While we cannot be dogmatic about our understanding of human composition, it does appear to best fit the biblical model. To repeat from an earlier session, it was noted quite clearly in Genesis 2:7 that God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The equation would, then, appear to be the physical body plus the breath of life God breathed into it together comprise the human soul. We are very familiar with the physical body. It’s the spirit, or soul, we find most perplexing. While many equate the spirit and the soul, it does not appear they are synonymous in the Bible. We see the body as physical and the spirit as non-physical. They, together, comprise the totality of our being, called “the soul”. In other words, our soul, which every human possesses, is comprised of part body and part spirit, or part physical and part non-physical. This would mean the brain belongs to our physical body while the mind belongs to our non-physical spirit.
Other things about our humanity that are very real but lack physicality, besides the mind, include, but are not limited to, our will or volition, our intellect or IQ, memory, imagination, creativity, personality, temperament, norms and standards, and conscience. The spirit is also the moral base, or houses the moral base, of our being. All these non-tangible realities define who we really are more than does our body. It is from our minds, located in the human spirit, that we exercise our volition, our power to make choices. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they did so because they willed to do so. That made a moral choice in their act of disobedience. They willfully sinned. They used their mind to do so, and the mind seems to be in the human spirit. Sin is moral in spiritual misbehavior, and it results in the predictable death of the sinner. That death of the spirit is nothing less than separation from the One who gave them life.
Physical death is the separation of the spirit from the physical body, but spiritual death is the separation of the spirit from God. Adam and Eve died, just as God said they would. He warned them not to eat of a certain tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “For,” said He, “in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die.” They ate. They died, but not yet physically. They did die immediately, however, in their inner self the Bible calls “the spirit”. And, their spiritual death now produced their moral “fallenness”, a falling away and separation from God. Where they originally had compatibility and togetherness with their Creator, they are now separated, estranged from Him. This new fallenness produced guilt coupled with fear and resulted in their hiding from God. Now, the need is for reconciliation and forgiveness. This set the stage for the first promise of a Redeemer in Genesis 3:15, and He would be the offspring of the woman in fulfillment of God’s promise.
CC 09-13
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