MAN IS A TRIPARTITE BEING

Man consists of three parts: body, soul, and spirit, and this is called tripartite. Two passages clearly teach that man has three parts. I 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.” This first clearly states that man has three separate, distinct parts; the distinctions may be slight but they exist, nevertheless. Hebrews 4:12, “For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedge sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts…” Some people teach that the soul and spirit are two words but mean the same thing; this verse definitely tells us that they are divisible.

Man is a spirit, has a soul, and lives in a body. To get the best out of man’s life, these three parts must be well-managed. The three parts cannot be handled in the same way because of their different characteristics and nature. The spirit and soul are invisible/intangible but the body is physical/tangible/visible. Our spirit relates with God and the spiritual world, and our body relates with the physical world. While we discern with the spirit, we feel and have empathy with the soul, but we touch, taste, see and handle with the body.

 

THE SPIRIT OF MAN (Pneuma)

The spirit is the most important part of our being! It is our inner man or regenerated spirit and it deals with the spiritual world (Zechariah 12:1). The spirit is the one that has contact with the spiritual world. It is the part of man where the Holy Spirit dwells. It is the part of our being that God comes into (the heart) and the part of us in which we are joined to Him (II Timothy 4:22, Ephesians 2:22). The spirit is divided into three parts: consciousness, intuition, and communion (Romans 9:1, I Corinthians 1:9, Mark 2:8).

1) Conscience is the door of the spirit, it is what tells us what is right and what is wrong and it is what makes us feel guilty. Sin makes the conscience dull and insensitive to the Spirit of God. Conscience is the door through which we open our spirit to the Holy Spirit.           

2) Intuition is the knowing part, through which we perceive or feel things or circumstances.

3) The area of ​​communion of our spirit is the area that was made to have communion with God.

It is the spirit that gives man the ability to have an intimate relationship with God; it is that part of us that is enabled by God to know and worship Him. The spirit of man is what gets born again or regenerated. Just as the soul is the sphere of activity where Satan operates, the spirit of man is the sphere of activity where the Holy Spirit operates in regeneration.

When we become new creations, it is in our spirit that the Spirit of God comes to reside. Man in his unregenerate state does not understand the things of God because the spirit of man is limited to the things of man (I Corinthians 2:14). The spirit of the unregenerate man has no more capacity to appreciate the things of God than an animal has to appreciate holy things (Matthew7:6).

The spirit gives man God-consciousness, the ability to communicate with God. God breathed into the nostrils of Adam, giving him the spirit (wind, breath). The spirit receives impressions of outward and material things through the soul and the body, but it belongs to a higher level and is capable of direct knowledge of God, by relation to its own higher senses and facilities.

AT THE SPIRIT LEVEL, THE FOLLOWING ARE POSSIBLE

Spiritual discernment (I Corinthians 2:14):

This is why some people cannot understand Christians because understanding Christianity demands spiritual discernment.

Revelation:

God reveals secrets and mysteries to us only through the spirit. That's why the apostle Paul prays for believers to have the spirit of revelation (Ephesians 1:17).

Peace:

This peace is not the worldly peace we know of but a deep inner feeling of peace and freedom. This peace transcends all human understanding (Romans 8: 6).

Communion with God:

God is a spirit and so He only speaks to us through the spirit. The same way God hears us when we talk to him in the spirit by praying in unknown tongues.

THE SOUL OF MAN (psyche)

The soul is not in the physical or spiritual world but rather in the psychological. The soul seems to be the part of man midway between the body and the spirit, yet it is not a mixture of the two, though at times it seems to take on a characteristic of one or the other. The soul joins two worlds, the physical and the spiritual. The work of the soul is to coordinate the activities of the two diverse parts. The soul is to keep the body, as the lowest in subjection to the spirit as the highest. It is the soul of man that Jesus died to redeem on the cross (Hebrews 10:39).

The soul is the part that comprises the emotions and the mind of man. It is the seat of man's personality; his intellect, his emotions, and his will. It is with the mind that one understands. The soul is our person or personality and determines both how we evaluate and experience the physical world and the organ by which we receive the feelings and communication from God in our inner man. The soul is called the inner man in the bible (Ephesians 3:16). The five natural senses are “doors” to the soul. Through these five doors, we become conscious or aware of our surroundings. But, the soul cannot become aware of God through our natural sense alone. We cannot physically see God, etc.

The Hebrew term for the soul is “nephesh” and it is found more than 780 times in the Old Testament. We read in Genesis 2:27 that man not only has a living soul; he is a living soul. It is the immaterial part of man midway between the body and the spirit, yet it is not a mixture of the two. Unlike the body, the soul cannot be destroyed by physical death but lives on beyond the grave. The soul does not die when the body dies. 

The soul is self-consciousness; it stands for the individual, personal life. The ingredients which make us human beings belong to the soul. The intellect, thought, ideals, love, emotion, understanding, decision, choice, and other like qualities are all associated with the soul. In other words, the soul is also the seat of all affections and Satan knows this very well that is why he operates making his appeal to the affections and emotions of man.

THE BODY OF MAN (soma)

The body is the part of man with which we are most familiar – the physical part of man, called the outward man in the Bible. The body is that part of man that contacts and reacts to the physical world. It is dominated by the five senses and is the vehicle through which we communicate with the outside world. All ecstasy, pain, sensation, or ability is expressed in and through the physical body. The body is a container for both the spirit and the soul. With the fall of man, sin entered the body (Genesis 2:7, Romans 7:23).

 

God created man as a tripartite being, to love Him and to enjoy life and nature. Man was created with the ability to think, love, and make decisions, Isaiah 1:18. Man was made for God; the spirit of man was made to commune with God.