Are We Living Souls or Are We Living Spirits like the Angels?

[Churchwork]

Re: http://www.faithandhealthconnection.org/blog/

Dale Fletcher,

You've made a mistake. You said you are a spirit who has a soul and a body. No! Angels are spirits; man is a living soul (Gen. 2.7, Heb. 4.12) with an intuitive spirit and a physical body. When God breathed in the breath of life directly creating man's spirit it made contact with the Adamic body (formed by the pre-Adamic body), making man a living soul with a spirit and a body. Man is tripartite.

I also think that man is tripartite - spirit- soul and body. And I do believe that at our core, we are spiritual.

My appreciation is that angels are spiritual beings with a heavenly body. Men (and women) are spiritual beings with an earthly physical body.

And really, I am not too sure how important it is that we, as Christians, differentiate whether we are spiritual beings or physical beings. But that we appreciate that God made man as a whole unit - spiritual, emotional, relational, mental, and physical. Each has it’s own important function and they are all interconnected…. nothing happens in isolation.

Sincerely,

Dale

We are spiritual beings through our spirit, soulical beings through our soul, and physical beings with our physical body. These are not mutually exclusive things.

The problem was that you said you are "a spirit" that's why I responded. No. You are not a spirit. Angels are spirits; though you do have a spirit, and a soul and a body.

It is very strange for you to deny man has a physical side. There is a particular name for this specific heresy.

When God breathed in the breath of life directly creating man's spirit and the spirit made contact with the body, man became a living soul not a living spirit.

Never do we find in the Bible man is called a spirit, but we do see man called a soul.

Your spirit has the functions of intuition, communion and conscience. Your soul has the functions of mind, will and emotion.

You said you don't think this is important. Many spiritual Christians have said they would not know what spiritual life was life if they did not experience the dividing of their spirit, soul and body. So while you said this is not important Heb. 4.12 says it is vital the dividing of your spirit, soul and body. Why? Because God wants you to walk primarily by your spirit for the spirit of man is where the Holy Spirit resides, not in your soul. Spirit communicates with spirit.

Read this book to help you come to the experience of dividing of your spirit, soul and body.

http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/SMCFP.htm

I have never said or written that man does not have a physical side.

You said, "I am not too sure how important it is that we, as Christians, differentiate whether we are spiritual beings or physical beings." You said "Men (and women) are spiritual beings." When you say "whether we are" this or that, and say "this" then you are saying not "that".

​Words are important. Remember, the reason I contacted you is because you said we are spirits, and that is definitely wrong, and would agree TSM also disagrees with you on that and the Bible as well.

The importance of knowing your 3 parts: spirit, soul and body, is to realize God's will to walk after the spirit's [intuition] and its functions and not the outerman's body and soul. How can we know what to walk by if we don't know the difference and what entails these 3 parts to our being? We would be groping in the dark.

Your body gives you world-consciousness, your soul gives you self-consciousness, and your spirit gives you God-consciousness. I wouldn't have contacted if you were not in error on this point.

You said man "is a spirit"; you've never corrected yourself on that (man is tripartite). You remain wrong on that idea (frankly, you're being evasive and not owning up to what you said which is disingenuous so all I can do is repeat myself to hold you accountable). This is why I contacted you so respond to that point. Don't shut your mind down. Angels are spirits; humans are not spirits. Man is not a spirit, but a living soul with a spirit and a body. Where is the emphasis placed? Soul. Man has a spirit to contact the spiritual, but he also is soulical to contact the natural so man is not just a spiritual being but a soulical one as well (why leave out the latter?), and physical being. Calling man primarily a spiritual being loses something of what man truly is fully in his 3 parts. Soul gives us self-consciousness, spirit gives God-consciousness and body world-consciousness (oddly, you left that out of your chart whereas I include it). You also leave out the fact man's spirit has 3 functions: intuition, communion and conscience. If someone looked at your chart they would never know this because you leave it out. How important intuition, communion and conscience are!

The Bible never says man has a soul; rather, man is a living soul (read below) not a living spirit as you claim like the angels. Scripture disagrees with you. Man is a living soul WITH a spirit and WITH a body. How did this come about? Why is this so important? It's because a life of faith is a life of the will and the will resides in your soul, not in your spirit. You are deemphasizing man as a free willed being because in your view secondarily man has a soul.

