It’s important for us to understand ourselves according to God’s word. Understanding basic things about ourselves will help us to fulfill our divine purpose.
The Bible says that there are three basic parts of each of us – spirit, soul, and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
The body is the material part of us.
The soul and the spirit are the invisible and immaterial parts of us.
The three parts of man can be seen in the creation of Adam. God formed Adam’s body from dirt. Then he breathed into him the breath of life (spirit), and Adam became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). Adam was comprised of a spirit, a soul, and a body.
Soon after he was created, Adam sinned. The result of sin is death (Romans 6:23). When Adam sinned, he died. His body and soul didn’t die, for he lived another 1,000 years. Instead, his spirit died. He was physically alive but spiritually dead, separated from God.
All people apart from Christ are spiritually dead, separated from God. A dead spirit is in bondage to sin. All of us were once spiritually dead before we knew Christ (Ephesians 2:1).
When we were born again, we became spiritually alive (John 3:6). At the moment of spiritual birth, the Holy Spirit comes into us, freeing us from the dominion of sin and connecting us to God. We are born again through faith in the gospel.
The first disciples initially doubted the gospel. They refused to believe that Jesus would die on the cross, and they didn’t understand that he would rise again. But after Jesus was resurrected, they finally believed the gospel, and at that moment they were born again, and Jesus breathed on them and gave them the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). When Jesus breathed spiritual life into his disciples it was similar to the creation of Adam, when God breathed into him the breath of life.
When we believe the gospel, God breathes the Holy Spirit into us and makes our dead spirits alive. Then the Holy Spirit is joined to our spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17), and we are able to know and access God.
The spirit is the most important part of ourselves because we interact with God through our spirits.
The Soul
The soul is the sum of who we are. It includes our heart – desires and emotions, and mind – thoughts and plans.
The soul is like a vessel to be filled, and our souls were created to be inhabited by God. When we are born again, the Holy Spirit comes inside us, and when we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, our souls are filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time. After this, God tells us to be repeatedly filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). God wants the Holy Spirit to fill our souls, occupying all parts of our hearts and minds, renovating us on the inside.
Evil spirits also seek to live in souls. If God doesn’t dwell in our souls, evil spirits will dwell in them (Mark 12:45).
Our souls are like land. The word of God is like a seed to be planted in the land of our souls (Matthew 13:18-23). When the word of God is planted and grows strong within us, it will bring forth the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Bad seeds, which are lies from Satan, can also be planted in the soul. False words produce weeds that hinder us from bearing fruit.
Our souls are to be like gardens that bear abundant fruit for God (Galatians 5:22-23). When bad words or evil spirits influence our souls, then bad fruit is produced – bad emotions, sinful thoughts, etc.
Relationship Between the Spirit and the Soul in Proverbs
The spirit of man is like a lamp, searching all the inner chambers of the soul (Proverbs 20:27). Souls have rooms or chambers. In the rooms of the soul, there are various thoughts and desires, agendas and plans, likes and dislikes. The spirit of man (whether alive to God or dead in sin) searches these rooms of the soul as the person decides what he is going to do and how he is going to live his life. A dead spirit is bound up in sin and dominated by Satan, and therefore he chooses evil. A living spirit is free from the bondage of sin and is able to choose God. Whether dead or alive, the spirit of man will search the rooms of the soul, and depending on what it finds in those rooms, the man will live according to those things.
As Jesus said, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things” (Matthew 12:35).
Proverbs 25:28 says that he who has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls. When our spirits were dead in sin, we were overrun by evil spirits (Ephesians 2:2). Even after being born again, many Christians still do not have rule over their own spirits because they lack self-control. When a person does not rule his spirit, the soul has no protection, and evil words and evil spirits invade the soul like enemy forces invading a city which has no wall.
After we are born again, we begin a process of casting evil things out of our souls. Jesus described this process as possessing your souls (Luke 21:19), which takes patience. Possessing the soul is like possessing a land, and this takes time and effort.
The Body
The body is the material part of man. The body is compared to a tent (2 Peter 1:14). The body houses the inner man (spirit and soul) and enables the inner man to interact with the world. Dead people cannot interact with the world because they do not have bodies. Death kills the body but does not eliminate the soul. After death, the soul continues to exist, whether in heaven with God or in hell in torment.
The body is closely related to the flesh. Passions of sin reside within our body, and they cause us to sin (Romans 7:5). This is why the flesh and the spirit are opposed to each other (Galatians 5:17). As the Holy Spirit possesses our souls, he will also impact our bodies. The Holy Spirit can give us victory over the sins of the flesh, and he can also cause our bodies to be physically healed (Romans 8:11).
Spiritual, Soulish, or Carnal?
There are three types of people – spiritual, soulish, and carnal. Everyone is one of these three types, depending on which part of the man is predominating.
The three types of people are described in 1 Corinthians 2:11-3:1. (The word “natural” in this passage is literally “soulish”).
The Spiritual Man
A spiritual person is dominated by the spirit. Only a person who is born again can be a spiritual person, because only he has a living spirit that is connected to God. God calls all Christians to be spiritual people, who live in the spirit. We are to be led by the Spirit and walk in the Spirit (Galatians 6:1). We are to be led by God and his word, led by the Spirit, not by the soul or the flesh.
The Soulish Man
A soulish person is dominated by the soul— his heart and mind. A soulish person may be intellectual or emotional. He may try to follow a moral or man-made religious code. He might be a cultured or refined person. However, a soulish person cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God, and they are foolishness to him (1 Corinthians 2:14). The things of God can only be known by the Spirit. Soulish wisdom is actually demonic and contrary to God (James 3:15). False teachers are soulish (Jude 19). They cause divisions in the body of Christ because their ministry comes from their souls, not from the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes the soul is very loud and distracting. It is full of vain imaginations, fears, worries, or suspicions. A loud soul can lead a person astray. The Psalmist said he behaved and quieted his soul, and his soul was like a weaned child (Psalm 131:2). A Christian needs to control his soul so its noise does not dominate his life.
The word of God is able to separate between the soul and the spirit (Hebrews 4:12). Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between our soul and our spirit. What are our own emotions or thoughts, and what is the leading of the Holy Spirit? The more we embrace God’s word, the more we will be able to distinguish between our soul and the moving of the Holy Spirit. In addition, the fact that the word of God separates between soul and spirit means that God’s word has power to divide off from us evil spirits.
The Carnal Man
A fleshly person (or a carnal person) is dominated by his body. He is living to satisfy the lusts of his flesh. He may be driven by food, alcohol, drugs, sex, or other bodily pleasures. Most immature Christians are carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1). They are living more according to the flesh than according to the Spirit.
Walking in the Spirit
Romans 8:1-9 says when we focus on the Spirit, we will be able to walk in the Spirit, but when we focus on the flesh, we will walk according to the flesh. God calls us to focus on what the Spirit is saying, not what the flesh is saying. When we mind the Spirit and walk according to the Spirit, we are not in the flesh and we are free from the Law.
The Bible helps us understand who we are and how God created us. When we understand this, we are better equipped to grow to maturity. God calls us to be spiritual people who are dominated by the Spirit, and then we will better be able to fulfill our divine purpose as God’s humans.
by Peter
Lincoln House Churches 