Body, Soul, Spirit
Body, Soul, Spirit
Before we move into the depth of this important study
we must understand some fundamental terms. When I
speak of the man of body and soul, I speak of the man
who is not born again of God’s Spirit. This is the accurate
Biblical usage of “natural man.” The five senses
are the only avenues of learning the natural man has.
Everything that ever comes to a natural man’s mind must
come over one or a combination of these five senses:
hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching.
Our senses gather information from a source or sources
outside ourselves. We come to conclusions from our accumulated
exposure and experience, and thus we come
to believe what we believe. Being aware of the process
of learning, I came to the conclusion many years ago that
for me the Word of God (not the King James Version,
but the Word of God which was given when “. . .holy
men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost”) would be my source for truth.
For years I read around the Word of God, with the
writers of outside works being centers of reference for
me. Soon I suffered from a common disease called basic
mental confusion because equally great men would contradict
each other regarding the same verse of Scripture.
When I began to consider the process of learning, I finally
came to the conclusion that instead of spending my life
in confusion because of the abundance of men’s opinions
I would accept one center of reference for truth which
was outside myself. My center of reference for truth is
the Word of God.
If the Word of God is wrong, I am going to be wrong;
but if the Word of God is right, then I have everything
to gain by taking it as my sole center of reference. I believe
that The Word takes the place of the absent Christ
and that the holy spirit is Christ in us by way of God’s
Word.* I believe that the Bible gives the truth regarding
man’s redemption and his dominion and authority and
power over all God’s creation. I believe that the Bible
gives the truth regarding Jesus Christ, His coming, His
death, His resurrection, His ascension; the Bible is God’s
stating of the truth regarding the new heaven and the new
earth which God is going to establish. I believe that the
Bible gives truth, not just facts. Anything man does, anything
man makes, is a fact. I believe that the Word of
God is Truth—Truth which is eternal, the same yesterday,
today and forever. I believe that the revelation of the
Word of God is an absolute necessity for the man of
five senses, the natural man. If the senses man is going
to be a complete man, he must have an accurate knowledge
of God’s Word.
A very condensed Scripture which we must thoroughly
master to understand the origin of man is in Isaiah.
Isaiah 43:7:
Even [for] every one that is called by my name: for
I have created him for my glory, I have formed him;
yea, I have made him.
I have created him; I have formed him; I have made
him. Are the three words “created,” “formed” and “made”
synonymous? Most people in my classes say yes, but if
The Word means what it says and says what it means,
these words cannot be synonymous. When God said
formed, He meant formed. When He said made, He meant
made. When He said created, He meant created. Had He
meant formed all the way through, it would have said
formed at all three places. But God says, “I created,
formed and made man.”
I Thessalonians 5:23:
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and
I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Are these three words “spirit,” “soul” and “body”
synonymous? They are no more synonymous than are
“created,” “formed” and “made.” Body means body, soul
means soul and spirit means spirit. Now we must go to
The Word and let The Word speak as to what is formed,
what is made and what is created; and what is body,
soul and spirit.
In the beginning man was formed, made and created.
Let us follow the development of Scripture.
Genesis 2:7:
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground. . . .
The Hebrew word for “formed” is yatsar, “to fashion
out of something that is already in existence.” Genesis
2:7 says that God formed man of the dust of the ground,
a substance which already existed when God began working
on man. The word “man” is adam, meaning “red
earth.” Man’s body is composed of the same elements
that are in the dust of the earth.
Genesis 3:19:
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken:
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
The body of man was formed ( yatsar) of the dust of
the ground. And, because of the natural law that everything
must ultimately return to its original state, the body
must return to dust. Ecclesiastes 3:20 says, “. . . all are
of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” This obviously
refers to men’s as well as animals’ bodies.
The next word to observe is the word “soul” which
in Hebrew is nephesh. What is soul? The soul in man is
that which gives the body its life, its vitality.
Genesis 2:7:
And the Lord God formed man [man’s body] of the
dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living soul.
“Breathed into his nostrils” is the figure of speech
condescensio. God put life into Adam; He made man a
living soul. The word “made” is in Hebrew asah, “a substance
required of which the thing made consists.” The
soul is nothing more and nothing less than that which
gives life to a person’s body. Sometimes it is called “the
spirit of man.” Soul has nothing to do with whether you
are a Christian or a non-Christian. So long as a person
breathes, he has a soul.
I Peter 3:20:
Which sometime were disobedient, when once the
longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah,
while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is,
eight souls were saved by water.
This verse is talking about the eight souls who were
saved during the great flood. Were they Christians? No,
Christ had not yet come. Noah, his wife and their three
sons and their wives—all eight people, eight souls—were
saved.
Acts 27:37:
And we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore
and sixteen souls.
