Chapter 4: Spirit, Soul, and Body

As we saw in the last study, man is made up of three parts: like God, man is a tri-unity. Theologians call this the tripartite nature of man. Man is not complete without all three parts—body, soul, and spirit. At first glance it might seem to be an unimportant quibble whether man is bipartite (soul and body), or tripartite (spirit, soul, and body). But believe me this is not merely academic; recognition of the three parts of man offers fruitful insight into many scriptures.

Quite a few Bible students say that in Scripture spirit and soul are used interchangeably and that it’s impossible to separate them. Granted it’s impossible to separate spirit from soul in actual life—there would be no soul without spirit. Soul flows out of spirit, which is its element; and spirit flows into the soul to maintain its existence. The spirit is the innermost part of us, the foundation of our souls. Without spirit we would have no life, either of body or soul. It’s not easy to distinguish the soul from the spirit, though Scripture does distinguish them. 

I Thess. 5:23:  “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

Heb. 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” 

The spirit is the spring and source of our existence. Since God is Himself spirit (John 4:24), our spirit is that part of man that can touch God directly, the only part in which God can reside.

In unregenerate man the spirit exists as the animating principle of our body—“the body without the spirit is dead” (James 2:26). It is also, I believe, the source of what we call intuition—the direct immediate knowledge we sometimes have that seems to have no traceable source. Even non-Christians experience ‘hunches,’ impressions, various kinds of unexplainable ‘knowing.’ And that’s what we would expect, for Scripture recognizes spirit in all men.

Job 32:8: But there is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding.” 

Prov. 20:27: “ The lamp of the LORD searches the spirit of a man; [Or The spirit of man is the LORD’s lamp] it searches out his inmost being.” 

Unlike the impressions of intuition, the gifts of the Spirit are only available to born-again believers. Those gifts that involve knowledge—“word of wisdom," "word of knowledge," "discerning of spirits," "prophecy"—occur when the Holy Spirit relays to the human spirit a certain knowledge, which is then imparted to the soul (conscious mind) directly without any discernible cognitive path.  

I don’t hope in this study to give a to give a comprehensive explanation of spirit soul, and body; but we will gain some insight into their respective places in our redemption. When we die our bodies decay and return to the elements, where they await their resurrection, “some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). Redeemed souls and “the spirits of righteous men made perfect” (Heb. 12:23) go to “be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23) “in Paradise” (Luke 23:43: II Cor. 12:4; Rev. 2:7). The souls and spirits of all others go into Hades, where they await the last judgment (Rev. 20:5; Heb. 9:27; II Pet. 2:9).

The souls and spirits of men are not complete without the Body. Unlike the Greeks, who thought of the body as a kind of prison in which the soul is trapped, the Hebrew could scarcely imagine himself without a body. The Greek model of the human being says that man is a spirit, he has a soul, and he lives in a body.  But the Bible says: “God breathed into Man the breath of life and he became a living soul (nephesh).” Thus man's soul was created by a joining of Divine breath (Spirit?) and Adam’s body.  For this reason, the soul has qualities of both the spirit and of the body. In modern terms he is psychosomatic: that is, his body (soma) is influenced by his soul (psyche); and vice-versa: his body influences his soul.

After his sin Adam died spiritually; that is, his spirit was somehow separated from God. It remained as the animating principle of soul and body, and as the intuition and God-aspiring element in man; but it was dead with respect to God. This connection is reestablished in the new birth (I Peter 1:22; John 3:6).

The body relates to the material world through the five senses—seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. By the body we experience the world and other people and things. The biblical idea of a restored, spiritual body (I Cor. 15:44) is closely related to the revelation of a future renovated earth (Isa. 66:17; 66:22; Rev. 21:1).  Judaism and Christianity are the only two major religions to recognize the importance of the body. No other religion declares that the body will be redeemed, glorified, and reunited with the soul.  We could sum up the respective functions of each part as follows:  The body is the instrument of world-consciousness by means of the five senses. The soul is the realm of self-consciousness and is composed of mind, emotions, and will. The spirit is the realm of God-consciousness and is designed for communication with God. 

In the soul we experience our self-conscious existence. We are conscious of an abiding self, or ego. It’s been said that every cell in the body is replaced over a few years, even the brain cells. Yet our souls have a sense of personal continuity. For most practical purposes we ARE our souls. Our memories, thoughts, feelings, wills—all that makes up our personalities and character—reside in the soul.

In the case of so-called psychosomatic illness the bodily conditions are found to have their origin in some maladjustment of the soul—emotional, mental, or spiritual. Psychosomatic medicine is a form of treatment that takes into account the possible psychological source of certain physical ailments, and treats them accordingly. Some authorities estimate that 70 to 90 percent of illnesses are psychosomatic. This doesn’t mean the illnesses aren’t real, or that they are merely imagined, as some ignorantly believe; it means that they are not simple bodily ailments to be cured by medicine alone.

 Man is designed to have his center and focus in God and to be ruled by his spirit, which is (in turn) ruled by God.  But sin has distorted our nature and disrupted the natural order of things. The natural man is out of kilter, off center; with the soul, or self, at the center instead of God, everything has gone awry, is now unbalanced; and we have the human condition, with its sin, sickness, violence, perversion, neuroses, fears, and the like.

When the Holy Spirit comes into the regenerated spirit, he begins like leaven in a lump of dough to change the whole person from the inside out. From the holy of holies, which is the innermost part of the body-temple, the Spirit of Jesus works on the soul, sanctifying us: “We are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (II Cor. 3:18).

But the indwelling Spirit affects the body as well. The peace and joy that come with salvation have a salutary effect on our health—“a merry heart does good like a medicine.” The ongoing process of sanctification rids us of unhealthy habits, crippling fears and neuroses. The healing and deliverance from demons available through faith and the gifts of the Spirit provide us with a means to better health. Christians are not automatically healthier than non-Christians; nor are healthy believers better Christians than unhealthy ones. But healing and health are among the “exceeding great and precious promises” found in the “manifold grace of God”—what I call the Full Gospel.

Spiritual gifts are given for the common good of the congregation. In the listing of spiritual gifts found in I Corinthians, on two occasions Paul speaks of  "gifts of healings." Both words, "gifts" and "healings," are plural, not singular. I believe this suggests different kinds of healings—healings for every part of man. Christ has provided healing for the spirit (spirits can be cruelly broken), for the soul (”He restores my soul”), and for the body. God wants us to use the gifts of healings to heal hurts and injuries of all kinds.

This is suggested by Jesus’ inaugural declaration in Nazareth shortly after the Temptation, after which he returned “in the power of the Spirit”:

Luke 4:16-19: “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’”  The passage in Isaiah from which Jesus quoted, and some manuscripts, include the words: “and bind up the broken hearted” (Isaiah 61:1).  

This is a declaration of the Full Gospel for the Whole Man, spirit, soul, and body. 

Summary: Recognition of the fact that we are spirit, soul, and body, and of the need to address each part in its place, will be helpful in both study and ministry. It will prove most helpful to be able to distinguish “soulish” activities from those that are truly spiritual. 

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