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In this chapter we shall cover the matter of the salvation of the soul. James 1:21 speaks of the saving of the soul, and 1 Corinthians 5:5 speaks of the saving of the spirit. Other verses also mention the saving of the soul. For example, 1 Peter 1:9 says, “Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” James 1:21 tells us to receive in meekness the implanted word, which is able to save our souls. Some Christians consider the saving of the spirit the same as the saving of the soul. However, according to the New Testament, our spirit and soul are two different things. First Thessalonians 5:23 reveals clearly that we are a tripartite man composed of spirit and soul and body. Thus, these three parts are distinct from one another.
Because man is a tripartite being, God’s salvation revealed in the Bible is of three aspects. First, God saves our spirit by regeneration. Then He works to transform our soul so that our soul may be saved. Finally, Romans 8 says that our body will be redeemed, that is, transfigured. Therefore, God’s salvation is a complete salvation for our entire being — spirit, soul, and body. With God’s salvation there are three aspects — the aspects of the saving of our spirit, soul, and body.
Many Christians are clear that regeneration is the saving of the spirit. Furthermore, all genuine Christians believe that when the Lord Jesus comes back, our body will be changed. However, not many Christians have a clear understanding of the salvation of the soul or of the verses that refer to this matter (Matt. 16:25; Heb. 10:39; James 1:21). When I was young, I was troubled by these verses. I said to myself, “I have received salvation already. Why must I wait to receive the salvation of the soul?” According to the New Testament, we all have received salvation in our spirit. When we believed in the Lord Jesus and were washed in His blood, we were regenerated by the Holy Spirit and saved. Although the salvation in our spirit is ours already, there is another kind of salvation, the salvation of our soul, for which we must wait until the Lord comes back. This salvation is not obtained merely by believing; it must be accomplished by the implanted word. The living word of God is implanted into our being to work out something. As the years have passed, the light has shone brighter and brighter on the matter of the saving of the soul, and we have been able to differentiate the three aspects of God’s salvation corresponding to the three parts of our being. Man’s spirit is deadened. For this, we need salvation in our spirit. Man’s soul has been ruined. For this, we need salvation for our ruined soul. Furthermore, man’s body has been corrupted and is subject to death. Hence, we need salvation for our corrupted and dying body.
The book of Genesis reveals that God created man with the purpose of expressing Himself through man. In order to fulfill this purpose, God created man with three parts, one of which is the human spirit, the organ by which we contact God and receive Him into us. Just as God created the stomach to receive and digest food, so He created our spirit to contact, receive, and even digest God. When the Lord Jesus, God incarnate, came, He said that He is the bread of life and that whoever eats Him shall live because of Him (John 6:48, 57). Thus, the very God incarnate likened Himself to our food supply. Food is not meant to be preserved in storage or in a refrigerator but to be taken in and digested by us. The fact that the Lord Jesus likened Himself to our food supply, the bread of life, indicates that we need to eat Him and digest Him. Are you troubled by the thought that man can digest God? Digesting God is a very positive thing, because God’s intention is to work Himself into our being. The only way that something outside of us can be wrought into our being is through eating and digesting it. Therefore, God created us with a spirit as the organ to receive Him and digest Him, that is, to take Him as our life supply.
John 4:24 says that God is Spirit and that those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit. This means that we need to contact God. When we contact Him, He comes into us not only as our life but also as our life supply. The Lord is both life and the bread of life. In John 11:25 the Lord said that He is life, and in John 6:48 He said that He is the bread of life. After we receive life, we must have the life supply. If a baby does not receive nourishment after it is born, it will die. First, Christ becomes our life. Immediately after this, the very Christ who is our life becomes our life supply. This is not a matter in our mind but in our spirit.
Christ is our life and life supply for the purpose that we might express God. God cannot be expressed through man in an objective way. If He would remain in heaven and not get into us and be wrought into our being, He could not be expressed through us. God had to find a way to enter into us and to be wrought into us so that our being would express not ourselves but God. Therefore, the objective God, the God far away from us, has become the subjective God in our very being. He is not only within us but is being wrought into us. Therefore, the apostle Paul could say, “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). Paul did not say, “To me, to live is Saul of Tarsus, a learned Jew.” He said, “To me, to live is Christ,” because the very God in Christ had been received by Paul and wrought into his being. Paul did not express himself, but Christ who had been wrought into him. This is God’s purpose, and it is the reason He created us with a spirit and a soul.
