We are a spirit, a
soul, and a body. The Bible says that God formed man from the
dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into him. The Bible
also says that God is a Spiritual being (John 4:24). Therefore, God’s
breath is spiritual. That breath from God is not air like that which our
natural bodies breathe. When God created man by breathing this spiritual
breath into him, Moses said he became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). I
believe it is just as important to note what Moses did not say. He did
not say that man became a living spirit. Moses knew that the soul of man
was that part of a man which is a living, self-aware, unique person,
endowed with free will. However, he also knew that the soul is different
from the spirit. Though the soul can communicate with the spirit world,
it is carnal and can only function in this physical world. This is an
essential truth for understanding why Moses mentioned the soul here
rather than stating that man was created as a living spirit. Though many
theologians teach that man was created with a living, self-aware spirit,
I can find no scriptural support for that belief. Yes, Moses mentioned
the creation of a living soul, but he notably did not mention the
creation of a living spirit, and for good reason. Moses realized that
man was not created as a living spirit in the sense that his spirit was
a self-aware person with free will to choose. Man's spirit was simply
the breath of God, which he breathed into all his creation to bring
about physical life on the planet.
Moses’s later description of what would happen if man partook of the
Tree of Life, after disobeying God, gives evidence for what I have just
said. In that conversation among the members of the Godhead, they
indicate that after sinning, if man had partaken of the Tree of Life, he
would have had to live forever in his sin. Why? Because he would then
have been born of the spirit, becoming a living, self-aware personage
similar to an angel. However, he would not have been born of the
redemptive Spirit of Jesus Christ (Gen. 3:22). It is also important to
note what the scriptures do not say. There is not a single scripture in
the Bible that says man’s spirit goes to Hell. Solomon said that it
returns to God when the body dies (Ecc. 12:7). Jesus said that it is
man’s soul which is condemned to Hell (Mat. 10:28). Again, not a single
scripture in the entire Bible mentions anything about our spirit being
condemned to Hell. On the contrary, the silence in scripture concerning
this vital topic seems to indicate that Adam's spirit could not sin,
simply because it was not a fully formed personage capable of making
choices. If it had been, there would have been no need for the Tree of
Life, which provided a way for man to exercise his free will to receive
spiritual birth outside Christ, but could obviously not redeem from sin,
whereas being born of Christ’s spirit could. We must be born of
Christ's Spirit to become eligible for redemption from all sin (1 John
1:7). We then become that fully formed, self-aware spiritual person that
the Bible calls the new man. Our new man is created in righteousness and
true holiness ( Eph. 4:24) (Read John Chapter 3). We are born of
Christ's Spirit when we confess Jesus Christ as Lord of all (Rom. 10:9).
At that instant, the Bible says that we become a new creature (2 Cor.
5:17). God seals our new born spirit with His Holy Spirit until the day
of redemption (Eph. 1:13), (1 Peter 1:23), (1 John 3:9). Sin cannot
touch that new born spirit. It can only affect our soul, which must
continually be sanctified while we live here in this world. The
completion of that sanctification shall take place at the judgment seat
of Christ (1 Th. 5:8). A deposit from our new-born spirit is deposited
(2 Cor. 1:21,22) in what Ezekiel calls our new heart (Eze. 36:26). This
new heart is the seat of our soul. It is a core part of a believer’s
personality. I look at it as the beachhead of the soul for bringing into
captivity every thought of the soul (mind, will, emotions) (2 Cor.
10:5).
