Is it a man just body and soul or is he body, soul and spirit? This I
believe is one of the most fundamental questions that somebody needs to have
correctly answered. I consider the subject of body, soul and spirit as one of
the most important subjects dealt within this magazine. Therefore I would like
to ask you to please pay close attention as we go through the Word to find the
answer not only to the matter of body soul and spirit but also to some other
equally important questions related to it.
To start approaching the topic of body soul and spirit
we need to go to the first book of the Bible, the Genesis. There, after God
made man, He imposed a restriction on him, making also clear the penalty, for
the case that this restriction was violated:
Genesis 2:16-17
"And the Lord God commanded the man,
saying "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; But of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely
die".
The restriction that God imposed on Adam was that he
should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The penalty for
the case that this restriction was violated was that: "in the day [pay attention: that very day] that
you eat of it you shall surely die". Two very significant things have to
be noted in that penalty. The first is that if Adam ate from the tree death
would happen immediately, in that very day.
The second is that this would happen surely. The phrase "you shall SURELY
die" has exactly the purpose to put emphasis on the fact that death would
happen 100%, surely, in that day.
Now from Genesis 3:1-6 we all know how Satan deceived
Adam and Eve to violate the only restriction God had imposed on them, and eat
from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After eating from that tree
and according to what God had told them in Genesis 2:17, they should have died
at that moment. The problem here is that Genesis 5:5-6 says about Adam:
"After
he [Adam] begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had
sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and
thirty years; and he died."
Therefore, according to the Bible, Adam continued to
have life in his body for many years after he ate from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. On the other hand, God had said that if he would eat from
that tree he would surely, 100%, die, in that same day. So what really happen
in the day that Adam and Eve ate from that tree. Did they die as God said, or
they did not die? Who will solve us this "problem"? Man's ideas,
theories, religion and tradition? No! Only one can give us answers, and this is
no other than the Word of God. And if you want this Word to give you answers,
you have to leave it to speak for itself (self interpretation).
In our case, since God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19) in
the day that Adam and Eve ate from that tree they really died. Actually, it was
the Devil that said, when he deceived Eve, "you shall not surely
die". Thus, if they did not die that day, as God said, then Satan was
right and God was wrong, which is simply impossible. However, that's exactly
what many teach today when they say "actually when God said that they
would surely die He meant that just the sperm of death would be planted".
The Word of God does not need such kind of defense. Actually it does not need
any defense at all for it is truth and truth can stand by itself. Returning to
our topic: SINCE GOD SAID THAT THEY WOULD SURELY DIE THAT VERY DAY, THEY INDEED
DIED THAT DAY. However, since they continued to have life in their bodies even
after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is
self-evident that they must have had another form of life, in addition to the
life of their bodies, that was lost in the day that they ate and for this
reason it was death (absence of a form of life). So, we have to search the
Scriptures to see how man was created and what were the parts of his being.
Knowledge of what composed the life of the first man will also enable us to see
what was lost in that day.
Starting our research on how the first man was
created, let's go to Genesis 2:7. There it says:
"And
the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground........"
Which part of man did God form of the dust of the
ground? His body. That's why the elements of the human body can be found in the
ground. So one part of the first human being was the body. But let's continue:
Genesis 2:7
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust
of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became
a living soul [soul = nephesh in Hebrew]"
We saw that God formed man's body of the dust of the
ground. However, this body did not have life. It was just formed, without life.
Then, the Word of God tells us that God "breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life and man became a living soul". Therefore, what is soul?
Soul is what gives life to the body. The fact that people do not understand the
simple truths of the Word of God described at that point has caused no end of
confusion. Here the Word of God tells us that soul is what gives life to the
body. Without soul the body is dead. Where is the soul, the life of the body,
the life of the flesh? The Word of God again is very precise:
Leviticus 17:11, 13-14
"For the life [nephesh in Hebrew] of the flesh is in the blood.....Whatever
man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who
hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its
blood, and cover it with dust; For it [i.e. the blood] is the
life [nephesh] of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life
[nephesh] of it: therefore I said to the children of Israel "You shall not
eat the blood of any flesh: for the life [nephesh] of all
flesh is its blood"
We saw in Genesis 2:7 that soul (nephesh in Hebrew) is
what gives life to the body. Here in Leviticus we see that "the life of
the flesh is in the blood". In the above passage the word “life” is a
translation of the Hebrew word "nephesh" that is translated as “soul”
in Genesis 2:7 as well as in 471 out of the 753 of the places where it occurs.
Therefore, what is “nephesh” or soul? According to Genesis 2:7 soul is what
gives life to the body. Where is the “nephesh”, the life of the body, the soul?
According to Leviticus 17:11-14 it is in the blood: "For the life
(nephesh, soul) of the flesh is in the blood". How this soul life passes
from generation to generation? Through the blood. That's why Acts 17:26 says:
"And
He has made from ONE BLOOD every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the
earth".
The "one blood" of this passage is the blood
of Adam which passes from generation to generation and actually is the blood
that all of us have.
Actually, soul is not something that only man has.
Animals have also soul which again is in the blood. Although this is
immediately understood from the above passage of Leviticus, where we are told
that the life of all flesh is in the blood let's go to Genesis 1:20-21, 29-30
to see it there as well:
Genesis 1:20-21
"And God said, Let the waters bring forth
abundantly the moving creature [nephesh, soul] that has life [nephesh, soul]
and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God
created great whales, and every living creature [nephesh, soul] that moveth,
which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged
fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good"
Genesis 1:29-30
"And God said "Behold I have given
you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every
tree whose fruit yield seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of
the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps upon the
earth, wherein there is a living soul [nephesh in Hebrew] I have given every
green herb for meat:" and it was so."