According to the Bible, our soul is our being, our character, our person. As persons, we are not intended by God to express ourselves. Rather, God intends that we express Him. In our daily life and in our behavior we should not express ourselves but God. In order to express God, we first need to exercise our spirit and take Him into us. Then we need to live the kind of life in our being, person, and character that expresses Him. Then people will say, “This person does not express the American way of life; he expresses God.” For us to receive God, we need a spirit; and for us to live Him out and express Him, we need a personality, which is our soul.
Some may think that those who are strong can express God but that those who are not so strong cannot express Him. Others think that the intelligent ones can express God but that the dull ones cannot. However, the dull ones often can express God better than the intelligent ones. I have known a number of intelligent believers who did not express God; instead, they expressed their cleverness. But I have also known some country people with very little education who truly expressed God because they lived by God and expressed Him through their personality.
We have seen that we have a spirit to receive God and a soul to live out God. Perhaps you are wondering what the function of our body is. Without a body we would be a phantom. As human beings, we need a tangible physical body. Having such a body, we are normal. Therefore, God created us with a spirit to take Him in, a soul to express Him, and a body to contain ourselves in a normal way. For His purpose, God had to create us with these three parts.
In Genesis 1 we see God’s creation, and in Genesis 2 we see clearly that God’s intention in creating man was that man would receive Him as the tree of life. But in Genesis 3 the tempter came in to stir up the enjoyment of the soul, tempting Eve with the fruit that would make her like God. The aim of this temptation was to arouse the soul. When the soul is selfish, it becomes the self. It is altogether right to have a soul. But when the soul desires something for itself, it becomes selfish. The soul was created by God for the purpose of expressing Him, not to have its own enjoyment or preferences. Brother Nee put out a book entitled The First Sin of Man. Man’s first sin was not adultery, stealing, or murder; it was taking something according to his own preference. To take fruit was not wrong, but to take fruit according to the preference of the soul was the activity of the self. Therefore, man’s first sin was to do something for himself, to satisfy the self.
To repeat, the soul was made to express God. But when the soul does something to satisfy itself, it becomes selfish. This is the reason we must deny ourselves. To deny ourselves means to reject the soul’s desire, preference, and choice. Whenever the soul wants something for itself, we must deny the soul. The desire of the soul for something for its own satisfaction was the cause of man’s fall. By taking the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, man fell, and his soul was ruined. The soul created by God for the purpose of expressing God had been ruined by the desire of the self. Because of this, the spirit lost its function, having become defiled and deadened. Furthermore, the body entered into death. This is a complete picture of fallen man: the soul ruined, the spirit deadened, and the body subject to death.
Because we are in such a fallen condition, we need God’s salvation. Thank the Lord that He has come in to be our Savior. He put our nature on Himself and became the Lamb of God, who took away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Through His redemption our sins have been forgiven. Now God has a way to contact us and to bring us into His presence. We have been called, we have repented, we have believed in the Lord Jesus, we have been cleansed, and the Spirit of God has come into our spirit. Thus, we have been reborn, and our deadened spirit has been made alive. This is the salvation of the spirit.
Once we have received this salvation, we shall never lose it. This is proved by 1 Corinthians 5:5, a verse that speaks of a sinful brother. Although this one had been regenerated, he fell into a terrible sin. Therefore, Paul delivered him to Satan for the destruction of his flesh (probably through sickness), that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. This indicates that once we receive salvation in our spirit, we cannot lose it.
The salvation of our soul, however, is a different matter. Our spirit has been saved in this age, and we cannot lose this salvation. But it is not yet determined whether or not our soul will be saved at the Lord’s coming. Unlike the salvation of the spirit, the salvation of the soul is not a matter of simple faith. By confessing our sins, believing in the Lord Jesus, and calling on His name, we are regenerated and have salvation in our spirit. But the salvation of the soul requires a long process.
God’s intention in His creation of man was that man would take Him in and express Him. Taking in God and expressing God should be man’s joy and amusement. Man’s happiness and entertainment must be God Himself, and this is not an objective God but a subjective God. To take God in and to live God out is man’s joy. We should not blame people for desiring amusement, for God created man with the need for enjoyment. The reason we hunger for food day by day is that we were created with the need to eat. It is impossible to be filled up once with food and never to be hungry again. No, we must eat afresh every day. God created us in this way. In the same principle, God created man with the need for amusement, but our amusement must be God Himself. Because people have lost God, they seek entertainment by going to the movies, theater, and various sporting events. They have not found the fulfillment of their need for entertainment in God Himself. God Himself is the unique fulfillment of our need for entertainment.
