Spirit, Soul and Body

God’s Hat Trick (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

or

The Trinity, Within a Trinity, Within a Trinity

 

23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. (1 Thessalonians 5:23,24 New American Standard)

In sports, three successive goals by one player is called a hat trick. God scored a hat trick in you, did you know that?

Let’s review: I am a new creation whose spirit has been made righteous by the Holy Spirit and I have been adopted into the family of God. Since I started this blog, this is my working definition of who I am as a Christian.

Now, I want to teach on how all this works together. If you grasp Spirit, Soul and Body, you will understand a little more about how God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit interacts with you and how the devil messes with you in spite of being saved.

Did you catch that? God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. God is a Trinity. Spirit, Soul and Body. You are a trinity. And within your soul, you are again, a trinity. Pretty neat, huh? That’s God’s hat trick.
I taught Spirit, Soul and Body to many soldiers and their families about 25 years ago in starting in Korea, then at Fort Hood, Texas and finally in Germany. This is one of the most important teachings a Christian could possibly learn, especially a new Christian. Understanding the inter-relationship between your spirit, soul and body will help you understand your relationship with the Godhead, especially for prayer, and for sickness in your body and the body of Christ. Take time to read this blog carefully, print it out and read it at your convenience. You will see how this applies to so many aspects of your everyday life and reinforce to you how your salvation works.

I have defined who you are to heaven. Now let me define who you are on earth: you are a spirit, who lives in a body, who possesses a soul. Moses wrote in Genesis that God formed man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). In the new testament, God wants us sanctified spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23, John 4:24).

Some Christians have never heard of spirit, soul and body. I never did for many years until I stumbled upon some information from a guy I knew in Oklahoma. The only thing I understood growing up in Christ was that I had a spirit or soul (interchangeable depending on who I talked to), and a body. Somehow, when I died, the soul goes to heaven and the body decays. Beyond that, all I knew was that God influenced the spirit part of me which was a mystery.

So, let me illustrate the way I think of spirit, soul and body. Look at the chart below.

Your Spirit is represented by the explosion symbol. That is the God-consciousness part of you that is connected to the Soul that is represented by the triangle. The Soul is the Self-consciousness part of you. It is made up by another trinity of parts of your Will, your Mind and your Emotions. Those three parts help you interpret the spirit world and the natural world. The Soul connects you to your body which is the World-consciousness of you. Your body is the earth-suit we travel around with until we get a new one in heaven.

As we talk about this in the coming weeks, I will add to this chart. The important idea is that you must understand that you are a trinity as God is a Trinity. The individual parts of you play an important role in your Christian life. For an example: there is a baptism for each part of you; and there is a communion for each part of you. The temple of Moses is a type and shadow of you. There is a healing for each part of you. There are many other aspects of you that is right there in scripture if I get to write about it.

Treating your Spirit, Soul and Body with respect is critical to your relationship with God. Paul warns that our Body is a temple of God. He warns not to misuse it because it is supposed to be God’s. He uses the illustrations of marriage and prostitution. In each case, the person is joined to that partner in body, but also we know there is a spiritual and soulish bonding. Paul continues to make this corollary: when we are joined to the Lord (salvation) we are one in Spirit with Him. So Paul describes all three parts of us in the passage. He speaks of the physical body, he speaks of the Soul (how else are you going to generate the lust for a prostitute or the love for your wife?) and the Spirit.
Interesting that Paul uses the word “Kallao” for joining to a prostitute, a spouse and God. And he said that we are one in Spirit with God. “Kallao” means to join with or cleave to, we adhere to (like glue) we keep company with. One “heis” in Spirit means you and God are one person. Same sense of the word in Gal 3:28 and Ephesians 2:14. There is no Jew nor Greek, Male nor Female and the Jews and Gentiles and Christ are united into one Body of Christ in the Spirit. See how important that one part of you is?

23 Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 24 God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. (I Thessalonians 5:23,24 New Living Translation)

Catch the rest of the verse and check out verse 24. God will make us holy in every way, keep us blameless and God will make it happen!

I have kept this blog entry very basic so that if you are not familiar with Spirit, Soul and Body, you won’t be overwhelmed with tech talk. The specifics about your Spirit, your Soul and your Body I will get into some specifics. The Greek and Hebrew will come, so don’t just take my word for something, look it up and decide for yourself. That’s what the Bereans did!

Next lesson, I will talk specifically about your Spirit.