We also need to see what our spirit is and what the difference is between our spirit and our mind, emotion, will, and heart. We will consider a number of verses which show that the spirit is different from the soul.
First Thessalonians 5:23 says, “The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This verse speaks of the three parts of man: spirit, soul, and body. We should not think that our spirit is the same as our soul. A number of Christians have a wrong concept, thinking that the soul and the spirit are the same. In this verse, however, the three parts of man are conjoined by and: spirit and soul and body. Hence, just as the soul is different from the body, so the spirit is different from both the soul and the body. The spirit, the soul, and the body are three different things. Furthermore, the sequence in the verse is first the spirit, then the soul, and then the body. The spirit is the innermost part, the body is the outermost part, and the soul is in the middle as a medium between the spirit and the body. Thus, God is triune and man is tripartite.
This is also quite clear when we consider our experience. As far as man is concerned, there are at least three different realms. There is the physical, material realm with many material things. There is also the spiritual realm with the spiritual things. In this realm are God, God’s angels, the devil Satan, and his servants the evil spirits. All these belong to the spiritual realm. Besides the physical and the spiritual realms, there is another realm, which we may call the psychological realm. The English word psychology comes from the Greek word psuche, which means “soul.” Thus, the psychological realm is the realm of the soul.
Not only are there three realms, but God has created three parts for us that we may contact these three realms. The part we use to contact the physical realm is the body with its five senses, and the part we use to contact the spiritual realm is our human spirit. We cannot contact the spiritual realm by using our hand to touch it; we must contact it by our spirit. For an object in the physical realm, we need to use our eyes to see it and our hands to touch it. To try to touch a physical object by using our mind is to use the wrong organ. When we are happy, joyful, or angry, this is psychological, not spiritual. The God who is both in the universe and in us is neither physical nor psychological. God is Spirit; hence, He is related to the spiritual realm.
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.” Here also we can see the three parts of man. First, there was man’s body, formed from the dust of the ground. Then there was man’s spirit, formed by God from the breath of life breathed out of God and into man’s body (cf. Prov. 20:27; Job 32:8). When these two came together, that is, when the breath of life animated man’s body, a third part came into being, which was the soul as the medium between the spirit and the body.
The person of man is neither the body nor the spirit. Rather, man’s person is his soul, because “man became a living soul.” In the Scriptures persons are often called “souls.” For example, Exodus 1:5 says, “All the souls who came forth from the loins of Jacob were seventy souls” (lit.). We all are souls. Our body is not our person; it is a vessel to contain our soul. Our spirit also is not our person but is an organ by which we can contact the spiritual realm. Our person, or personality, is in our soul, for the soul is the self, the person himself. When a man dies, we say that he has departed and is no longer with us. What we mean is that he has left his body, which can be put off like a piece of clothing (2 Cor. 5:4). Therefore, neither the body nor the spirit is the person of man. The body is the vessel, and the spirit is an organ. The soul is the person, the personality, and the self of man.
However, as we have seen, through regeneration our spirit has been not only enlivened but also born. In our spirit there is now another person. Before we were regenerated, our spirit was merely an organ, not a person, but now that we are regenerated, our spirit is both an organ and a person. Another life, a second life, has come into our spirit, and this life is the life of God, which is Christ Himself. Christ as a person is now in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22).
Before our regeneration we as created beings had only one person. Our personality was in our soul, which was our self, our very being. Our body was a vessel to contain our soul, and our spirit was an organ to contact God. Hence, we had just one person, one being, one personality. But once we are regenerated and the Lord Jesus as life has come into our spirit, we have another person, another life, in our spirit. Now there are two persons within us—a spiritual person and a soulish, natural person. Second Corinthians 4:16 clearly indicates that there are two men, or two persons: “Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” Decaying in this verse means “being wasted away.” Our outer man is being wasted away, and our inner man is being renewed day by day. Through creation we became a soul, but our soul was damaged by the fall of man and fell under the control of the fallen body, which has become the flesh. Therefore, on the one hand, the Scriptures call man a soul, and on the other hand, they refer to man as “flesh” (Gen. 6:3; Rom. 3:20). This is because man has fallen to the point that he is absolutely under the control of his fleshly body, causing his soul to become fleshly.
We need to see that now we have two persons within us, the outer man and the inner man, because we have two lives, the natural, human life, and the spiritual, divine life. We have all been born twice, the first time of our parents to receive the natural, human life, and the second time of God to receive the spiritual, divine life.
Moreover, with each of these lives there is a nature and a person. As regenerated ones, we have two lives, two natures, and two persons. Our first person is in our soul, and our second person is in our spirit. For this reason 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 says, “A soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually. But the spiritual man discerns all things, but he himself is discerned by no one.” These verses show two kinds of men, the soulish man and the spiritual man. Since we have two persons and are thus two different men, we are faced with two possibilities: we can be either a natural, soulish man or a spiritual man. If we live by our natural human life, we are a natural man, a soulish man, but if we live by our spirit, we are a spiritual man.
We have seen clearly that God created us as a soul, with a body as the vessel to contain the soul and with a spirit as the organ to contact God. As created men, we were merely a soul, a soulish personality, a soulish man. However, on the day that we received the Lord Jesus, He came into our spirit as life to regenerate our spirit and cause it to be born again. Now in our spirit we have a second life—Christ as the second man (1 Cor. 15:47). As a result, we now have two men within us. In our soul we have Adam, and in our spirit we have Christ; in our soul we have the soulish nature, character, and personality, that is, the soulish man, and in our spirit we have the spiritual nature, character, and personality, that is, the spiritual man.