[soc.religion.christian] soul and spirit of man

tdm7695@tamsun.tamu.edu (Tom Moriarty) (01/15/91)

Jonggu Moon wrote:

>What about dolphins ? What about chipmunks ?	
>What makes  you so sure ? The Bible never says "Dogs do not have souls".

>^>*<^jmoon

>[This gets into a lot of controversial issues on the nature of
>humanity and our relation to the rest of creation.  The traditional
>view, which I believe most Christians still believe, lodges our
>spiritual nature in a soul or spirit (which some people distinguish,
>using arguments that I've never been able to make any sense out of),
>which is more or less separate from the body, and surives its death.

The Bible is clear that man is made of three parts: a body, soul, and
spirit. The body is the physical part of man. The soul is the mental life
of man including the mind, emotions, and will. The spirit is the deepest
part of man. Here is what the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:23:

	"And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly and may your
	spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame, at
	the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ".

Man's philosophies are usually unclear about this matter but the Bible is
very clear about man having three parts.

The spirit in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 is our inmost part, the inner organ,
possessing God-consciousness, that we may contact God (John 4:24; Romans
1:9). The soul is our very self (Matthew 16:25), a medium between our
spirit and our body, possessing world-consciousness, that we may contact
the material world. The body contains the soul, and the soul is the vessel
of the spirit. In the spirit of a regenerated believer God as the Spirit
dwells; in the soul, our self; and in the body, the physical senses. God
sanctifies us firstly by taking possession of our spirit through
regeneration (John 3:5-6); secondly, by spreading Himself as the
life-giving Spirit from our spirit into our soul to saturate and transform
it (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18); and lastly, by enlivening our mortal
body through our soul (Romans 8:11, 13) and transfiguring it by His life
power (Philippians 3:21).

Man is a tripartite being unlike any other being of God's creation.  There
are numerous other verses in the Bible that relate the three parts of man.
The words that the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews
4:12 are much clearer than anything man has been able to produce in his
various philosophies.

Hebrews 4:12 says:

	"For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than
	any two-edge sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and 
	spirit, both of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts
	and intents of the heart".

Our spirit is the organ for us to contact God (John 4:24), while our heart
is the organ for us to love God (Mark 12:30). Our spirit contacts,
receives, contains, and experiences God. However, it requires our heart to
love God first. Our soul is of three parts -- mind, will, and emotion; and
our spirit is also of three parts -- conscience, fellowship, and intuition.
Our heart is not separate from our soul and spirit, but a composition of
all the parts of our soul plus the conscience part of our spirit. Hence, in
our heart is the mind with the thoughts and the will with the intents.  The
thoughts affect the intents, and intents carry out the thoughts. The living
word of God is able to discern the thoughts in our mind and the intents in
our will. What has been quoted from the word of God by the writer in
Hebrews chapter 4 was able to expose what and where their thoughts and
intents were while the Hebrew believers were staggering in the process of
their salvation.

--- Tom Moriarty   tdm7695@calvin.tamu.edu
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