The Spirit, The Soul, And The Body: My Submission

INTRODUCTION God is a tripartite Being. And man, by virtue of being created ‘in the likeness of God’, is a tripartite being as well; he is comprised of a spirit, a soul and a body. There is a simple illustration I usually cite to describe this threesome nature of man: the spirit of man is like the engine of a car, the soul is the driver, while the body of man is just like the body or panel of a car. By this token, I do not agree with the school of thoughts that posits that the soul is the same as the spirit. I believe that the spirit and the soul are different entities, they are not the same. The Bible also lends credence to this position in the following passages: 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. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Another Bible passage says: For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12 DEFINITION? The Spirit The Spirit is the breath of God that supplies life to every living being. It is invisible and cannot be seen. But it is there all the same like a generator plant or the engine of a car transmitting life to the body. The truth is that all living beings, humans, animals, and plants posses the life-giving force call ‘spirit’. For without the spirit, there is no life. Death occurs only when the spirit departs from the body. It is the spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63 (NKJV) …for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:6 Another truth about the spirit is that it is the means through which God accesses man; it is also the means through which man can relate to God. This is because God is Spirit, He cannot relate with the flesh and soul of man due to their sinful inclination, as God cannot behold sin. Therefore, the spirit is the means through which God monitors the activities of man and relates with him. The Bible is replete with passages that lend credence to this postulation. I will cite just two of them: The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly. Proverbs 20:27 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:11 The Soul The Soul is the total sum of a person, comprising of his mind, his personality, his emotions, his habits (inborn and acquired), his experiences, his learning etc. It is a vast and complex bank of many things. But the three major components of the soul are the mind/mental faculty, the personality and the emotions of an individual. The soul is the total sum of man. It is who you really are, and it is “he” that influences most of the things you do at every point in time. It is a common knowledge that animals and plants don’t have soul. They only have the life-giving spirit that enables them to live, which when snuffed out, they cease to exist. Therefore, the reason man is superior to every other being is because of the soul he has, which affords him the privilege of reasoning and intelligent action. The Body The body, on its own part, is the container that houses both the spirit and the soul. The spirit is invisible and so cannot operate on the earth in its intangible state. That is why it must be housed in a body for it to be active. The soul, on the other hand, cannot express itself except through a body, because it is also invisible and intangible. Therefore, the body actually derives its life and importance from the power of the spirit and in the expression of the soul. CULTIVATION & ENHANCEMENT Cultivating the Spirit Because the spirit is from God, it takes the things of God to cultivate and enhance it to optimal performance. The first way to cultivate the spirit of man is by the infusion of the Holy Spirit with the spirit of man. And this can only be made possible if one accepts Jesus Christ into one’s life. There is no other way to having the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with one’s spirit than by aligning oneself with Jesus. This is because the essence of the Holy Spirit is to confirm the Messiahship of Jesus, as well as to enlighten man further about His ways. Toward the end of His ministry on earth, Jesus began to prepare His disciples for His departure by telling them some profound things about what would happen afterward, but all these they found difficult to understand then because the Person (the Holy Spirit) that would ‘guide them into all truth’ had not yet come. Let us consider some of them that pertain to the Holy Spirit below: But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: John 15:26 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. John 16:13 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Rev 19:10 These are indications to the utmost importance of the Holy Spirit in the scheme of things as well as in the cultivation of the spirit of man. He is the very Spirit of God Himself, and He can only align with the spirit of a man if that man is ‘reconciled’ with God through Jesus Christ, the final Mediator between God and man, and ‘the way, the truth, and the life’, without Whom NO ONE can come to God. So a man who wants his spirit to function at a supernatural level has but to get it into partnership with the Spirit of God. and the Spirit of God can only come into one who has accepted Jesus as Lord and Master. Another important way the spirit can be cultivated is by feeding it on the word of God. In fact, the word of God is the food of the spirit. A man’s spirit is as mature and alert to the extent that it is fed with and exercised on the word of God. A person who does not read the Holy Bible, the codification of the Word of God, will have a malnourished spirit. A spirit that is not regularly fed will not be active, though the person in whom it is may be a bundle of activities physically, his spiritual content – which is really his life capacity – will be very low. It is such people that usually give up or give in easily when the vicissitudes of life come calling. Cultivating the Soul As the spirit feeds on the word of God, so does the soul feeds on knowledge. In other words, the food of the soul is information or knowledge. The activeness, enrichment and vibrancy of the soul are determined by the level of qualitative knowledge which the owner of that soul has availed himself, be it in learning or in life experiences. And this in turn, to a large extent, influences the colouration of his beliefs, his ideals, his ideology, as well as his actions and reactions. Meanwhile, as the saying goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out’, a man who chooses to feed his mind with junks will have his soul smudged with same. And let not that man blame anybody for his woes when the abundance of his rotten inputs start to overflow in his action and the results he gets back from life. Therefore, to nourish and enrich the soul, you need to feed it with good and quality information. This will not only make the person to come out healthy, but will also help him to adjust very well in his own world and the outer environment. And the better adjusted a person is within and without, the better his performance shall be. Cultivating the Body The body needs a balanced diet to be healthy and functional. It also requires regular physical exercises to be active. The better it is fed with the right food at the right time, the more healthy and radiant it will come out. In addition, the more it is exercised, the livelier and more attractive it will be in form; and the better it will adjust to garments and other forms of physical adornment. Information also plays a vital role in the nourishment of the body, as one needs to know what to eat at what time, and what not to eat in order to keep the body in a sound state. The same applies to physical exercises as well, knowing the appropriate exercise to do to attune certain parts of the body and going ahead to do them will prove beneficial to the person who takes the pain. THEIR FINAL DESTINATION AT DEATH To be continued…