by Kennedy Wanyoike

Created on: August 05, 2009   Last Updated: August 09, 2009

SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY.

God created man in his own image (Gen 1:26) and God is a Spirit (John 4:24). A spirit will only interact with a spirit.

By defining spirit, soul and body, I will bring this point out that man is a spirit, having a soul and living in the body. In Gen 2:7 the bible says "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."

The word life in that verse should have been plural because when God breathed into the nostrils of man two lives came into Adam, spiritual life and natural life. God put him in the Garden of Eden, he also commanded man to eat freely of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil he shall not eat, God told him the day he shall eat that tree he shall surely die.

Adam went ahead and ate the forbidden tree and sure enough he died, spiritually he died. Spiritual death is human spirit separated from God who is a spirit. It took Adam 930 years to die naturally, and that's when dust returned to dust.

The bible is very clear that God created man a triune being (Gen 2:7, 1 Thes 5:23, Heb 4:12). Because many people think of spirit as just a vapor, there's a scripture that sheds light on the spirit, 1Cori 15:44 says It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. . The spiritual body is more real than the natural body; the soul is the mind, will and emotions.

There is a story Jesus told in Luke 16:19-31 that illustrates very clearly how the three: spirit, soul and body interrelates. The story is of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar. Verse 22 says that Lazarus died, his natural body died then his spiritual body was carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, the natural body was buried. The next thing we see is that he is in torment in Hades. This was the spiritual body being tormented.

Now notice how similar the spirit body is to the natural body. The bible says that he lifted his eyes, also cried out and said, and also talks about a finger and a tongue. Well, these organs are familiar in our natural body. I want also to submit that they exist in our spirit body.

His soul was also very intact; his mind was able to recognize Abraham although he had never seen him. That part of the soul (mind) was very much alive. He also became very emotional concerning his brothers who were still alive on Earth, he wanted

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