All the amusements that people seek outside of God are for the satisfaction of the soul. When they listen to music or enjoy certain sports, they are happy. Many in Hong Kong like to play mah-jongg. To them, that is the best entertainment and enjoyment. Any Christian who still plays mah-jongg is one who is saving his soul. Anyone who has been regenerated in his spirit but still plays mah-jongg will eventually lose his soul at the Lord’s coming. For him to refrain from playing mah-jongg is to cause his soul to suffer. Nevertheless, such a Christian needs to lose his soul in the matter of playing mah-jongg. If he does not lose it now, he will lose it when the Lord comes back. The Lord will say to him, “Because you saved your soul so much, now you must lose it.” Now we can understand that what the Bible means by losing the soul is for the soul to lose its enjoyment. Moreover, to save the soul is to preserve the soul in its enjoyment.
If man had expressed God on earth, God would have been able to recover the earth. Then both man and God would have enjoyed the earth. God would have been happy, and we would have been happy also. However, man did not cooperate with God. Thus, God did not have a way to recover the earth. Rather, He Himself has even been rejected by the earth. When He came in the flesh, He was rejected. This present age, the age of the church, is the age of the world’s rejection of Christ. Because Christ has been rejected, at present He has no joy on this earth. As His followers, we share His destiny. Our destiny as followers of the Lord Jesus is not to be welcomed by this world; instead, it is to be rejected. Therefore, this age is not the time for us to have enjoyment for our soul; it is the time for us to lose this enjoyment. When the Lord Jesus comes back, that will be the time for Him to enjoy the earth. Satan will be bound, Christ will recover the earth, and the entire earth will be under His reign. At that time Christ will enjoy the earth, and all His followers will participate in this enjoyment. This is the meaning of Matthew 25:21 and 23, both of which say, “Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful over a few things; I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your master.” This will take place during the millennium when the Lord Jesus will reclaim the earth and enjoy it. By repossessing the earth, the Lord will have enjoyment. Then He will ask His followers, His partners, to enter into His joy. This will be the saving of our soul. In order to have the enjoyment in the coming age, we need to pay the price in this age by losing our soul. We need to say, “Lord, for Your sake I don’t want to have so much pleasure or amusement.”
After speaking of denying the self, taking up the cross, and losing the soul, the Lord referred to the world, saying, “What shall a man be profited if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life?” (16:26). People love the world simply because it gives amusement to their soul. They love good clothing, fine cars, and worldly amusements because they bring enjoyment to the soul. But for the Lord’s sake, for the gospel’s sake, and for His testimony’s sake, we need to be willing to lose the enjoyment of the soul in this age. Are you willing to lose your soulish enjoyment for the Lord’s sake? The reason people love the world is that they want to maintain the enjoyment of the soul. Throughout the world there is the enjoyment of the soul. The reason people study to earn a degree is to have a better life, and a better life means more enjoyment. Others work to earn a promotion in their job so that they may have more money for more enjoyment of the soul. When the Lord Jesus came, He lost His soul; that is, He gave up all His soulish enjoyment. He lost the enjoyment of His soul in this age so that He might gain His soul in the coming age. As we have seen, in the coming age the Lord Jesus will enjoy the whole earth. At that time He will invite us, His partners, to share in this enjoyment. We need to wait patiently for the coming enjoyment. If you keep the enjoyment in your soul today, you will lose the enjoyment to come. When some hear this, they may say, “My economy is practical. I care for the present, not for the future.” The choice is yours. If you prefer to have your enjoyment today, you are free to do so. But if you save your soul in this age, be assured that you will lose it when the Lord comes back. He will tell you that because you have enjoyed your soul so much, now is the time for you to lose it. Which do you choose — to lose your soul today and gain it tomorrow, or to gain it today and lose it tomorrow? If we could gain the whole world, it would still not be worthwhile to gain it at the cost of losing our soul.
