter’s human spirit — joy (presumably, though I haven’t met a Salisbury City supporter).
A confusion
What I’ve found is that in Christian music there’s grown up a confusion between the functions of the Holy Spirit and the functions of the human spirit. For instance, each individual’s human spirit is affected differently by music. Some are affected deeply by certain types of music, others are not affected at all by any type of music whatsoever! Now if we confuse the response of the human spirit with the movement of the Holy Spirit, then the response of our human spirit is in danger of becoming the benchmark of our experience of the Holy Spirit.
