By Sidharth Mohandas
In order to operate as new creatures in Christ, I believe it is necessary to know how God has structured our whole being.
And the God of peace Himself sanctify you WHOLLY; and may your SPIRIT and SOUL and BODY be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [1 Thessalonians 5:23]
From the above passage, we realize our entire being consists of three parts: a spirit, a soul and a body. In this article I wish to deal with the significance of these three parts.
The first two [the spirit and the soul] as you know are the immaterial parts and the body being the material part. How do these three function in a natural man, and how are they meant to function in us who are in Christ Jesus?
Ephesians 2:1 tells us that we were once dead in our transgressions and sins. That is, the moment man sinned his spirit was cut off from the eternal life of God. When Scripture says eternal life, it isn’t speaking of quantity, but is speaking of quality. In fact, even our physical life was brought down from qualitative to quantitative. And the dominion that God gave mans spirit was handed over to Satan and hence the next verse calls him the prince of the powers of the air :
“….the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience” [Ephesians 2:2].
Every man born in Adam is born dead in the spirit, and is incapable of having a relationship with God. Since his spirit is dead his earthly life is now governed by his body and his soul. His body is a vehicle for his soul. Now,what does our soul consist of? It consists of four parts: mind, will, emotions and conscience. Initially, when God breathed this eternal life into man, Scripture tells that man became a living soul. That means man was conditioned to live his life according to God’s standard of life. His thoughts, his will, his emotions and his conscience were all aligned to walking in God’s life. But when his spirit died, he started thinking like the dust of the earth, his will became earthly, his emotions became carnal and his conscience became marred.
But God being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us [Ephesians 2:4] sent this eternal life to our spirits in His Son, Jesus.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish, but have eternal life. [John 3:16]
When we believed in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, our spirit, which is the only part that can communion and fellowship with God, was made alive. And now there’s a tug between our spirit and our body, and our soul is the middle man. The soul can either listen to what the spirit tells it [that is what God communicates to our spirit] or it can listen to the flesh or the body. This is the essence of the suffering the Bible speaks of in Romans 5: 3 “And not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings: knowing that sufferings works steadfastness”. The suffering mentioned here isn’t sickness or disease, it is the tug between your spirit and your flesh. And how does Scripture tell us to strengthen our spirit in this suffering? By rejoicing!
Your flesh may tell you, “Don’t you feel the pain?”, “Aren’t you sick?”, while the spirit tells you, “By His stripes you were healed”. The flesh gives you report of what the eye sees, or what the ear hears. However, your spirit gives and feeds on the report of faith. And when your soul [mind] follows the spirit, it drags your mortal body with it into eternal life [Romans 8:11]. Don’t mistake me here, our bodies will perish one day, but God desires that we prosper in good health even as our soul prospers [3 John 1:2]
“…for we walk by faith, not by sight” [2 Corinthians 5:7]
Our natural, fallen fleshly nature isn’t conditioned for the “zoe” kind of life. But if our spirit is deposited with this life and as we choose to believe the reports of the spirit, we can walk into the fulness of it.
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace [Romans 8:5]
You and I need to ask ourselves, are we walking in eternal life here on earth? The key: condition your mind [soul] to walk after the spirit, and then quality life and peace will be yours. And don’t forget the key of how to strengthen your spirit to be steadfast…REJOICE IN THE LORD, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!
very beautifully explained Siddu, I am sending this to my husband.
Excellent! Father help us walk in the Spirit and not satisfy the lust of the flesh.
I have a visual aid I’d like to send you. I have a German-born friend who gave me some really good material on this teaching. You would love it. I’ll work on figuring out how I can send it.
BTW, that was Chris Rice singing the Untitled Hymn. Thanks for encouraging my Liv.
YSIC,
A
more good stuff…thanks!
I really like the distinction between quality and quantity. It remembers others of the opposite of eternal life, without rubbing it into their faces (for people who can’t take preaching about hell). I also never saw it this way, that Satan was given dominion over the spiritual realm. I did believe that Satan was given some kind of rule, but didn’t really think about what he was given dominion over. Somehow I thought it was everything having to do with earth, natural and spiritual. But he does only have the spiritual, or else he could influence the natural realm in a more extreme way (after all, Satan can’t change the laws of nature, only to the extent the spiritual realm allows this).
I also never really thought of the soul as the “middle man” between the spirit and the body. Opens up a different perspective of things… Although I do wonder how you came to this conclusion by the scripture you quoted: “And how does Scripture tell us to strengthen our spirit in this suffering? By rejoicing!”. Why by rejoicing? The scripture you quoted only says that we should rejoice because of sufferings because they will make us more steadfast. It’s not telling us that it’s the other way around, that the steadfastness results from rejoicing.
What is the “zoe kind of life”?
Now, after reading more carefully, and even before reading it so carefully, this article has helped me in learning that I should trust God, that he can organize things, plan things for me, and I don’t have to worry. He has everything laid out for me. My worrying doesn’t really do anything to change/help this, it only makes me miss other parts of life, things I could have experienced. I’ve been learning this combined with a podcast of Joel Osteen I just watched and based on what has been happening to me these past few days, and probably my whole life. I should just trust God and go on with my life the best I can, doing what I think is right, what I think God wants me to do.
Thank you for being such a great friend, Sid!
Through out the Bible we find the emphasis on “joy”. In Phil 3:1 tells us that joy is a “safeguard” for us, Nehemiah tells us that joy of the Lord is our “strength”. If we don’t joy while going through tribulation, then we can’t be steadfast.
“Zoe” is the Greek word used for “life” that is related to the “eternal life”.
Thanks so much.
i understood about mind, will, emotions and conscience,spirit,soul and body.
but brother what about devil things which is forced me to do wrongs or sins.
who is this satan ?
God has authorities over this earth and heaven.
still devils are doing their work continuesly.
what about satan ? who is this guy?
God love him as enable doing this evil things?
please brother i am asking to you the humble request.