Brother Bob said:
Mat 10:28And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both
soul and body in hell.
1Th 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.
Luk 16:22And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
First, just from the preceding posts one can see that there is bound to be much disagreement even among fellow believers as to what constitutes the soul and the spirit. Some are dichotomists, and some are trichotomists. I will give my view which I have studied out. But I am not so dogmatic on it that I will not entertain another's point of view. (Doesn't mean I will accept it though
) That which I do adamantly reject is the SDA view of soul sleep.
So here are some things to consider.
1. Man is made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore I believe he is made a tripartite being, as is also evidenced by 1Thes. 5:23.
2. Having said that, the Bible often uses the words "soul" and "spirit" interchangeably, so one has to be very careful in the context in which theyare used.
Some examples:
"The soul that sinneth it shall die."
--If the soul never dies, then what does the soul refer to? It is obviously the person that is referred to here.
In Luke 12, the rich man said:
"And I will say to my soul: 'Soul that hast much goods laid up..."
Who was he talking to? Was it really his soul? Could be. It depends on how you define soul. But if the soul lives forever was he talking to something immortal when he was an unsaved man?
These are just two examples. There are plenty more where the context has to be carefully examined.
3. I believe that the spirit is that part of man that can communicate with the supernatural. This is what differentiated man from animals. If you study Genesis one carefully enough you will find that God created living animals with a soul. But only man has a spirit. The spirit communicates to God. A depraved spirit is quite capable of communicating with Satanic forces, such as the witch of Endor was accustomed to doing.
4. However the soul, in the strictest sense of the word, is the seat of the emotions, affections, even the mind. When the body dies, the doctor declares that it is "brain dead." Of course at that time we believe its spirit goes to heaven. The brain is buried with the body. The brain is the organ which kept it functioning. It was the life of the body--its computer, so to speak.
Now in some inextricable way, the Holy Spirit, at the time of conversion, enters the body and joins with our spirit. This also affects our mind. For the Bible says that we ought to have the mind of Christ. However we don't always have the mind of Christ. The battle is in the mind. Paul describes that battle in Romans 7. It is a battle between the sinful nature inherited by Adam, and the new nature given to us by Christ. The mind is the soul--the seat of our affections, and the place of our decision making. The decision that we have to make is: who are we going to yield the members of our body to: our sinful nature or to our new nature?
At death the spirit will leave and go either to heaven or hell.
At death the mind is dead, along with the body.
At the resurrection the body (with its mind in tact) will be resurrected and given a glorified body (and mind) and be reunited with its spiritt.
Heb.4:12 says that the Word is able to divide the soul and spirit. What does that mean. It means that they are separable. The Word speaks to our spirit in a very intimate and spiritual way. But we also use our mind (soul) to understand it intellectually. We need both.
