Spirit of Christ

[Unveiled Artist]

I have a question for you guys.

Is the spirit of Christ the same as having the spirit of, say, your ancestor in you?​

For example, everyone has a spirit regardless of who they are, time, culture, or status. I was looking at African religions and how ancestral spirits and other spirits possess believers in ritual prayer. It's beautiful. I wouldn't compare that to Christ in the sense that they are the same. However, just having the spirit of Christ inside you, I will say, is spirit his actual being or person or is it a different type of spirit? How do you define the spirit (descriptive noun rather than proper noun) of Christ? Do you define it as a person's soul, an uplifted feeling, or?

Just watching a movie and was reading about honoring one's ancestors. When we do things in the name of our ancestors (my experience), we literally have their spirit in us. They are ourselves, our being, and who we are.

Is that the same as having the spirit of Christ?

 

[arthra]

Is the spirit of Christ the same as having the spirit of, say, your ancestor in you?

If you read the Gospel I would suggest they are different... that is the spirit of my ancestor is not the same as the Spirit of Christ...

There is, however, another Spirit, which may be termed the Divine, to which Jesus Christ refers when He declares that man must be born of its quickening and baptized with its living fire. Souls deprived of that Spirit are accounted as dead, though they are possessed of the human spirit. Jesus Christ has pronounced them dead inasmuch as they have no portion of the Divine Spirit.

He says, "Let the dead bury their dead." In another instance He declares, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

By this He means that souls, though alive in the human kingdom, are nevertheless dead if devoid of this particular spirit of divine quickening. They have not partaken of the divine life of the higher Kingdom, for the soul which partakes of the power of the Divine Spirit is, verily, living.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 58

 

[Unveiled Artist]

If you read the Gospel I would suggest they are different... that is the spirit of my ancestor is not the same as the Spirit of Christ...

There is, however, another Spirit, which may be termed the Divine, to which Jesus Christ refers when He declares that man must be born of its quickening and baptized with its living fire. Souls deprived of that Spirit are accounted as dead, though they are possessed of the human spirit. Jesus Christ has pronounced them dead inasmuch as they have no portion of the Divine Spirit.

He says, "Let the dead bury their dead." In another instance He declares, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

By this He means that souls, though alive in the human kingdom, are nevertheless dead if devoid of this particular spirit of divine quickening. They have not partaken of the divine life of the higher Kingdom, for the soul which partakes of the power of the Divine Spirit is, verily, living.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 58

That would mean the ancestors, because they do not have the divine spirit in the Christian view, they are dead? What about the ancestors are in Christ?

I'm asking more when Christ was alive, he has a spirit just as I do and just as our families. When Jesus died, his spirit/divine goes into believers.

I'm not saying it's the same thing, I'm just wondering if it's similar.

Since Christ is spirit just as my family is. My family is who I am because they are a part of me. Is Christ's spirit who a Christian is because his spirit is a part of that Christian?

How can I say?

How is my family's spirit in me different than the spirit of Christ in a christian? Can you find ways that it is similar? (I know it's not the same) If you can, what are the similarities?

 

[arthra]

No... rather our ancestors are human as we are..but the Spirit is not identical with human souls. We make mistakes. I'm answering also from the perspective of the Baha'i teachings that we are not identical with the Spirit of Christ.