Body, Soul and Spirit
Before you commence this section, see if you can answer the following questions.
1. How does the way God created man differ from how animals were created? Is there any significance in this?
2. What does the word 'soul and 'spirit' mean?
3. How does Hebrew poetry differ from modern day rhyme?
4. Why does Paul feel the need to emphasise a bodily resurrection?
5. What picture does the word 'belong' (1 Peter 2:9) conjure up in your
mind?
What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? Job 7:17-18
- Job marvels at the fact that God is so interested in man. God knows each star in heaven (Psalm 147:4), yet also sees a glass of water given in His name (Mark 9:41).
- Man is so small compared with the size of the Universe yet has been endowed with intrinsic value. This does not mean God saved us because we have value, since everything belongs to Him anyway. Man was created for friendship and fellowship with God.
Agape love is 'indifferent to value'. That is to say, it is neither kindled by the attractiveness nor quenched by the attractiveness of its object.
Prof A. Nygren in, Agape and Eros, page 16
- Sin is that which makes fellowship impossible or that which diminishes it in any way. Yet in His grace and mercy God encourages fallen man to embrace the offer of life through the life, death and resurrection of His Son.
The Hebrew View of Man's Makeup
- The emphasis in scripture is of the overall unity of man as created by God. Man is first of all one. However man may be spoken of in different ways according to the context.
- When God created man He, "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being." (Gen 2:7).
- Spirit was breathed upon dust and man became a living person: body/soul/spirit.
- The O.T. never thinks of man as a body with a soul/spirit floating about inside of him. We are not trapped in ourselves; we are one.
- When we are tired it can affect how we feel and act with others. When we are worried it can affect our physical health and relationships with others; but we are always seen as 'one.'
Man is not now a soul and then again a body. Man is a single being, a self, an 'I' or a 'you'. Scientifically man's
integrated nature becomes apparent in the study of emotions. The individual receives a message from a loved
one or bad news, or he tells a lie. Automatically, in normal circumstances, his heart beats faster or slower, his
breathing amplitude and rate change, and adrenalin may be discharged into the bloodstream. These and other
events are then spoken of as psychosomatic. But man remains one being.
Prof S. Grenz, Theology For The Community Of God
In the following verse we have Hebrew poetry. Hebrew poetry rhymes in thought and not words. Therefore Moses is speaking of everything about man reaching out to love God.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5
- Luke 11:9 (ask, seek, knock) is also in the form of Hebrew poetry and simply means that a person is to seek God wholeheartedly.
- Adam is a unified person with body and soul/spirit living and acting as one.
- Think of a cake with all the ingredients mixed together and we begin to get the idea.
- In Genesis we read of the Trinity speaking together about creating man, yet not about creating beasts (Gen 1:26).
- Adam's spirit is bestowed by a special creative act of God, (God breathed) and so man has the capacity to receive and appreciate fellowship with God.
It is only man who is created in God's image (morally upright and able to relate to God and have dominion over the earth). So! The difference between man and the animal kingdom is not an added component but that God has given spiritual abilities to body and soul that are different from that of the animal kingdom. - The term 'spirit' is not used for a 'higher quality' in man, which distinguishes him from the animals. Man is a spiritual being - He is body/soul-spirit, created to relate to God and reveal the fruit of this relationship in his love for God, fellow man and the world he has been placed in.
- When we look at the usage of the biblical words translated 'soul' (Heb: nephesh, life, a breathing creature with thoughts, emotions: Greek: psyche, to breath) and 'spirit' (Heb: ruach, wind, breath, Greek: pneuma wind:pheo - to blow, ekpneo - to breath out, empneo - to pant) we see that the terms are often used interchangeably, overlapping in meaning.
- For example, at death scripture sometimes speaks of the soul departing (Gen 35:18 - of Rachel; Isaiah 53:11, of Jesus) and at other times sees death as the returning of the spirit to God. Hence David prays with words that are later quoted by Jesus at Calvary, "Into your hands I commit my spirit" (Psalm 31:5; Luke 23:46).
When reference is made to man in his relation to God 'ruach' is the term most likely to be used, but when
reference is made to man in relation to other men, or man living the common life of men, then 'nephesh'
is most likely, if a psychical term is required. In both cases the whole man was involved.
Dr W.D. Stacely, in The Pauline View of Man p 90
- In John 12:27 Jesus says, "Now is my soul troubled", whereas in a very similar context in the next chapter, John says that Jesus was "troubled in spirit" (John 13:21). Note also Luke 1:46-47.
- The interchangeable use of 'soul' and 'spirit' in scripture reveals that man belongs to God and that this belonging is to be seen in his or her everyday life.
- The idea that soul is simply an intermediary for a higher spirit which touches the world through a lower body is completely absent in scripture.
- Man does not have a soul/spirit in him like some sort of disembodied spirit or ghost. It simply refers to man as being capable of reaching out to God with all of who He is.
Platonic Thinking Contrasted with Pauline thought
The New Testament reflects and maintains the OT view of the human being as an undivided whole almost without exception' source: the Exegetical Dictionary of the N.T.
- In Platonic thinking all matter is thought of as evil with the soul being trapped in the prison-house of the body. Plato gained these ideas from a philosophical movement called Pythagoreanism. In this particular view the body is a hindrance to the soul's attempts to move towards truth and virtue.
- The idea of the soul being trapped in the body explains where some people get the idea that a man can be trapped in a woman's body and vice-versa.