This record in Acts refers to the ship on which Paul
and Luke were sailing to Rome. Except for Paul and Luke,
the rest on board were unbelievers, non-Christians; and
yet the record says, “and we were in all in the ship two
hundred threescore and sixteen souls.” “Soul” means alive
people; soul is that part which gives life to the body.
The confusion between the soul and the spirit has caused
no end of difficulty for people. They say the soul is
immortal, for instance. They talk about transmigration
of the soul, the immortality of the soul. These are all
erroneous usages of words concerning subjects which are
set with exactness and precision in the Word of God.
Genesis 1:30:
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of
the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the
earth, wherein there is life. . . .
The word “life” is “soul.” This verse says that every
beast has a living soul.
Genesis 1:20:
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly
the moving creature that hath life. . . .
Where there is a soul in an animal, there is movement,
there is breath-life.
Genesis 1:21:
And God created great whales, and every living creature
[soul]. . . .
Genesis 1:24:
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living
creature. . . .
The word “creature” is again the word “soul.” These
are some of the places in Genesis 1 where the word “soul”
is used regarding creatures as well as man. The soul, then,
is that which gives a being its life. The word nephesh is
“soul.” Chai means “moving” life, “moving” soul. Nephesh
chai is always used in the Word of God as living
life or living soul, in contrast to a dead soul, a soul that
has perished.
The modern church has been illogical on this particular
issue because it usually teaches that the soul is spirit
and goes back to God; but then these teachers deny that
the soul of a cow (for a cow has soul-life) must also go
back to God when that cow dies. If the soul came from
God, it must ultimately go back to God, just as the body
of man must ultimately go back to dust from which it
came. God is Spirit. Is the soul spirit? No. The soul is
that which gives one breath-life.**
God made every beast wherein there is a soul, a life.
The question we must now ask is where is the soul-life
of man. Leviticus tells us.
Leviticus 17:11:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood. . . .
The soul-life is in the blood and is passed on to the
next generation when the sperm impregnates the egg at
the time of fertilization.
What ultimately happens to the soul? Soul-life is passed
on from one person to his progeny. If a person has no
offspring, his soul is simply gone when he dies; it is no
more. There is nothing immortal about the soul, no more
so than there is anything immortal about dust. Man’s body
is made of dust and it goes back to dust. Man’s soul-life
which comes from his predecessors simply is no more
after he has taken his last breath.
After studying “formed” and “made,” we still must
consider the Biblical usage of the word “created.” What
part of man was created?
To find the first use of “create” we look at the first
verse in the Bible.
Genesis 1:1:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.
“To create” literally means “to bring something out
of nothing” or “to bring into existence something which
never existed before.”
Many Sunday school teachers say that “on the first day
God created thus and so, and on the second day God
created something else,” and so on. That is not what the
Word of God says. In verse 3 God said, “Let there be
light.” Why didn’t He have to create it? Because whatever
light is composed of had already been created when
God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth.
All He had to do was “speak” these other things into
existence. Verse 6 says, “And God said. . .” Verse 9,
“And God said. . .” Verse 11, “And God said. . . .” Verse
14, “And God said. . . .”
In verse 21 God created “great whales, and every
living creature that moveth. . . .” Their bodies were brought
forth or formed out of the waters. Water and earth already
existed, so the substance which made up their
bodies didn’t have to be created. Then what had to be
created at this point? Soul-life, because it never existed
before. As recorded in verses 24-26, God brought forth
from the earth the cattle, the beasts and man—all being
given the soul-life that was created in verse 21. As you
remember, God simply made life for man, He used the
life which had been previously created.
As God progressed in this work of forming, making
and creating the earth and its inhabitants, He finally came
to bringing about His culminating work—man.
Genesis 1:27:
So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God created he him; male and female created he
them.
God had already formed and made man; man already
had a body and soul. So what was God doing when He
created man in His own image? What is the image of
God?
John 4:24:
God is a Spirit. . . .
God created within man spirit, His image. Thus man
became body, soul and spirit. After God created within
man His own image, God had a companion—not in the
body and soul parts of man, but in the spirit. It is that
part of man which made it possible for God to talk to
man and for man to communicate with God. This gave
them fellowship. We read about the threefold man in
Isaiah and Thessalonians where the Scriptures say that
man was formed, made and created, and that he was body,
soul and spirit. Scientists today talk about creating life.
That is a misnomer. They may rediscover, revamp, reorganize,
readapt or re-compound; but they cannot create
because to create is to bring something into existence
which did not previously exist. Scientists always start
with some substance, so they are not creating.
Man, as he originally was put together, surpassed the
animal realm in that he not only had body and soul, but
also spirit. It was the spirit which set man apart from the
rest of creation. Because of man’s having spirit, God
could communicate with his final masterpiece.
Again we can see that God in His Word meant what
He said and said what He meant. In the beginning God
formed the body of man, He made the soul of man and
He created the spirit in man.