Therefore, not only man but also the animals have
"nephesh" i.e. "soul". This is not strange at all, if we
understand that soul is what gives life to the body. When you die there is no
more life, no more soul. The same happens with the animals. Soul is for them
the same that is for man i.e. what gives life to the body. Although, there is
no problem about what is defined as soul in the Bible, the problem is created
when we go to the Bible with the preconceived idea that soul is immortal. If
soul was immortal, then really the souls of the various animals would also be
immortal, since they have "nephesh" as man has "nephesh".
Soul is not something immortal. It just gives life to the body. When you stop
having life in your body, you have no more soul.
By now, we have seen that the Bible teaches that God
formed the body of man of the dust of the ground, and that He gave to that body
life i.e. soul. The same is also true for the animals. They also have body and
soul. Every man in the world, believer or unbeliever, has body and soul. It can
therefore be concluded that since Adam died 930 years old, when he ate from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil he obviously lost neither his body nor
his soul. Thus, since something had to die for Adam that day, he must
originally have had at least one more part, which was lost, died, when he ate.
So, let's continue searching the Scriptures to see what they say about that.
To continue our enquiry let's go to Genesis 1:26-27.
There it says:
Genesis 1:26-27
"Then God said "let us make man in
our image, according to our likeness.... So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He
created them"
According to this passage, God created man "in
His own image". Here is a very critical point, a key point, if we want to
understand not only what happened in the day that Adam and Eve ate from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but also other passages of the Bible
that are affected by what is said here. Reading the above passage, the question
that has to be asked is what is the image of God? What does He look like? John
4:24 tells us:
"God
is Spirit"
God is not flesh but Spirit. That
is His image. Therefore, when the Word of God tells us that God created man
according to His image, it means that in addition to body and soul man also had
that which is the image of God i.e. spirit. In order to understand better the
usage of the phrase "in his image" in the above critical passage,
let's see another place where this phrase occurs.
Genesis 5:1-3
"This is the book of the generations of
Adam. In the day that God created man, In the likeness of God made He
him; Male and female created He them ; and blessed them, and
called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an
hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his
image; and called his name Seth"
This passage says that Adam begat a son "in his
own likeness, after his image". What does it mean? It means that as Adam
was, so his son was i.e. as Adam had hands so Seth had hands. As Adam had feet
so Seth had feet etc. As Adam was body and soul so Seth was body and soul.
Similarly, when the Word says that God created man "in his image",
"in the likeness of God", what it means is that as God is, so Adam
was. God is not flesh. He does not have feet, hands, head. He is spirit. So as
God is spirit so Adam had spirit. One could ask, why did God make Adam apart
from body and soul, spirit as well? The simple reason is that without spirit
Adam could not communicate with God Who is spirit. God being spirit, cannot
communicate with the body and soul. They are different things. You see, you
cannot receive the messages of a radio station unless you have a radio
receiver. You may have a washing machine. But the fact that you have a washing
machine does not make it possible for you to receive the messages of the radio
station. You need a radio receiver. Similarly, God is spirit and to communicate
with Him you must have spirit. Body and soul are enough for things of the five
senses. But when it comes to the things of God, what you need is spirit. This
truth is also explained in I Corinthians 2:14:
"But
the natural [psuchikos in the Greek] man does not receive the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him: nor can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned."
In this passage, the word translated
"natural" is the Greek adjective "psuchikos", which comes
from the noun "psuchi" which means soul. So, psuchikos means "a
soul man" i.e. a man with body and soul only1. According to that passage a man who is
only body and soul "does not receive the things of the Spirit of
God". As it was said above to receive "the things of the spirit of
God", to communicate with God you need the appropriate receiver i.e.
spirit. That's why the passage says: "nor can he (the man of body and
soul) know them because they are spiritually discerned". The man of body
and soul is impossible to know the things of God for the simple reason that
such things have to do with the spirit, "they are spiritually
discerned", and since he lacks spirit he cannot know them.
Summarizing all the above, Adam had body, formed from
the dust of the ground, soul that gives life to the body and spirit to
communicate with God. He was body, soul and spirit. Having established that,
there is no question about what happened in the day that Adam and Eve ate from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had told them that in the day
that they would eat from it, they would surely die. Bearing in mind that death
means the absence of a form of life, we can now see what died that day. Adam
was body, soul and spirit and his body died many years after the day that he
ate. Now since without soul a body has no life, Adam had body and soul even
after he ate from that tree. On the other hand, since God is always right in
what He says, something had to die that day. Since Adam was body, soul and
spirit before he ate and since, as we saw, he continued to have body and soul
after he ate what was lost for him that day, was the spirit that God gave him.
He continued to have body and soul but he did not have spirit. The spirit
departed from him and this was death for him since spirit, a form of life that
he had before he ate, was no more there.
You see, how clearly the Bible settles the things when
you leave it to interpret itself. It was actually this loss of the spirit that
was restored in the day of Pentecost where holy spirit was made available, so
that today after believing in Jesus Christ you are again body, soul and spirit.
That’s why then Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says:
“Now
may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We now, after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and His resurrection and receiving the gift of the holy spirit, we are no longer just body and soul but body, soul and spirit.