by Agabu Ndhlovu

Created on: February 01, 2008

What is the nature of our humanity? It is quite popular in some christian circles to assume that we consist of a threefold essence. Which is to say that we are spirit, soul and body. The passage in the Bible often cited in favour of this contention is 1 Thessalonians 5:23. But is the apostle Paul here really giving us a formula of what the human being really consists of? Quite frankly I think not. In any case it is very attractive to think that the human nature consists of three elemental distinctions.

For some christians the thought that this view is in some way analogous to the doctrine of the Trinity seems to suggest that this is the way we are to think of ourselves. After all, God made us in His own image right? However, biblically the notion that human nature is a trichotomy is frought with great peril. The peril of which I speak is that of wrong-headed ideas that distort the pattern of sound doctrine. The trichotomy view when subscribed to is a prelude to false teaching that poisons other areas of biblical theology. It is a fount from whence all manner of theological error or heresy can very easily come. For instance when you consider Jesus in His humanity, if therein in his human nature He was spirit, soul and body, what really would be the difference between His human spirit and the spirituality of His divine nature? Did Jesus really have two such spirits residing in his person, one human and the other divine? The answers to such questions ought to be obvious. So you see, here we find that the so-called tripartite view carries some serious implications on one's understanding of Christ's nature. It is quite easy to see that the tripartite view necessarily compromises a biblical understanding of Christ as one person with two natures. Even when we press the matter with we ourselves, what is the real difference between our so-called very own spirit with the Spirit of God? From the perspective of sound biblical teaching, what God breathed in us was not a spirit that wss a carbon copy of His own spirit. What God breathed in us was the kind of life that would enable us to live, move and have being in our own right as distinguished from Him.

We do indeed reflect in our humanity God's communicable attributes. However we only do so in a finite way. We are after all not an exact representation of God's being. No, not even in a mirror image sort of way. Our physical and non-physical aspects simply point to God's creative genius in how he made us. He made us to be

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