I Sent an Email to ClosertotheTruth.com Explaining Spirit, Soul and Body

Dear sirs,

I just caught your show on the soul. I just wanted to say that all those views are wrong on your program, even J. P. Moreland who is a Christian. The correct Christian view is not dualism, but that man is tripartite (Heb. 4.12, 1 Thess. 5.23). Dualism is a view taken on by fallen man, not perceiving the word of God correctly.

When God breathed in the breath of life directly creating man's spirit and when it made contact with the body, man became a living soul with a spirit and a body. No body no soul. Each component became an indivisible part at that point as God intended since God is Triune and we are made in His image.

When man goes into soul sleep he has no body so like your computer turned off it can be turned on again. Though I am sure you can break down this analogy as all analogies can be. Know that since the natural as we know it and its conservation laws can't alone explain self-awareness, consider this. That which we call soul since it is dependent on the physical in which the spirit makes contact with the body is really not violating conservation laws as it acts on the body. Why? Because why restrict spirit and soul from being brought into existence and in that sense have their very own conservation laws of never being able to cease to exist since God keeps all souls made in His image permanently existing. Sure God can destroy body and soul in Hell, but He never does since it would be wrong of Him to give us God-consciousness and then let us cease to exist. What love is that?

The storage saved is in the spirit that fits into a new body and reactivates the soul. That's why people are wrong who claim Christians when they die they go to Heaven but then are resurrected later. That makes no sense. You can't be flying around in heaven with your spirit without your body, or soul for that matter. It's impossible. Your spirit has the functions of intuition, communion and conscience. Human beings are not just spirits, but we are also souls and bodies.

The soul is self-consciousness and the body is world-consciousness and the spirit is God-consciousness. The soul uses the functions of mind, will and emotion. Mind is your reasoning. Will is volitional choices. Emotion is the expression of your feelings. Emotion too has three functions of affection (full range of feelings from hate and love), desire and aspiring, and sensing/feeling. I chose these terms very precisely.

The brain is the physical apparatus is all. It is the physical counterpart of mind. So there you have it. Very simple. There is no need to think the soul and spirit are immaterial or physical, but supernatural. Consider it simply as domain of God's creation above the natural, but below, of course, God's uncreated being. People get caught up in terms. Don't be.

Read Heb. 4.12 and 1 Thess. 5.23. Notice the order that God values, spirit, soul and body. Spirit is like the Holy of Holies where the ark is held and 3 three items in the ark represent the three functions of our spirit. The Holy Place is the room outside the Holy of Holies where many soulical functions are displayed such as prayes which are represented by incense burning upward to heaven. The outer court is where all can see and where Jesus died on the cross for our sins on the altar. This is related to our body.

Now then you can see we are tripartite. Spirit is our innerman man and soul is our outerman along with our body. In fact, in the original Hebrew we have soulical bodies, because no body no soul. Do you see? It always fascinates me on television they address many things yet overlook the actual Biblical position.

The Hebrews believed in resurrection, thus an immortal soul. The guy you want to read who thinks like I do as all Christians ought to is Watchman Nee. The greatest book every written apart from the Bible of course on the dividing of spirit, soul and body is The Spiritual Man by Watchman Nee. Why divide? Because our being has been confused due to sin and selfishness by mingling soul and spirit, as well as body and soul, even body and spirit. Once you divide properly our triune parts, you will understand God through His redemptive design is seeking to get you to walk by your spirit and not your spirit's outerman the soul. Once you really have a good sense how your spirit differs from your soul, you will, hopefully, be more inclined to walk by your spirit first and foremost and let your soul just be your spirit's helper. Think of your spirit as the mistress, your soul as the mistress' steward, and the body as the servant. The wire to the light bulb is your spirit, the body is the light bulb itself and the light illuminated is your soul. The steward carries out the directions of the spirit and the spirit assuming it has been regenerated caries out the directions of the Holy Spirit. Then the soul gives the order to the servant.

The problem of Adam and Eve at the fall is they activated their soulical independency became disobedient. They chose no longer to walk by the spirit. It is not that God doesn't want you to walk by your soul, but it must be in accordance with your spirit and not any spirit but a spirit quickened with God's life. Today we have much more than Adam and Eve have if we are saved, because receiving Christ is typified by the tree of life in the Garden. That is to say, by accepting eternal life given by Jesus and Jesus as our Savior, we have access to God's uncreated life so that we can once again not only walk by the spirit as God intended, no longer encumbered by sin nature having died on the cross with Christ, but now we can walk with the Holy Spirit indwelling our spirit which is infinitely greater than what a person has who has not the life of Christ in him. Those who are not born-again do go to Hell which never burns out and souls never die.

So here is that book I told you about,
http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/SMCFP.htm