What Is the "Soul"?

In the first 40 or so years of my life, I believed in the concept that I was composed of body and soul – the body was the material part of me, and the soul was the spiritual part of me. The body decayed in the grave when I died but the spiritual part of me lived on in an “immortal soul”.

If I died in a “state of grace” – that is, without any unrepented and unforgiven serious sin against me, I would be assured of heaven even if I had to spend some time in “purgatory” for purification first.

The problem was that I had to die with my soul in a state of grace. When I sinned, I fell out of that state of grace and when I confessed and was forgiven, I received again that state of grace.

Most of the time, I wasn’t sure whether I was in or out of the state of grace. Because even when I confessed and repented the past sin or sins, I didn’t really know how quickly my mind had taken up wrong thoughts and, consequently, whether I was prepared to die or not. I had no confidence in my salvation because I had no confidence in my state of grace.

My frustration was compounded because a corollary of this state of grace doctrine was that I had two natures – the sinful nature of the flesh and the godly nature of the “image of God” – battling within me for supremacy. There was this constant war between good and evil going on right inside of me, and evil seemed to win out as much or more than good did.

Jesus Christ, my “general” on the good side was supposed to be warring with Satan, my “general” on the bad side. It was likened to a civil war within me – my soul was the battleground, and the outcome of each battle determined my state of grace…or ungrace.

I believe that I have stated this understanding correctly to the best of my ability. Now there are very likely many who believe in this doctrine that can live with it spiritually. But I must state that I was in a constant state, not of grace, but of frustration and fear.

Was I really repentant of that last sin? Can God really keep forgiving me over and over? Why am I not overcoming habitual sin? Why did God create my mind and body so weak in fighting off sin? Am I going to die out of the condition known as “state of grace”?

Something was wrong. The Christian life just could not have been meant to be lived this way. God must have a better way.

And then, with an in depth Bible study, I found that God DOES HAVE A BETTER WAY!

Turn in your Bible to 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and see the true composition of all people: SPIRIT and SOUL and BODY. WE are made up of THREE parts. The spirit and soul are different! They must be different because Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God is able to divide the soul and the spirit of a person – that is, the Word gives us an understanding that the soul and spirit are different. The soul IS NOT the spirit.

The next step was to go to a concordance and look up the usage and Hebrew and Greek meaning of the word “soul” in the Bible.

The Hebrew word for “soul” in the Old Testament is nephesh. 470 times nephesh is translated “soul”. BUT 9 times it is translated “creature”; 90 times it is translated “life”; 12 times it is translated “heart”; 11 times it is translate “mind”; 9 times it is translated “dead body”.

The Greek word for “soul” in the New Testament is psuche. 57 times psuche is translated “soul”. BUT 40 times it is translated “life”; one time it is translated “heart”; one time it is translated “mind”.

Genesis chapter one uses the word nephesh in connection with lower life forms twice before the word is ever used concerning man: “And God created great whales and every living nephesh that moves…” (v 21). “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living nephesh after his kind, cattle, and beast…” (v. 24). So we see that animals have a nephesh. “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that moves upon the earth, wherein there is a nephesh …” (v. 30). “God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever Adam called every living nephesh that was the name thereof.” (2:19).

The words “immortal soul” do not appear in the Bible. Animals (or at least those who have relationships with man) have souls – that is, intellect, emotions and will. But animals have no spirit part. Therefore when they die, their souls die also.

But man’s soul, having a spirit part to interact with, does continue on after death. Man is more than a physical creation – he is a creature of two realms, the material and the spiritual. The human spirit is totally of the spirit realm. The human body is totally of the material realm. And the human soul FUNCTIONS IN EITHER THE SPIRIT REALM OR THE MATERIAL REALM AS IT CHOOSES.

After conversion and new birth, this new species – the Christian – now also has a totally new relationship with sin in the composite parts, the spirit, soul and body.

First of all, there can no longer be a sin of the spirit in the Christian. Jesus is living there. “Whoever is born of God [the new species of Christian] does not commit sin [in his human spirit] for His [Christ’s] seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.”(1 John 3:9). BUT WE CAN COMMIT SOUL SINS BY REVERTING TO TEMPORARY INDEPENDENT THINKING AND ITS RESULTING ACTIONS OF BODY SIN. Jesus Christ doesn’t leave the union within our spirit when we have soul and body sin.

1 John 5:17 says, “All unrighteousness is sin. And there is a sin NOT UNTO DEATH!!” The sin that was UNTO death was borne by Christ on the cross, and that is the sin that a Christian cannot commit anymore. It is simply that God’s true children cannot commit a sin that separates them from God.

The Christian can and does commit soul sins by temporarily succumbing to Satan’s external influence toward independent thinking. This can and does lead to body sins of action and to material consequences. This is just plain and simply going to happen because of the Christian’s life on earth in the material world.

But God’s response to soul and body sin in the Christian is to treat him like a member of His Family. How do you as a parent treat a child who slips up or temporarily rebels? Do you disown him? Do you reject him out of your sight? No. A good parent corrects the child in some form or other and then welcomes him forward in family love and fellowship – not rejected in punishment but loved in correction.

Correction for sin is to show us that our way doesn’t work and draws us closer to Cod than before. God wants His children to relate and deal with each other by the standards of the Family structure – God’s love. Sin, in the Christian, is still lawlessness, the illusion of independence from God. But correction draws us out of the illusion and into the reality of spiritual dependence within the Family.

So we see that God’s response to sin is both justice and mercy. God’s justice does call for punishment. But the punishment is for those without Christ. And the mercy of correction is for those IN CHRIST, those Christians of the new birth living in a union with Christ in their spirits. And the more we accept correction for those inevitable soul and body sins in the situations and circumstances of our lives, the greater will be our spiritual growth in awareness of who we are as true children in God’s Family.

We are to hand back to God the soul that is handed to us by the Creator; to choose to surrender our “control panel” in trust that the Creator knows best.

The soul and the spirit of man are created to work in union with each other. But due to the influences of our world culture, man tends to manufacture his own false sense of soul independence and to miss the nature of his true created dependence.

At this point you may be saying to me, “You mean that this understanding of what the soul is and its function within us IS THAT IMPORTANT IN A CHRISTIAN’S LIFE?

What I am saying is that, in my own experience and also in the lives of many other Christians I have seen around me, the concept of a “war between natures” within us is a very real stumbling block to spiritual growth.

Everyone deep down understands their human weakness. Oh there are many who put on a good front of supposed human strength, but it is an illusion that they have forced on themselves in response to independent reasoning. Center yourself on your human soul acting like your soul is who you ARE, and life will be difficult at best. This applies to Christians and non-Christians alike.

And a Christian who concentrates on a war between God and Satan going on WITHIN him cannot grow into the lifestyle of a child of God without much correction. The knowledge of his human weakness combined with the concept of a nature war within will most often be such a source of frustration that it will block much spiritual awareness.

CHRIST is inside you! SATAN is outside you! CHRIST has won the victory long ago. SATAN has been defeated long ago. The nature of SATAN used to be inside you but has been totally removed and replaced. The nature of CHRIST is now in your human spirit, and He has said that He will never leave you or forsake you. AND YOUR SPIRIT IS WHAT YOU ARE – your soul is NOT what you are.

You have been given your soul control-panel in order to be persuaded by God to choose Him. God wants you to see Him as a loving, correcting Father rather than as a stern, punishing Judge.

As a Christian, God has saved your spirit – who you ARE; God is in the process of “saving” or correcting your soul to His perfect ways.

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