A Spirited Debate

“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.”
1 Thessalonians 5:23

In the Apostle Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians, he prayed that their whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord. The writer of Hebrews penned, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”  Here again we find the combination of soul and spirit, and I ask myself, ‘What distinction is to be made between the soul and the spirit?’ Often times, we tend to think of soul, spirit and heart as synonymous but that is clearly not what was intended. I went to the Greek.

The word for spirit in the Greek is pneuma. There are five applicable definitions used in Scripture according to Vine’s Expository Dictionary. I believe the second definition is applicable in both instances, which is ‘the rational spirit, the power by which the human being feels, thinks, decides.’  I don’t believe the ‘Holy Spirit’ is referenced here because He is blameless and is the One who applies the Word of God to our soul and spirit; that is our rational spirit.  While that definition of spirit is also used to separately define ‘the soul,’ I didn’t apply it in this case because of the obvious redundancy. As for the word ‘soul,’ the word psyche is used and has two major definitions; that of breath and the soul itself. In order to keep each word used distinct; i.e., spirit and soul, I applied the second definition; specifically, the soul as the ‘seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions (our heart, soul etc.)’ Or, in other words, where our spirit rests.

What prompted my study was a sermon that Reverend Edward Payson preached to his church in Portland, Maine back in the early to mid 19th century. His sermon was based on the passage in 1 Thessalonians. Interestingly, he came at the issue of man’s spirit from the perspective of the sinner’s standing before God. All men, according to the Bible, are living souls. Likewise, all men have a rational spirit, wherein a person thinks, feels and decides. Reverend Payson pointed out that even animals have such a spirit. Animals have maternal instincts, show feelings through their temperaments and dispositions, and other ‘human’ social and individual characteristics. He maintained the same was true of men, except men also possess living and eternal souls.

This hypothesis raises a myriad questions. Human beings, left to their natural and rational spirits, have generally shown maternal instincts, a range of temperaments and dispositions from good and amiable to ugly and cruel. From Mother Teresa to Adolph Hitler, such are the ranges of ‘human’ spirit and perceived goodness. Even where man has best shown altruism, it is for their glory; not God’s, and  when they do not receive their expected return (recognition), they are quick to part company. Given that, and in view of God’s perfections, can we understand how ‘all have sinned and fallen short of His glory?’ I have met professing Christians who claimed their salvation on the basis of their natural (or animal) dispositions, while judging those lost who displayed lesser qualities. Did they ever stop to consider what Jesus said, “For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.” (Luke 6:32)

Truly, we need to examine ourselves in the light of Scripture. Do we find the only goodness that we offer the world comes naturally, and usually for our own benefit? Don’t we have the will and desire to go beyond, despite what we are humanly able and without an expected return? If not, I’d say we need to reexamine, with fear and trepidation, our standing before the Lord, lest we hear the terrible words of Christ at judgment, ‘I never knew you.’

Surely if we understand and applied this definition of spirit to our lives in self-assessment, we would find as the Apostle Paul discovered in the light of Christ that all that Paul had done in his ‘rational spirit’ and life was garbage; worthless. This insight also raises the question, ‘why is it that I cannot find peace when I suffer depression and anxiety?’ For those whose temperament is melancholic, such happens, but is not the Holy Spirit a viable cure? Were we not commanded to cast all our anxieties upon Him? Why do our prayers go unanswered? Is He there? What we should be asking is, ‘What definition of spirit applies to me?’ And that’s a matter of a spirited debate.