There exists today a common teaching that seems to have emerged in recent years that I find quite nonsensical. Crossing every denominational boundary, it is not only widespread but taught by some of the Church's most respected and reputable ministers: Christian leaders thoroughly immersed in the Word who have nevertheless embraced so flawed a doctrine.
Just what is this error, and what makes it so heinous?
Simply this: "I am a spirit; I have a soul, and I live in a body."
Endlessly repeated, it is probably so familiar by now that you may be wondering what I'm on about. However, while it may sound good it has no scriptural basis, but undermines what truth the Bible does reveal; and actually insults God and belittles the sacrifice of Jesus Christ: A pretty serious catalogue of injury to ascribe to any single teaching that would normally qualify as a heresy.
So am I being too harsh? Read on and see.
The watchword for any doctrine or dogma is always: 'If in doubt, check it out.'
Hence Paul's admonition:
'Test all things; hold fast that which is good.' (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
And Luke's endorsement of the Bereans as: 'more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.' (Acts 17:11)
But doesn't the Bible teach that I we are indeed a spirit; have a soul, and live in a body.
No, it doesn't. What it does say (in 1 Thessalonians 5:23) is something quite different.
'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.'
Aha! So the Bible does say man is 'spirit and soul and body'.
Indeed it does! But that is not the false teaching, which wrongly describes the relationship between the three.
The Bible nowhere speaks of our being a spirit, having a soul and living in a body. Rather, God's Holy Spirit simple tells us every human being is a spirit, soul and body.
The counterfeit is subtle and teaches something quite different: namely, that our spirit is superior to our soul which, in turn, is superior to our body. And that is not God's perspective.
The Bible teaches from the outset that man is a tripartite being or trinity.
In Genesis 1:26 God himself declares '"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"'
Christians often cite the plural usage: 'Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness' as evidence of the Divine Trinity, yet miss its oblique implication of man's own trinity in God's plural image and likeness.
Just as God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so is man spirit, soul and body: indivisibly one yet three.
Part of the misunderstanding arises from a mistaken concept of God's Trinity, heretically distorted as Tritheism (belief in three Gods). God is One: No more three Gods than you or I are three people. This misunderstanding partly stems from Latin Vulgate, though which certain erroneous doctrines entered the Church; one such being the term, 'Persons of the Trinity'.
A term foreign to Scripture, God's Trinity is deduced from a reasoned reading of the whole. Invented by Tertullian, it is a convenient contraction of 'Tri-unity', describing God's 'Three-in-Oneness'. In this context, however, 'Person' is unbiblical and inaccurate, deriving from the Latin 'persona', meaning 'mask'.
The reality is more complex than the idea of 'Persons of the Trinity' can convey, distorting our view of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as 'masks' that God adopts, rather than distinct realities of his being Divine, in the same way that the reality of my being as spirit, soul and body are distinct realities of my humanity encapsulated in one being.
Separate them, and I become what is commonly described as dead because they are fundamentally inseparable elements which define me as a human being.
And that, you may be surprised to learn, is how the Bible describes God, because, while the term 'Person' is never used to differentiate God's oneness, the original Greek does employ an unusual and more descriptive word: 'Hypostasis'. This describes the fundamental, undergirding reality or essence of a thing, without which it cannot be.
I apologise for the complexity of that statement, but it pretty much explains what is often called 'the mystery of the Trinity', because the very reason that God is God is that he is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; just as the very reason I am a human being is the summation of my being a human spirit, human soul and human body.
To paraphrase a familiar expression: 'My whole being is great than the sum of my parts'.
As with God, so with man: Neither Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or spirit, soul or body are alternative options from some existential menu, but hypostases of being, without which neither God nor man would not be what they are.
'Hypostasis' occurs twice: in Hebrews.
'Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person (hypostasis), and upholding all things by the word of his power' (Hebrew 1:3), and
'Now faith is the substance (hypostasis) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' (Hebrew 11:1)
So, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not separate persons, despite exhibiting attributes of 'personality', curiously capable of independent thought and action. Likewise, my spirit, soul and body are not three people, yet are similarly distinct.
But does the Bible not rank our spirit as the senior associate in this curious 'partnership'?
No.
Consider Genesis 2:7.
'Yahweh God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.'
One of those scriptures so familiar we can miss what it says; notice what it doesn't say: 'Yahweh God formed a body out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life; and the body became a living Man.'
Re-writing it like that shows how it is commonly rendered.
By casting the human being as 'A spirit that possesses a soul and resides in a body', we have relegated the body to a third rate status God never intended.
We better see how ridiculous this is by applying the same logic to God who becomes: a Spirit who has a Son and lives in the Father.
Of course it sounds ridiculous and doesn't work. That's my point.
Adam's corporeal nature was human from the outset; not just some 'dust-dolly' that only became a man when God breathed into its nostrils.
This idea of corporeal inferiority comes from Pagan religion and philosophy, from Plato among others, creeping into the Church as Gnostic heresy. Neither Christian nor Jewish, it is syncretism the adoption of extra-biblical religious ideas into Christianity.
But how does it insult God? By blatantly disregarding and flagrantly contradicting his Word.
Consider the Resurrection.
'Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen.' (1 Corinthians 15:12-13)
And,
'But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with himFor the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.' (1 Thessalonians Chapter 4:13-17)
These verses contradict the heretical view of spirit's superiority and its corollary of corporeal inferiority.
Why do we consider as inferior that which God considers sufficiently important that no human being is invited to spend eternity with him without one? Our destiny is not to waft off to heaven as spirit (the Pagan Greek notion of Elysium), but to reside forever with God in our glorified body. Otherwise God lied, because that's what Jesus promised.
How does believing in corporeal inferiority belittle Jesus? Because Jesus achieved our Salvation and purchased our Redemption when he 'made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men'. (Philippians 2:7)
God created man with a body, saved man through his Son assuming a body and promises us all a glorified body.
Aren't our bodies sinful but our spirits pure? No.
Once dead in sin, our spirit is now renewed. Our unregenerate body awaits our glorification. But our renewed spirit is superior to our unregenerate body not because it is spirit but because it is born again. Romans 8:11-12 and Ephesians 1:13-14, explain our spirit's renewal is God's guarantee of our bodily Resurrection.
Our body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). 1 John 4:17 says: 'as [Jesus] is, so are we in this world.'
Isn't it time we showed the same respect for the human body that God does?