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I. The soul being different from the spirit
А. Spirit and soul and body
B. Joints and marrow
C. Trichotomy and dichotomy
II. The parts of man
А. At creation
B. After the fall
C. In salvation
III. The Spirit as the new person
[Our spirit was created by God as the organ for us to receive Him. We must not confuse it with another organ. Suppose a medical doctor considered that the stomach, the heart, the liver, and the kidneys were all synonyms for the same organ. What kind of doctor could he be!]
[If we desire to have true spiritual growth in life, we must know that the spirit and the soul are two different things, and we must be able to discern what is the spirit and what is the soul, what is spiritual and what is soulish. If we can discern the difference between the spirit and the soul, we then can deny the soul, be delivered from the soul, and live by the spirit before God.]
[If we are going to know our human spirit we must see the difference between the spirit and the soul. The most important passage showing us the difference between the spirit and the soul is 1 Corinthians 2:14-15: "But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he is discerned by no one."
Verse 14 tells us clearly that the soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. The soulish man can never know anything about God. There's no possibility for the soulish man to know God, but in the following verse it says the spirit, the human spirit, knows. With the soulish man there is no possibility to know God, but with the spiritual man there is the full possibility. So by these two verses you can see the difference between the soul and the spirit. If you are a man of the soul you can never know anything of God. If you are a man of the spirit, then you know the things of God. By this passage we can see the difference between the spirit and the soul, yet so many Christians today still insist on saying that the spirit and the soul are synonymous terms. However, 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 shows that with the soul there is no possibility to know anything of God, but with the spirit there is the full possibility.]
[Secondly, we have 1 Thessalonians 5:23. We must open to the Word and read it. Don't listen to any man's opinion. Don't listen to any man's word. Come back to the Word of God and read it: "And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." This verse clearly mentions that we have three parts — the spirit and the soul and the body. Two conjunctions connect three things. There is no ground to say that the spirit is the soul.]
[In Genesis 2:7 "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Even from this verse it is clear that man has three parts. God firstly used the dust to form a physical body for man. Then He used breath to form man's spirit. The breath of life got into man and became his spirit. The spirit of man is mentioned in Proverbs 20:27. Spirit and breath in Hebrew are the same word. This indicates that the breath breathed into man became the human spirit. When these two parts, the body and spirit, came together, they produced the third part, a living soul.]
[Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, both of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." The word divides the spirit from the soul just as the sword divides the marrow from the joints which are the bones. The marrow is not the same as the bones. The marrow is something within the bones, the joints. In the same principle the spirit is something within the soul. It is easy for people to see the bones. But it is not so easy for people to realize what the marrow is. You have to break the bones to get to the marrow. In like manner, the spirit is under the covering of the soul, but it is absolutely different from the soul.]
[It is the clear teaching of Scripture that man is tripartite (1 Thes. 5:23). Nonetheless, there are two schools of theology which have arisen on this subject. One believes, as the Bible teaches, that man is a trichotomy; that is, he is made up of spirit, soul, and body. The other school maintains that man is a dichotomy; that is, he has an outer part, the body, and an inner part, the spirit or soul. In this latter school spirit, soul, and heart are considered synonyms.] We all must give up the human teaching of dichotomy and come back to the Word of God.
Let us now go on to see the parts of man and their condition at creation, after the fall, and in salvation. This will help us to understand the position of our soul in relation to our spirit.
[At creation, man as a soul had two organs: the outward organ of his body and the inward organ of his spirit. Man's body as the outward organ was created to contact the physical world. Man's spirit as the inward organ was purposed to contact the spiritual world. Our physical body was made with dust, but our spirit was made with the breath of life. Therefore, it is not physical, but spiritual. The human life is not in the body or the spirit, but in the soul, for the soul is the person. Therefore, at creation, man with his soul was a soul, a human being, who had two organs: his body and his spirit.]
[Not long after God created man, man fell. When man ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan entered into the body of man through the fruit of that tree (Gen. 3:6), for the fruit, we know, entered man's body.] [When Satan entered man's body, he utilized it as a base to take over the soul. Man as a human being or soul, came under the influence and control of the flesh. The soul was then damaged and became the self. When the body became the flesh, it damaged, influenced and even led the soul into captivity. Consequently, the soul became the self. We have pointed out in chapter two] of The Parts of Man [that Luke 9:25 and Matthew 16:26 prove that the soul of fallen human beings is the self.]
