Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (NASB)
A proper understanding of the relationship between spirit, soul, and body is a master key to help us unlock the mysteries of salvation.
According to Genesis, God created mankind in His own image.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 (ESV)
God is a Trinity – one God consisting of three distinct Persons – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is clearly revealed in the Bible, even though the word “trinity” is never used. We too are one person having three distinct parts – spirit, soul, and body. This too is revealed in scripture. Just as 
it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one Person in the Godhead from another, since they are all one God; likewise, the lines sometimes get blurred when we try to differentiate between our three parts. With God, one of the easiest ways to keep the Members of the Godhead separate in our understanding is to focus on what each Person does. Similarly, if we highlight how God’s great salvation affects each of our parts differently, it will become clearer to us that they are indeed distinct.
Using the language of building, God the Father is the architect of salvation. He planned it long ago before the creation of the world. Jesus is the contractor, so to speak: He came and put the plan into action, doing the difficult “hands on” work. The Holy Spirit is the marketing agent and administrator. He is “selling” the completed work to prospective customers. This is a very inadequate and somewhat inaccurate description of salvation, but it gives us an idea in plain language of the distinct roles of each person in the Godhead.
Father God planned salvation. Jesus accomplished it. The Holy Spirit applies it. The Father chose us. Jesus died for us. The Holy Spirit draws us.
Reconciliation to the Father is the goal of salvation. The cross and resurrection are the means of salvation. The Holy Spirit is the agent of salvation, applying to our lives everything the Father planned, and the Son accomplished.
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 (NASB)
When God created Adam, he took dust and formed it into a body. Then He breathed His Spirit into that lifeless substance, and Genesis says that Adam became a living soul. As I understand it, a soul is the result of the combination of spirit and body. Spirit is breath or wind. We all know what a body is. The soul is harder to define, but many have settled on three main components – mind, will and emotions.
God’s salvation impacts each part of our being and is marvelously complete.
We will look at what God has done for each separate part in more detail in coming chapters, but, for now, an overview is helpful.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17 (ESV)
On the day Adam sinned, just as God promised, he died. His body did not die, nor did his soul. That leaves only one other part. His spirit, which had been alive to God in a special way, was cut off from its source of life, God, when Adam sinned. This was evidenced by his and Eve’s hiding from God in the garden and their sudden awareness of their own nakedness. Many think the first humans’ nakedness may have been previously covered by God’s glory, which was removed because of sin. Regardless, their consciousness had been defiled. They became all too aware of their own shame and sinfulness; whereas, before they had been gloriously innocent before God and able to fellowship with Him without fear, guilt, or shame.
The spirit was the first part of man to die and needed to be the first part restored.
The spirit is the most God-like part of a person. We know from Scripture that God is Spirit. (John 4:24) The spirit is the innermost core of a human being, the part of us that is intuitive and able to connect with God naturally. I started to write “supernaturally”, but God’s intention for the spirit of man is that it would always be able to connect with Him; therefore, it is its “natural” function.
When we are “saved” the first thing that happens is a rebirth of the spirit.
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. John 3:6 (NASB)
The spirit is restored to the perfect condition it had before sin. (Hebrews 12:23) The spirit within is given access to God’s presence once again. (Ephesians 2:18) Believers are hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3), and this in the spirit, or should I say, Spirit. When we are born again, our spirit is joined to God’s Spirit (1Cor.6:17), and it is hard to distinguish them anymore.
The body is the last part of us that will be restored completely. This will happen at the resurrection.
Until then we live in a world that still suffers from the aftershocks of that first sin. God’s judgment upon our race still stands. Even born-again Christians still die physically. People get sick. Evil is all around us, and our bodies often suffer the most. As we wait for the glorious day when these mortal bodies will be transformed into glorious spiritual ones, we can experience God’s provision of healing and strength. Nevertheless, the glorification of our bodies is a future event for which we confidently wait. In the meantime, we live in imperfect bodies that are still subject to the fallout from sin.
As mentioned before, the soul is the combination of spirit and body. If you are tracking with me thus far, I imagine you see where I am going next. We have a problem here.
A saved person has a huge inner conflict. We have a perfect spirit combined with a body that is still subject to the fallout of sin.
(Paul calls it a “body of sin” – Romans 6:6 & 8:10.) What do you think will be the result when we combine the two? Paul describes our inner conflict in Galatians Chapter Five.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Galatians 5:16-18 (ESV)
The soul or mind is where the battle rages.
Our spirits always desire to do what is right, but our “flesh” or sin nature, which derives from the unredeemed body that is not yet glorified, never wants to do what is right. (* See note at end of chapter.)
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Romans 7:21-25 (ESV)
The ”inner being” is the spirit, with which Paul’s mind agreed. However, the pull of the flesh, which comes from the unredeemed body, works against the desires of the spirit. This makes born again people somewhat spiritually “bipolar.”
We are pulled in opposite directions, and we must learn to lean on the Holy Spirit to overcome the pull of the flesh.
Jesus recognized our weak condition when he said:
"Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matthew 26:41 (NASB)
What God did for our spirits was done once and for all on the cross. We can say it is a “past” salvation. What God will do for our bodies at the resurrection is in the future, but what God wishes to do in our souls is in the present.
Every day we need to access fresh grace for that day. Our victory in the daily battle for our souls hinges on our confidence in what God did in the past and what He will do in the future. You can also see what a glorious day it will be for every believer when we shall be given glorified bodies that will not be in conflict any longer with our perfected spirits. There will no longer be any inner turmoil or struggle between “flesh” and spirit. We will have been completely saved!
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. Philippians 3:20-21 (NASB)
* Note: I am not suggesting that the body is evil, but only that it has been corrupted by sin. The body was part of God's original creation which was good. Jesus came in the flesh, which showed again the inherent goodness of the body. Jesus' body was not compromised like ours by sin since He was born of the Holy Spirit and the woman. Apparently, the sin nature is transmitted through the man, the governmental representative of the human race. Jesus did not have the inner conflict caused by having a perfect spirit and a sin corrupted body. The fact that God will one day glorify our bodies further establishes that God regards these bodies as "good" and worth saving. Let me also emphasize that my theory of the soul is not something you must believe in order to benefit from this teaching. To me it makes sense and helps me understand. If you have a better model, please share it with me.
Questions for Further Study and Discussion
- What questions do you have regarding spirit, soul, and body?
- Do you think that Genesis 2:7 and 1 Thessalonians 5:23 adequately support this doctrine?
- Do you understand the significance of the past, present, and future aspects of salvation?
- How is our daily transformation impacted by believing in what God did in the past (justification) and what he will do in the future (resurrection & glorification)?
- How would you attempt to explain the battle we all have between flesh and spirit?
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