If we are going to know our human spirit we must see the difference between the spirit and the soul. The most important passage showing us the difference between the spirit and the soul is 1 Corinthians 2:14-15: “But 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 spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he is discerned by no one.”
Verse 14 tells us clearly that the soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. The soulish man can never know anything about God. There’s no possibility for the soulish man to know God, but in the following verse it says the spirit, the human spirit, knows. With the soulish man there is no possibility to know God, but with the spiritual man there is the full possibility. So by these two verses you can see the difference between the soul and the spirit. If you are a man of the soul you can never know anything of God. If you are a man of the spirit, then you know the things of God. By this passage we can see the difference between the spirit and the soul, yet so many Christians today still insist on saying that the spirit and the soul are synonymous terms. However, 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 shows that with the soul there is no possibility to know anything of God, but with the spirit there is the full possibility.
If you are a man of the soul, you are just in darkness with the things of God. You have to be a man of the spirit. Then you will know the things of God. These verses reveal a great difference between the soul and the spirit. There’s no possibility for us to know anything of God if we are a soulish man. What is a soulish man? A soulish man is a man living by the soul and in the soul. The difference between being soulish and being spiritual is the very difference between the soul and the spirit. We cannot say that the spirit is the same as the soul. If we say this, we are in darkness. We all must be very, very clear that the spirit is absolutely different from the soul. Are the ears the same as the eyes? The eye and the ear are not synonymous terms. You can’t say this. The eyes are the eyes and the ears are the ears. These are two different organs, two different parts of your being. In like manner, the soul is not the spirit. The teaching of dichotomy, that man is of two parts, is absolutely unscriptural.
Secondly, we have 1 Thessalonians 5:23. We must open to the Word and read it. Don’t listen to any man’s opinion. Don’t listen to any man’s word. Come back to the Word of God and read it: “And 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 clearly mentions that we have three parts-the spirit and the soul and the body. Two conjunctions connect three things. There is no ground to say that the spirit is the soul. We all must give up the human teaching of dichotomy and come back to the Word of God.
In 1954, when we were in Hong Kong, we had a conference. An American brother who was a missionary to Japan came to Hong Kong to attend the conference. After the conference he came and said that he was really impressed with the conference, the atmosphere, and the messages, but he didn’t agree that the spirit was different from the soul. To him the spirit and the soul were synonymous terms.
Then I asked him about 1 Thessalonians 5:23: spirit and soul and body. I told him that if he said the spirit was the soul then I would say that the soul was the body. Anyhow, he said that whatever 1 Thessalonians 5:23 said, he would not admit that the spirit and soul are two different parts of our being.
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