Spirit, Soul, & Body

1 Thessalonians 5:23 reads, “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.”

Interesting thing here: If you ever hear anyone talking about the triune makeup of man, we always say, “Body, soul, and spirit.” But, the Scripture always lists the three as “spirit, soul, and body.” This difference in order is because our bodies are how we interact in this world, using our five senses. God, however, works with our spirit first.

We tend to think that our standing with God has a lot to do with what our bodies do. If we don’t use our hands to steal or our tongues to lie and cuss, God will be happy with that. People also tend to think that using their bodies for good will give bonus points as far as God is concerned. Using our hands to feed the poor or our feet to walk into a church are two examples of how we think doing things brings favor with the Almighty.

Remember, God lists the spirit first and the body last. Why? Our spirit controls what the soul believes and what the body does.

Here is how the three work together.

Our spirit is the thing inside us that asks the difficult questions of existence. “Is there a God?” and “Why am I here?” are two examples.

The soul is mainly our personality, our likes and dislikes. Examples: some people are benevolent, others are greedy. As our spirit receives answers to those life questions it asks, then our soul molds into something different.

We see this in Dicken’s classic “A Christmas Carol.” The story begins with Scrooge being a stingy, greedy man. This aspect of his personality comes from his belief that accumulating wealth was his purpose in life. Early in Scrooge’s life, his spirit was asking the question, “Why am I here?” Then, for whatever reason, the answer Scrooge accepted to this question was that his purpose in life was to gain wealth. Because of the answer the spirit accepted (accumulate wealth), his soul took on the characteristics to accomplish the desired goal: he was stingy, greedy, and a workaholic.

Then Scrooge has his night of visitation. Through the experiences given to him by his four visitors, his spirit finds a new answer to the question, “Why am I here?” Scrooge now believes that the reason for his existence is to spread his wealth and be a blessing to others. Because of the change in his spirit, his soul now switches from greedy to benevolent.

We cannot leave the body out of the equation, either. It is the third part of the human experience. When the spirit’s answer was to gain wealth, his soul was greedy and selfish, and his body responded with the words, “Bah humbug,” to any suggestion of generosity. When the answer to the spirit’s question is to bless others, his body responds by buying his employee a colossal bird to cook for Christmas dinner and paying for Tim’s medical expenses.

This conjunction between spirit, soul, and body is how it works for all of us. The answers the spirit has to life’s questions mold the soul and form our personality traits and our likes and dislikes, in other words, our decision-making process; then our soul, in turn, tells our body what to do, and our body acts accordingly.

Now, let’s get down to some nitty-gritty. Regarding the spirit’s questions, there are three basic outcomes. A person can ignore the question by concluding that it is too big to answer or that finding the answer is not worth the effort.

Luke 12:16-21 tells the story of a successful businessman. This man decided the answer to “Why am I here?” was having the most productive farm possible. There comes a point when his farm production reaches the point that he has enough stored up to live out his days without working. He decides to retire and live the rest of his life off the fruit of his lifelong labor. Nothing is wrong with this; the Bible tells us a person should live and enjoy the fruit of their labor (Ecclesiastes 2:24).

But the man in the story seems to have ignored the question, “Is there a God?” In the description of his life, there is no mention of him interacting with God through prayer, worship, or study. The time comes for the man to die. His earthly wealth is lost, and he has no spiritual value because God was not in his thought process. The man will spend eternity in hell because he ignored the spirit’s most essential questions: “Is there a God? And if yes, who is He?”

A second group will answer the spirit’s questions incorrectly. They may conclude that there is no God, or they may conclude that Jesus Christ is not God. Coming to these conclusions has adverse effects on the spirit, soul, and body. The effects and results of these conclusions are described in detail in Romans 1:18-32.

Lastly, when the spirit gets the answer right, there is a God, and that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us. He is the creator of the universe and died on the cross for our sins. He is the Lamb of God. Trusting in His sacrificial death on the cross for our sins brings salvation. At that point, the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, along with our spirit.

Once this happens, answers to life’s other questions, such as “Why am I here?” begin to open up. As this process occurs, our soul takes on more godly attributes, and our actions (what the body does) become more in tune with God’s Word.

Christian, it is not what we do but who we are. Who we are will dictate what we do.

Ending this with a prayer, “Dear Lord, we love you. May we act like it.”