Why does this matter? Because you are emphasizing and elevating man as spiritual being, which angels primarily are, and not a soulical being which man primarily is. Think of your soul as the steward, your spirit as the mistress and your body as the servant. What your spirit leads in and imparts is to the soul mediates between and is carried out in the body.

Under soul you left out man's affections (likes and dislikes) and desires. Why would you do that? Your emotion has 3 faculties: affection, desires and sensing/feeling. I hope you have the white cover, because the LSM version is messed up.

You didn't read The Spiritual Man very closely. I read it over 10 times. What you need to do is change the phrase "Man is a spiritual being, that has a soul, and lives in a body" to "Man is a living soul with a spirit and a body." Big difference! All 3 parts are important! See the emphasis? It is on soul because the soul is where man chooses from. The only reason we have a spirit at all is to communicate by spirit with the Spirit. Our spirit is the mistress we receive signals from in that still small voice. What effectively you are doing is debasing man's soul and body below man and make man a spirit like the angels. Lots of cults do this like Pentecostals. Whereas man is a tripartite being fully spirit, soul and body (1 Thess. 5.23, Heb. 4.12). Praise the Lord for this discernment. The more spiritual a Christian becomes (he starts off as fleshly and a babe in Christ, a carnal Christian) the more difficult it is to detect these finer points which thus, hinders spiritual life and in spiritual warfare.

“And Jehovah God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2.7 ASV). When God first created man He formed him of dust from the ground, and then breathed “the breath of life” into his nostrils. As soon as the breath of life, which became man’s spirit, came into contact with man’s body, the soul was produced. Hence the soul is the combination of man’s body and spirit. The Scriptures therefore call man “a living soul.” [NOT A LIVING SPIRIT which are angels]. The breath of life became man’s spirit; that is, the principle of life within him. The Lord Jesus tells us “it is the spirit that gives life” (John 6.63). This breath of life comes from the Lord of Creation. However, we must not confuse man’s spirit with God’s Holy Spirit. The latter differs from our human spirit. Romans 8.16 demonstrates their difference by declaring that “it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” The original of the word “life” in “breath of life” is chay and is in the plural. This may refer to the fact that the inbreathing of God produced a twofold life, soulical and spiritual. When the inbreathing of God entered man’s body it became the spirit of man; but when the spirit reacted with the body the soul was produced. This explains the source of our spiritual and soulical lives. We must recognize, though, that this spirit is not God’s Own life [Holy Spirit], for “the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33.4). It is not the entrance of the uncreated life of God into man [eternal life], neither is it that life of God which we receive at regeneration [Holy Spirit]. What we receive at new birth is God’s Own life [eternal life] as typified by the tree of life. But our human spirit, though permanently existing, is void of “eternal life.”

http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/spiritsoulbody.htm

God treated man’s soul as something unique. As the angels were created as spirits, so man was created predominantly as a living soul. Man not only had a body, a body with the breath of life; he became a living soul as well. Thus we find later in the Scriptures that God often referred to men as “souls.” [Not spirits] Why? Because what the man is depends on how his soul is. His soul represents him and expresses his individuality. It is the organ of man’s free will, the organ in which spirit and body are completely merged. If man’s soul wills to obey God, it will allow the spirit to rule over the man as ordered by God.



To correct Dale (left chart), "man is a spiritual being having a spirit, soulical being having a soul, and a physical being having a body." Man is not any less a soulical or physical being than he is a spiritual being. Dale gives the impression the soul and body are just tagalongs diminishing their importance. This greatly hinders spiritual life because too much emphasis is placed on our spiritual being and man's spirit.

A Christian is not considered spiritual until he overcomes. As a babe in Christ he is a carnal or fleshly Christian, and through the passage of time becomes a spiritual Christian. Paul talks about this, calling some Christians fleshly and carnal, while other Christians he correctly identifies as being spiritual. Hence, the call from God for us to "overcometh" as mentioned 7 times in the 7 churches in Rev. 2 & 3.

All Christians overcome but not at the same time. Those that overcome receive the reward of returning and reigning with Christian during the millennial kingdom on this physical earth.