For Gabby.
We are made up of body, soul, and spirit.
The errorTraditional Christian doctrine has been very unhelpful in giving us a biblical understanding of personhood, it has usually presented one of two views as being the correct way of defining the components of human being. They have been as follows:-
• Tripartite
This is the view that the human individual is composed of three components; 'the body', 'the soul' and 'the spirit'. This fails to take a whole biblical picture, and bases itself upon a misinterpretation of two verses:-
'May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely;
and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ'
[ITh 5:23]
'Indeed, the word of God is living and active,
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit,
joints from marrow;
it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart'.
[Heb4:12]
In context these statements are clearly the rhetorical words of a preacher, they are not foundational theological statements. They must be interpreted against the broad biblical background of statements about personhood; and not it against them.
• Bipartite
This is the view that the human individual is composed of two components; 'the body' and 'the soul', with the 'spirit' being the quintessence of the 'soul'.
Neither of these two views are satisfactory, because:-• they create the impression that the human person is comprised of three [or two] quite distinct elements [like a Neapolitan ice cream!], rather than a totality.
• they do not do justice to the range of biblical vocabulary with the variety of senses in which it is used.
• they are influenced by Greek philosophy rather than by Jewish thought; the words of the New Testament have too frequently been filled with concepts from Greek speculation while the Hebrew ideas they are translating have been forgotten.
•
to imagine 'body', 'soul' and 'spirit' as distinct entities is to fundamentally misunderstand the biblical concepts.
• in ITh 5:23 the
verb and adjective are both singular; the implication is
'keep the whole of you',
not 'parts' of you.
• in Heb 4:12 the implication is to 'permeate every dimension' of a person, not separating 'parts'..
•
neither of the models give any direct mention to the 'heart' which is a key biblical concept.Bearing these facts in mind we must now attempt to resolve our thinking about the riddle of human nature by looking more closely at the way in which the biblical words are used.
The key
The Bible leads us towards an understanding of our personhood in its totality by approaching it in terms of our physical body.
To the Hebrew mind 'personality' resulted from an 'animated body', it was not, as the
Greeks thought, an 'incarnated soul'. The important biblical truth is that a person does not have a body they are a body. The Hebrews never thought about the body in isolation and for its own sake, they were only interested in the whole person and their relationship with God.
So the Bible sees the human body as the pathway into the whole person; it sees the physical body as the medium of an individuals personal life. Added to this, an organic and inseparable connection is seen between the physical and the spiritual dimensions of a person. As a result we see that various physical organs are spoken of as being connected with particular aspects of inner feelings and spiritual experience [eg breath, blood, heart, liver, kidneys, bowels etc]. In fact, at first sight, one could be forgiven for imagining that each individual person is composed of a number of unrelated and isolated centres of inner activity, seemingly independent of any unifying factor. Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth; and understanding this paradox is in fact the essential key to understanding biblical anthropology.
The key to the biblical doctrine of personhood is understanding that the Hebrew mind saw no contrast or distinction between the 'one' and the 'many', the 'whole' and the 'part'. This results in two fundamental conclusions upon which everything else is built>
• the human person is a unity; a physical and spiritual totality which is an indivisible whole.
• the whole may be represented and seen in each particular part. At
any moment any part can stand for the whole person. It is interesting to note that the Hebrew scriptures mention some 80 parts of the human body, and yet, as we shall see, there is no single word for the 'whole'; almost any part can be used to represent the whole.
So in studying biblical anthropology we are presented with personhood as a totality and a whole; an indivisible unity. What the nature and substance of that unity is, is illuminated by a wealth of pictures which have their root in physical organs and observable phenomena from which they provide a 'bridge' into the spiritual depths of human personality:-
• each picture gives a vivid description of some aspect of the inner spiritual processes of personhood.
• each picture serves as a window into the whole person.
• each picture represents the whole person from a particular point of view.
Putting all the pictures together we have a series of windows each looking in on personhood as a whole, but highlighting different aspects of our unity from different perspectives. Imagine a free standing room with a window in each of the four walls and one in the ceiling; looking through each window gives you a view of the whole room, but each window also gives you a unique perspective on the whole room. The same is true of each of the biblical words.
The teaching of the Bible about personhood is profound. At first sight its approach may appear naive, but on examination we discover a treasury of pictures which interlock with one another in the most complex manner. Their variety of emphasis and colour, their subtle nuances in sense and feeling, all express deep truths about a person as a spiritual being.
The New Testament naturally builds from its Hebrew foundations. While it makes no clearer dogmatic statements than the Hebrew Bible, it does provide a centre around which all the fluid Hebrew ideas can arrange themselves - this is the personality of Jesus.
Adam was created in the image of God. When Adam sinned, he died spiritually. This is the reason that Jesus said that we must be born again. Spiritually.
I expect to be challenged on this. We are not created in the image of God. We are created in the image of Adam. Body and soul. With a dead spirit.
Spiritually dead and 'dead spirit are 2 seperate ideas.
Non Believers can have their spirit hardened so all must have a spirit.
DT 2:30
30 But Sihon king of Heshbon refused to let us pass through. For the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands, as he has now done.
When we are born again we are body- soul-with a new spirit. The Holy Spirit of God enters into us. The same Spirit that was breathed into the dust of the earth when Adam was formed. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. We, who were created in the image of Adam, not the image of God, are told to conform to the image of Christ.
The man that is born again, and has the Spirit of God, has their name written in the Book of Life, are bought with the blood of Jesus Christ, and have eternal life. The Lord has gone to prepare a place for us.
The man that is not born again, is body and soul. The soul being the thing that departs from the body at death. The man who dies without Christ, dies without having ever received a living spirit. The soul when it departs from the body, enters into eternity apart from God
That last paragraph is not supported anywhere in Scripture.
All are resurrected and called to account before the throne of God then those who are in the book of life will be in the New Jerusalem and those who are not will be destroyed in the lake of Fire. That is the 2nd death.