[Now let us see the condition of man's spirit as a result of the Fall. Although the Bible clearly shows that Satan entered into man's body, using it as a base to mingle himself with the soul, we cannot find one hint in the Scriptures that Satan has ever entered man's spirit. This is very interesting. Not one verse shows that Satan has any ground in man's spirit. It seems that God must have drawn a boundary line, telling Satan to stop and go no further. Satan may be in man's body and soul, but not in his spirit.]
[Only one verse of Scripture says that man's spirit was defiled. Second Corinthians 7:1 speaks of the filthiness of flesh and spirit. Ephesians 2:1 and Colossians 2:13 tell us that we were dead in trespasses and sins. This certainly cannot mean that we were dead in body or soul, for the fact is that our bodies are still alive and our souls are still exceedingly active! Therefore, it must mean that we were deadened in our spirit. Fallen man's spirit has been defiled and even deadened, but it has never been taken over by Satan.]
[When we received the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior, we believed in Him as the One who died for our sins and thus received forgiveness. Then we were justified and reconciled to God by His death (Rom. 5:10). To be reconciled to God means that all problems between us and God have been solved. Moreover, we who were deadened in spirit have been quickened or made alive in the spirit (Eph. 2:5). By the redeeming blood of Christ, the conscience of our spirit and of our heart has been cleansed (Heb. 9:14; 10:22). All filthiness has been purged away. But something more wonderful has happened: Christ, the Lord Spirit, has entered into our spirit as our life to make our deadened spirit alive! When He entered our spirit, we received another life, the life of God, and were regenerated (John 3:6). Christ, as the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) is now in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), not in our soul.]
[Often we Christians are not very clear about the little revelation we have received. For example, we often say that we live by the spirit. But if the spirit is still an organ and not a man with life in it, how can we live by this organ? When we say that we live by our spirit, we need to see that this means our spirit now has become a being with life in it. Our spirit has life in it, and this life is Christ. This is why Galatians 2:20 says, "No more I, but Christ lives in me." This verse does not say, "Not my life, but the life of Christ lives in me." This verse does not refer to a life, but to a person. The "I" used to be the person, but now Christ, a new person, lives in me. I used to be the person in my soul, but now Christ is the new person in my spirit.
Now that Christ is in our spirit, we still have two organs: the body and the soul. Formerly the two organs were the body and the spirit; now the second organ is no longer the spirit, but the soul. Our soul used to be our personality, and our spirit was an organ. But now our spirit is our personality, and our soul has become an organ. This is the reason we can live and walk by our spirit. In our spirit we have not merely an organ; we have the life which is Christ Himself. Christ as the life in our spirit makes our spirit a new being with a new personality. This new being is called the inner man. This inner man needs to be strengthened, empowered. Oh, we all must see this! This is crucial! I was a Christian for more than forty years before I saw this matter. Only during the past ten years have I seen that our human spirit used to be an organ, but that now it is a man. One day the Lord pointed this out to me and said, "Look, now your personality is not in the soul, but in the spirit. The personality in your soul has been crucified, put to death." When we say our soul has been crucified and that we must deny it, we do not mean that the functions of the organ of the soul have been crucified or must be denied. The functions of the soul are still present, for today the soul is an organ. It is the being, the personality, in the soul that has been crucified and dealt with. Therefore, now there is a new being, a new personality, in our spirit. This new personality is Christ Himself. Because the divine life is in our spirit, our spirit has become the new man, the inner man. How wonderful this is! We can live and walk by this new man. If this one matter is made clear to you, you will be changed.]
The spirit and the soul are two different things, the spirit being something within the soul. At creation man was a soul with two organs: his body and spirit. After the fall, man's body became the flesh, his soul became the self, and his spirit was deadened. In salvation the Lord entered our spirit and enlivened it. Our soul used to be our personality, and our spirit was an organ. But now our spirit is our personality and our soul has become an organ. This new personality in our spirit is Christ Himself as the divine life.
