In the Bible, the word soul may be understood in several ways. First, man himself is a soul. Genesis 2:7 says, “Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” God formed a body for man from the dust of the ground, but the breath of life that God breathed into man’s body became the spirit of man, the human spirit (Job 32:8; Prov. 20:27). As a result, man became a living soul. First Corinthians 15:45a says, “So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul,’” and referring to the seventy persons in the house of Jacob, Deuteronomy 10:22 says, “Your fathers went down into Egypt as seventy souls” (cf. Gen. 46:27; Exo. 1:5). All these verses tell us that man himself is a soul. In addition, soul in the Bible refers to the soulish part of the human being and also to the soulish functions of man.
Soul also refers to the soulish life of man, because the soulish part of man is the place where his human life is. In the New Testament, the Greek word for soul is psuche, which is also translated as soul-life, as in Matthew 16:25-26, which says, “Whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life?” Similarly, John 12:25 says, “He who loves his soul-life loses it; and he who hates his soul-life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life.” Thus, in various verses of the Bible soul denotes man himself, the soulish part of man, the soulish functions, and the soulish life.
The person of fallen man is his soul, having an outward and inward organ. The physical body, which was made from the dust of the ground, is the outward organ to contact the physical, material world. The spirit, which came from the spiritual breath of life, is the inward organ to contact the Lord in the spiritual realm. We should not consider that the person of the natural man is either his body or his spirit. Both of these are simply organs; the soul is the person. Because the soul is the being, the person, of man, within the soul is man’s self, his personality. Likewise, within every being there is a life. The life of the natural man is neither in his body nor his spirit. The human life is in the soul.
At the time of the fall, Satan as sin came into man’s body through man’s eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:1-6). Romans 7:17 says, “Now then it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me.” According to this verse and verses 8, 11, and 20, sin dwells in us and operates in us, and according to 6:12 and 14, sin reigns in our mortal body and lords it over us. These verses indicate that sin is a person, the embodiment of Satan with his evil nature. In the New Testament Satan is called “the evil one” (Matt. 13:19, 38; John 17:15; 1 John 2:13-14; 5:18-19). In Greek this phrase is literally “the evil.” Sin and the evil are Satan himself.
Romans 7:23 tells us where this sin dwells: “I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members.” Sin dwells in the members of our body. This means that Satan entered into fallen man through his body. Every kind of lust is in the body because the source of lust—Satan, the evil one—is in the body, that is, in the flesh. Originally, the body was something good and pure, but since Satan came into it and damaged it, the body was changed in nature to become the flesh. Genesis 6:3 says, “And Jehovah said, My Spirit will not strive with man forever, for he indeed is flesh.” The body is the flesh because it was corrupted and ruined when Satan entered into it.
Moreover, when man—the being, the soul—came under the influence and control of the flesh, the soul too was damaged. Just as the body became the flesh, the soul became the self. Because the soul came under the control of the flesh and was influenced by the flesh, the person of the soul became self-centered, the self. Because Satan took our body as his base in order to invade our soul, sin is in our body, the ruined body became the flesh, and the soul was damaged, influenced, and led into captivity to become the self. All these terms—Satan, sin, flesh, and self—are very negative.
Matthew 16:21 through 26 illustrates the ground that Satan has in the human soul. These verses say, “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, God be merciful to You, Lord! This shall by no means happen to You! But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life?”
In verse 23 the Lord rebuked Satan, but in verse 24 He did not tell the disciples to deny Satan; He told them to deny the self. Then in verses 25 and 26 He went on to speak of the soul-life. Satan, the self, and the soul-life are used here interchangeably. Satan is mingled with the self, and the satanic self is the embodiment of the soul-life. In other words, the soul has a life, and the embodiment of the soulish life is the satanic self. Therefore, we may say that the soulish life is mingled with Satan.