Spirit, Soul and Body

We go back to what we learned in our Bible Studies. We are a three part being: spirit, soul and body (1The 5:23). I like to think of it as faculties.

The body is the faculty that we use to function in the physical realm. We move about and perform activities in this physical world with our body. Our mental faculty is included there because the mind is the ultimate destination of our physical senses. 

The soul is the faculty of our person. The soul is the me, myself, and I. The soul is the faculty that expresses the state of that person whether he is angry, happy, downcast, excited, etc. When God breathed into Adam, he became a living soul (Gen 2:7). He had his own person, separate and apart from the person of God. And that living soul has the capacity to multiply. God also has a soul (Lev 26:11, Isa 42:1).

The spirit is the faculty that we use to function in the spirit realm. The spirit is the faculty that discerns the things of God. The natural man, meaning the faculty of the body cannot discern the things of God because they are spiritually discerned (1Cor 2:14).  

When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, their spirit died. The existence of man in the spirit realm died. Satan banished us away in the spirit realm. Man died in the spirit so he could no longer function in the spirit realm.

But man was still alive in the body, and while yet he lives, God said to him “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (Gen 3:19).” The Apostle Paul says that death reigned from Adam to Moses (Rom 5:14).

Sin not only brought spiritual death but also brought about the curse. Because of sin, man was cursed. He cannot come to God, and when he tills the ground, he will have a hard time because even the ground was cursed.

And from Moses to Jesus Christ, the Jews will have to live by obedience of the Law, while the rest of the world remained dead. Sin brought death and the righteousness of the law brought life (Rom 10:5).

When the Jews obeyed the commandment it brought the blessing of God. When they sinned, it brought the curse. God asks them, blessing or cursing, life or death, it’s up to you (Deu 30:19). But still, God gives them advice to choose life.

When Jesus came, He offered up himself as payment for the sins of the whole world (1Joh 2:2) so that who ever believes in Him is no longer cursed but is blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ (Eph 1:3)!

God has begotten us again (1Pet 1:3). He has made us alive again (Eph 2:1). And that life is in the spirit! For unless you be born again; you cannot see the Kingdom of God (Joh 3:3). Because the Kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom.