Cohabitation of spirits is actually required for everlasting life in the body of humanity. While a double souled human is disqualified to receive anything from God. The definitions of soul and spirit do seem to be critically important.

Romans 8:9

YLT ⁹ And ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God doth dwell in you; and if any one hath not the Spirit of Christ—this one is not His;

Romans 8:16

YLT ¹⁶ The Spirit himself doth testify with our spirit, that we are children of God;

Romans 8:26-27

YLT ²⁶ And, in like manner also, the Spirit doth help our weaknesses; for, what we may pray for, as it behoveth us, we have not known, but the Spirit himself doth make intercession for us with groanings unutterable, ²⁷ and He who is searching the hearts hath known what is the mind of the Spirit, because according to God he doth intercede for saints.

Everybody seems to know what a soul is when they use the word in a conversation. So why is the definition so controversial? Serial killers don’t have a soul, at least not a good one or a human one. That is why we lock them up or execute them. We cant control their spirits. Their unique spirit leaves their body when they die just like it does when anybody else dies. Whether we have good souls, bad souls or no soul, we all die when the spirit leaves the body. A body without a spirit becomes lifeless. If the soul is typically in the blood then does one’s last breath contain the soul or is the spirit or both? This is where we stumble with our definitions. We sometimes conclude that spirit and soul are the same.

The newborn’s first breath is not his or her spirit entering the baby body. The baby body was already receiving oxygen via the umbilical cord or he or she would not be alive and growing. The mother breathes for the pre-born baby, yet the mother’s blood is not allowed to commingle with the baby body or the baby will actually die. The baby body must carry oxygen within a separate blood supply from the very start. The typical taboo of not introducing any outside blood into the body seems to be honored from the inception of life itself. There is only one exception. The blood or breath of Christ is actually a requirement for rebirth. Specifically fullness of life or everlasting life. This is called being born again. So how can we sort this out?

A dying person’s last breath (or the so called ‘death rattle’) could represent the spirit (the essential and unique life form that is you) leaving the body. Every spirit has a unique personality. Even identical twins have two different personalities. They don’t have the same exact spirit in two different bodies. The body does contribute to the personality but the spirit is the essential you. Jesus said into your hands I commit My spirit then He ex-spirited or breathed out (exhaled) His last. Yet Peter speaks of Jesus’ soul in Hades. Paul speaks of all the souls saved from drowning after the boat was demolished by a storm. Was Jesus’ spirit in God’s hands in heaven while His soul was in Hades? Or is that a phrase that indicates a place of trust rather than a location? Jacob warns the 12 tribes not too be double souled. Paul says, the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Unless you have two spirits in you, you do not have eternal life. If you however have two souls you can expect to receive nothing from God. Can we sort this all out? Is God’s Word rational?

Demons were soulless spirits. At least they didn’t have a God given soul. They never had an assigned body to live in, on land or in water or in heaven. They were the offspring produced by an angel rebellion. This fallen angel crossbreed that was never meant to be was stuck on land, in between realms. The spirits of the Nephilim roamed the land looking for a body to steal. They were hanging around God’s land. Like their fathers, they were most attracted to the human souls. Jesus cast them out of human bodies in order to restore His order to His people. Jesus was healing all the humans He met. Even humans who were powerless to speak for themselves. The demons may have projected their personal sin onto their perceived destiny. “Have you come to torment us before our time?” They were tormentors.

Demons overpowered humans: body, soul and spirit. The demon-possessed human no longer acted human. His or her soul did not possess his or her spirit to behave properly. Jesus restored the human soul by way of spirit exorcism. Two or more spirits in one body made people crazy because at least one of the unwanted spirits were unholy. When Nephilim died in the flood they did not go to Hades and join the humans who died in the same flood. Jesus specifically visited those humans in Hades when He died in the land of humanity. Jesus did not die to release demons from Hades. There were no demons in Hades as far as I am told. Even the fallen angels who fell further than the fallen humans were temporarily being kept in Tartarus. Tartarus is a lower place that was created to temporarily keep fallen angels, not fallen demons. Demons were born fallen and irredeemable. Fallen angels like demons were irredeemable creatures but the demons had no choice. The angels chose to fall.

