Dividing Soul and Spirit
Dividing Soul and Spirit
There has been a serious lack of clarity in the Church about the difference between our spirit and our soul.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In this passage we see the three components of each of us. We are a spirit, we have a soul, and we live in a body. Many times in scripture we find the spirit and soul lumped together and called simply, the inner man. The inner man is the part of us that cannot be seen. This way of referring to the spirit and the soul as a unit has led some to think that the soul and the spirit are one and the same. I think it is important for us to see that they are not.
Our spirit is the essence of who and what we are. It is us. Our soul is comprised of our mind, will, and emotions. Our soul is not us as a being, rather it is the way our spirit interfaces with our body and the way in which we are expressed to others. It is our personality.
In Biblical Greek our physical body is referred to as soma, our soul is referred to as psuche (from which we get the word psyche), and our spirit is referred to as pneuma, or breath, which is where we get words like pneumatic.
Our spirit is what Father regenerated, rebirthed by His Spirit, made new. Our soul and body remain untouched because while they are a part of us, they are not us. So, when we speak of a believer’s desires being the same as those of God (we want what He wants), we are talking about what believers want at the deepest part of themselves—their spirit. These desires are godly and they come from God. Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. When we speak of a believer being righteous, we are speaking of who they are, their spirit. Since that person is righteous, all the parts of them, their soul and body, are acceptable to God as well.
You are a spirit. You have a soul. You live in a body.
