Bible Talk > Sound doctrine

The Soul and the Spirit

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JB Horn:
The Bible teaches us that we have both the soul and the spirit. These verses seem to tell us that they are different even know sometimes in Scripture they seem to be used interchangeably.


--- Quote ---Hebrews 4:12, "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

1 Thessalonians 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."

1 Peter 1:22-23, "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."

--- End quote ---

The two Greek words used in the Bible are defined by Strong's numbers.
Soul (Psuche)
the Soul
   a.  the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions (our heart, soul etc.)
   b.  the (human) soul in so far as it is constituted that by the right use of the aids offered it by God it can attain its highest end and secure eternal blessedness, the soul regarded as a moral being designed for everlasting life
   c.  the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death

Spirit (Pneuma)

a.  the disposition or influence which fills and governs the soul of any one
b.  a human soul that has left the body

Looking at these definitions, in my own mind it appears that the soul only exist with man, but the spirit can exist without man.

Remembering that it is the spirit that regenerates the man and at the same time apparently regenerates the soul. When we are born again in spirit, that spirit is perfect with God and needs no regeneration, however the soul is still with man in the world and needs to be brought closer to God and further from the world.
The spirit is how you relate to God. When you are reborn, you are born of spirit. That spirit is always sinless and God's eyes, and is a completed work.

John 3:5 Jesus answered , Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Fat:
1 Corinthians 15:45 (NAS) 

So also it is written, "The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.


Let me take a stab at this.

The first Adam gave us an inheritance of an of a living soul an also doomed us to death. The last Adam gave us an inheritance of a spirit that is ever lasting.

Hal:
When God says that He has written His laws on our heart is He talking about the soul or the spirit?

OlympicClimb12:
Thanks much to the opening poster. I much appreciate your words and scriptures that helped me to learn something new. I had not realized before that soul and Spirit were different. . . but now that you share this it makes sense to me.

When God tell Adam he would go to the dust again. How is it that in Daniel 12:4 they are raised from the dust? For they were sleeping in the dust. They were not incorruptible yet. They died as corruptible. But the day of the Lord will show for they shall be caught up in a twinkling of an eye and then shall they be incorruptible given a new body that like a Spirit. A Spiritual Body that will never die..

The Promised Body of everlasting life. In this life we are trained to live in the Spirit but that takes using our body, mind, and Soul but the mind is often as our soul our inner self. Sometimes referred as our Heart our inner being. The mind body heart is our soul inner being. The Spirit is our obedience and which becomes the the new spiritual body which is much different than the body we have now.

Alexander Winslow:
Thanks to the confusion of the churches of Christendom with their man-made doctrines around which they fit a few scriptures, the issue of the Souls and the Spirit becomes quite confusing and yet it really could not be simpler.

Adam was provided with a perfect human body and then God breathed into him the breath of life and man became a 'living' soul, until then he was a 'dead' soul; that was it! Simple!

Now how do we know that this is all there is to it? Well why do we not let Almighty God provide us with the answer himself?

Most people along with the churches of Christendom and others who do not even acknowledge a particular faith, still believe that they have an immortal soul which somehow leaves the body at the point of death and goes somewhere else.

Yet when we examine the inspired word of God, evidence of this is nowhere to be found, in fact, Almighty God has indeed made a point-blank statement that the truth of this is quite the opposite!

“Behold, all souls are Mine. As the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:4) 21st Century King James Version (KJ21) “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” (Psalm 146:4) King James Version (KJV) [King James I of England 1611 A.D.] 21st Century King James Version (KJ21)

Well, we could not get it any plainer than that, in fact, the statement that at death even the 'thoughts' of the individual perishes; then this cancels out the 'theory' that some spirit entity goes off  somewhere else. Because if it did, then it would know who it is and therefore its thoughts would not have perished!

The Hebrew word for 'soul' is 'nephesh' meaning that which has a need for fair, food and water; in other words the body itself.

So when the body dies ,it is simply the breath of life which returns to God; nothing else!

Alexander

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