was made a living soul.” There the “breath of life” inspired by God signifies no more, but that God gave him life; and (Job 27:3), “as long as the Spirit of God is in my nostrils,” is no more than to say, “as long as I live.” So in Ezek. 1:20, “the spirit of life was in the wheels,” is equivalent to, “the wheels were alive.” And ( Ezek. 2:2), “the Spirit entered into me, and set me on my feet,” that is, “I recovered my vital strength”; not that any ghost or incorporeal substance entered into, and possessed his body.
In Numbers 11:17, “I will take,” saith God, “of the Spirit, which is upon thee, and will put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee”; that is, upon the seventy elders: whereupon two of the seventy are said to prophesy in the camp; of whom some complained, and Joshua desired Moses to forbid them; which Moses would not do. Whereby it appears, that Joshua knew not that they had received authority so to do, and prophesied according to the mind of Moses, that is to say, by a “spirit,” or “authority” subordinate to his own.
In the like sense we read ( Deut. 34:9), that “Joshua was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands upon him”: that is, because he was “ordained” by Moses to prosecute the work he had himself begun, namely, the bringing of God’s people into the promised land, but prevented by death, could not finish.
In the like sense it is said ( Rom. 8:9), “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His”; not meaning thereby the “ghost” of Christ, but a “submission” to His doctrine. As also (1 John 4:2), “Hereby you shall know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God”; by which is meant the spirit of unfeigned Christianity, or “submission,” to that main article of Christian faith, that Jesus is the Christ; which cannot be interpreted of a ghost.
Likewise these words (Luke 4:1), “And Jesus full of the Holy Ghost,” (that is, as it is expressed, Matt. 4:1, and Mark 1:12, “of the Holy Spirit,”)