So what’s the difference between the spirit and the soul?

The previous blog showed that man is composed of three parts, spirit, soul, and body.

1 Thessalonians 5:23

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

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.

“Then God breathed the breath of life into this body of dust. This means that God created man with two elements. The first element was dust, and the second element was the breath of life. One element was physical, and the other was spiritual. The physical body can be touched and can be seen, but the breath of life is invisible and untouchable. When God breathed the breath of life into this body of dust, something came out–a living soul. The breath of life entering into the body of dust produced a man as a living soul. This breath of life is the human spirit. Proverbs 20:27 tells us that the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord. The Hebrew word in this verse for spirit is the same word in Genesis 2:7 for breath. This tells us that the breath breathed into our body is our human spirit.” “The Divine Economy” by Witness Lee

The Bible never confuses spirit and soul as though they are the same. They are different in terminology, and they differ in their very nature.

As cited above, in the creation of God’s first man, two independent components were used; the spiritual and the physical; the immaterial and the material. Each element was essential because the man was related to two worlds; the unseen and the seen, the spiritual and the material.

Of these components, the spirit is the noblest because it is connected with the unseen, spiritual and heavenly world. The body is the lowest because it is in contact with the visible, material, and earthly world. The soul stood halfway between these two worlds, belonging to both. It had the power of determining itself, choosing or refusing which world should dominate man.

Man was made primarily for God. To communicate with God, he must have a spirit capable of communion and fellowship with the Divine Spirit. But man was also to be placed in God’s material universe that he might have a relationship with the external world of people and things. Therefore man must have a body capable of such contact and communication. God intended the man to be in close, continuous contact with heaven and earth, spiritual and material.

The soul was the middleman between the spirit and the body, and it united them and was the means through which they acted upon each other.

The soul was to make it possible for the spirit and the body to communicate and cooperate. The soul’s job was to keep these two in their proper order to maintain their right relationship—namely, that the spirit, the highest, may govern the body through the soul and that the body, the lowest, may remain in subjection to the spirit. The spirit was to be sovereign, and as long as it remained so, the whole being would be kept spiritual.

Lord, open our eyes and remove the veils from our hearts. Shine in our darkness and help us see and know Your original purpose for creating us.

In Him,

Marion