The human souls were waiting for their salvation in Hades. The nephilim were not. But the spirits of the nephilim did not cease to exist when they exhaled their last breath. Whether they had a soul or not is debatable but one thing is for sure, it was not a God given soul. It was not a human soul or an angel soul either. So where did these evil spirits go when they left their hybrid body? What kind of soul did these hybrids have? Did demons even have souls? Ironically, the evil spirits that settled on a body of pigs after Jesus cast them out of a human body, were drowned again. It was like another typical judgement. The pigs breathed their last rather than share a body with another spirit.

Cohabitation of spirits is actually required for everlasting life in the body of humanity. While a double souled human is disqualified to receive anything from God. The definitions of soul and spirit do seem to be important. Jacob wrote to the 12 tribes while the law still had standing. James seems severely legalistic to us who are completely in the new covenant now and were never in the old covenant. The Jews in the land who claimed to keep the law weren’t keeping it. Their only hope was the new covenant faith of their messiah.

James 1:6-8- Jacob to the 12 tribes in covenant transition

YLT ⁶ and let him ask in faith, nothing doubting, for he who is doubting hath been like a wave of the sea, driven by wind and tossed, ⁷ for let not that man [human] suppose that he shall receive anything from the Lord— ⁸ a two-souled man [human] is unstable in all his ways.

There were four living souls created before the human soul was created to tame them all. The living souls ruled all the spirits on earth. One soul was created to rule them all: the human soul as lived out in Christ came to rule all creation. The 12 tribes were obviously failing to completely fulfill Adam’s great commission until they received the Holy Spirit sent from heaven by their Messiah. He enabled them to be single souled by way of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the perfect image of the human soul. The 12 tribes were pre-evangelizing the nations with their law. Like the legal letter Jacob wrote to the 12 tribes, the law points out the need for the Messiah. The Holy Spirit gives new covenant life to the body.

James 3:7-10

CLV ⁷ For every nature, both of wild beasts and flying creatures, both of reptiles and those of the salt sea, is tamed and has been tamed by human nature.” ⁸ Yet the tongue can no man tame – a turbulent evil, distended with death-carrying venom.” ⁹ With it we are blessing the Lord and Father, and with it we are cursing men who have come to be in accord with God’s likeness.” ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth is coming forth blessing and cursing. There is no need, my brethren, for this to become thus.”

James 4:8

YLT ⁸ draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you; cleanse hands, ye sinners! and purify hearts, ye two-souled!

Colossians was written toward the end of the transition of covenants. Jacob had addressed the 12 tribes toward the beginning of their transition from law keeping in the flesh. We who were never under law are not usually claiming to keep the law. If anything we modern day humans overly emphasize our inability to do right while in the flesh, even though born again people are biblically no longer in the flesh. Old covenant souls were all in the flesh until they were born again. The breath of the Holy Spirit is the new covenant human soul.

Colossians 1:8-22

YLT ⁸ who also did declare to us your love in the Spirit. ⁹ Because of this, we also, from the day in which we heard, do not cease praying for you, and asking that ye may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ¹⁰ to your walking worthily of the Lord to all pleasing, in every good work being fruitful, and increasing to the knowledge of God, ¹¹ in all might being made mighty according to the power of His glory, to all endurance and long-suffering with joy. ¹² Giving thanks to the Father who did make us meet for the participation of the inheritance of the saints in the light, ¹³ who did rescue us out of the authority of the darkness, and did translate us into the reign [must be born again to enter the kingdom] of the Son of His love, ¹⁴ in whom we have the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of the sins, ¹⁵ who is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation, ¹⁶ because in him were the all things created, those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities; all things through him, and for him, have been created, ¹⁷ and himself is before all, and the all things in him have consisted. ¹⁸ And himself is the head of the body—the assembly—who is a beginning, a first-born out of the dead, [Jesus wasn’t the first born out of the dead until He died and was born again by the Holy Spirit] that he might become in all things —himself—first, ¹⁹ because in him it did please all the fulness to tabernacle, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile the all things to himself—having made peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether the things upon the earth, whether the things in the heavens. ²¹ And you—once being alienated, and enemies in the mind, in the evil works, yet now did he reconcile, ²² in the body of his flesh through the death, to present you holy, and unblemished, and unblameable before himself,