We need to be those who care for the Lord’s pleasure and satisfaction, and we all must believe the Lord’s word. By believing in His word, we were saved. He not only tells us that if we believe in Him, our sins will be forgiven, we shall be cleansed, and we shall have eternal life. His word also tells us that it is not worthwhile to gain the whole world and lose our soul. We should be wise, not foolish. Do not be shortsighted, saying, “I don’t care for tomorrow. I care only for today.” We must be enlightened by the Lord’s word. In the coming age the gaining of the soul will mean a great deal. Even if we had the whole world, we could not buy this. In order to gain the soul in the coming age, it is worthwhile to lose our soulish joy in this age. As long as we have what is necessary for our existence — food, clothing, lodging, and transportation — we should be content. It is sufficient that we can exist and live on earth for the Lord’s testimony, loving Him, contacting Him, receiving Him, digesting Him, and living Him out to be His expression. We should be happy with this and not pursue other things. We should be able to say that we do not care for food, clothing, cars, and houses. We live in Him and trust in Him to take care of our needs. But we do not care for today’s enjoyment, entertainment, and amusement. Rather, we care for His pleasure and satisfaction. For the Lord’s sake, we are willing to drop so many amusements and pleasures. We care to have only what is necessary to exist for His expression. This is what it means to lose the soul for the Lord’s sake. If we do this, He will say to us at His coming back, “Well done, good and faithful slave. Enter into the joy of your Master.” This is the gaining, the saving, of the soul. If we lose our soul for His sake today, He will reward us with the saving of our soul in the future. But if we save our soul today, we shall lose it in the coming age and suffer some type of punishment. Whether we shall save our soul or lose it in the future depends upon whether we save it or lose it today.
As the children of God and saints in the Lord, we should love one another. Suppose you have a large savings account in the bank and another brother is very poor and needs help. According to the Lord’s sovereignty, this brother’s need is brought to your attention. The Lord may burden you to give this brother a large amount of money, but you may be unwilling to do so, not wanting to lose the pleasure of having a certain amount in your bank account. Instead of giving your brother the money the Lord tells you to give, you may reason with the Lord about it, trying to lower the amount. If you do this, you will be saving your soul. Such a thing once happened in China. The Lord burdened one brother to give a certain amount of money to another. But the enemy tempted him to lower the amount. When the brother was enlightened to see the tactics of the enemy, he said, “Satan, if you speak to me about this again, I’ll give everything away. I am happy to have nothing in my savings account.” To lose our pleasure at having a large savings account is to lose our soul.
You may also either save or lose your soul in buying a suit. To buy a new suit may be an enjoyment to your soul. Will you save your soul by buying an expensive suit, or will you lose it by buying one that is adequate but much less expensive? If you are willing to buy the less expensive suit, you will be able to save some money for the Lord’s sake. Even in this small matter you will be losing your soul.
When we lose our soul and its enjoyment, we are undergoing the process of transformation. Suppose a brother does not care for the Lord in buying a suit. He cares only to satisfy his soulish enjoyment. Such a person cannot be transformed in his disposition, will, or emotion. However, if he cares for the Lord and buys a suit under the leading of the Holy Spirit, his soul will be transformed. The losing of the soul today actually transforms the soul. But the saving of our soul today frustrates the transformation. If we lose our soul in all things related to our daily living, we shall be gradually transformed. Then when the Lord comes back, He will say, “Well done, good slave; come into My joy.” At that time your soul will be fully transformed. You will be prepared, perfected, and qualified to enter into the Lord’s enjoyment because over the years your soul has been transformed through your willingness to lose the soul. But if you are not willing to lose your soul in this age, your soul will not be transformed.
James 1:21 says, “Therefore putting away all filthiness and the abundance of malice, receive in meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” If we are willing to lose our soul, the word will be implanted into our being. The word we have heard in the Bible or in messages will be implanted within us and work for the transformation of our soul. As a result, we shall be rewarded with the saving of our soul when the Lord Jesus comes back. As we lose our soul in all sorts of situations, the word will be implanted into our being to transform our soul. This will make us ready when the Lord Jesus comes back. We shall be transformed and qualified to be the Lord’s partners in His reign in the coming kingdom. This is the saving of the soul.
Second Peter 1:11 says, “In this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly and bountifully supplied to you.” We all need a rich entrance into the eternal kingdom of the Lord. We can have such an entrance by losing our soul today. The more we lose the enjoyment of the soul, the richer an entrance we shall have.
We have seen that although we have been saved in our spirit, we still need the salvation of our soul. Now is the time for us to lose our soul so that we may gain it at the Lord’s coming back. We need to lose everything that makes our soul happy. By losing our soul, our entire being will be daily and gradually transformed. Then we shall have the position to be rewarded with the saving of the soul in the future. Outwardly we shall save our soul at the Lord’s coming, and inwardly we shall be qualified to participate in the Lord’s enjoyment in the coming age.