- Many Christians believe that Paul regards the flesh (as in the physical body) as evil; little realising they are adopting Greek thinking in doing so. Paul never regards the flesh as evil in this way.
- It is more the case that the whole person has become (due to the fall) the vehicle for sin. Therefore the Greek word for body (sarx) literally means 'the substance of all that man has become; that which is transient and passing. Hence Peter's words (1 Peter 1:24-25) which pick up on Isaiah's words.
A voice says, "Cry out." And I said, "What shall I cry?" "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:6-8
- 'Sarx' when related to fallen man (referring to what he has become) does not contradict Heb 2:14-16, which speaks of Jesus sharing our humanity.
- In Jesus we see a perfect man without sin, yet so much more.
There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Matthew 17:2-3
That which man trusts in, which is of his or her doing will not gain salvation which is why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:50.
Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the perishable. 1 Corinthians 15:50
For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. Romans 7:5
- In the above the word 'bodies' is 'sarx' - flesh.
- Paul's condemnation of flesh does not relate to the human body - it speaks of the failure of man, as a whole, to achieve his goal, and therefore of that which is sinful and passing etc
Christian theologians insist that the resurrection bodies will be real human bodies, however spiritualised and
transformed, and not properly astral or celestial bodies, thus remaining faithful to the Jewish-Christian tradition
and avoiding a complete slipping back into the spatial otherworldliness of the cosmic religion.
A. Armstrong and R Markus, Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy p 47
In John 6:35 (eat of my flesh) Jesus is speaking of the need for fallen man to embrace all that He has done, thus making it their own through His grace and mercy.
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 1 Corinthians 15:42-44
But what about Hebrews 4:12 which appears to speak of man as separate parts.
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Heb 4:12
- In the human body joints and marrow do not come together. Joints refer to where the bones meet together, whilst the marrow is the portion that is in the centre of the bone.
- Similarly there is no particular place where soul and spirit meet, for all is one (in keeping with Hebrew thought). Think of a cake!
- Therefore Hebrews 4:12 is a figure of speech to emphasise that the word of God penetrates so deeply that there is nothing in a person that is hidden from God.
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. 1 Thess 5:23-24
'Whole' - 'holokleros' - drawing attention to the person as complete in every way; all that God intends man to be.
Healthy Christians are characterised by a heightened awareness of a sense of belongingness to God, - shifting our focus from the egocentric to the Christocentric.'to be' centres on self; 'to belong,' centres of Christ. When the decision is made to surrender to Christ and make Him the centre, then everything belongs to Him.
To continue to belong is to maintain the surrendered life.
Dr H. Darling, Man in His Right Mind, page 129
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. 1 Peter 2:9a
- 'Belonging' is made up of two Greek words; 'eis' and 'Peripoieesin.'
- 'Eis' is a primary preposition - so it indicates the point reached or entered into. Think of 'chosen people, royal priesthood, and holy nation', as railway carriages. They are brought into the place of 'belonging' by God.
- 'Peripoieesin' literally means, 'a making around.' It is to make something and then surround it with a circle, thus indicating ownership.
- The Greek words speaks of the unique private, personal ownership of believers by God - each of us is His unique possession as if we were the only human being in existence.
the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession - to the praise of his glory. Eph 1:13b-14
- Link also Eph 5:18, Romans 12:2 and Romans 13:14
- 'In Christ' (en Christo) is mentioned 91 times in the N.T. letters - so what does it mean?
- In classical Greek en means in, but in the later Greek of the N.T. en is often used of the instrument or agent, hence, by means of or through the agency of. Therefore 'in Christ' speaks of Christ as being the enabling power - it is through His grace and power that we can live the Christian life.
- In light of this we see why the church is spoken of as 'in Christ' (1 Thes 1:1; Gal 1:22), as well as the life of individual believers (Phil 4:21). The life of the Church and of all believers is to be life in Christ.
- In Christ we are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) and it is Christ-likeness that should characterise our relationships with one another. Circumcision and un-circumcision is irrelevant (Gal 5:6). There is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor freeperson (Gal 3:28)
- We have freedom in Christ (Gal 2:3-5); truth in Christ (Rom 9:1) and the promises of God are confirmed and guaranteed in Christ
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. 2 Cor 1:20
To be in Christ was not a brief ecstasy induced by deliberately provoked psychological excitement; it was
something which was obtained every day in the ordinary business and routine of everyday life. It is only the
completely surrendered heart which knows what it is to be in Christ in the fullest sense of the term.
Dr W. Barclay in The Mind Of St Paul. P99-100
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18
Ásotos - a prodigal; one who spends too much, who slides easily under the fatal influence of flatterers and the temptations with which he has surrounded himself into spending freely on his own lusts and appetites.
Be filled can equally be spoken of as 'be controlled by the Spirit', or 'let the Spirit rule you', or 'let the Spirit live within you'.
The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17)
We are called to love one another in the Spirit (Col 1:8) and are to pray in the Spirit (Eph 6:18)
Spirituality in human beings is not an extra or 'superior' mode of existence. It's not a hidden stream of separate reality, a separate life running parallel to our bodily existence. It does not consist in special 'inward' acts even though it has an inner aspect. It is, rather, a relationship of our embodied selves to God that has the natural and irrepressible effect of making us alive to the Kingdom of God - here and now in the material world.
Dr M. Jeeves in, 'Mind Fields', 'Reflections on the Science of Mind and Brain p 130
How Christ-like are we?
Please review the questions and your answers. The final question above is one for personal reflection.