Real Clear Truth

I was unable to keep up with my blogging this week because I have been involved in a separate discussion. However, that discussion relates to something I recently wrote in my article The Code Breakers, pertaining to the subject of one’s “spirit, soul and body”:

But this is where we often miss what was truly unique with Daniel. He not only had light and understanding and wisdom, but he also didn’t separate them into separate spheres of heart, mind and spirit as we typically do with the Western mindset. To us contemplation and understanding are elements of our minds and intellect. Light and illumination are elements of our spirit. Wisdom largely flows from our hearts and souls.

But this is not the way Daniel saw it.

Instead, Daniel pulled on God’s wisdom each step of the way. Think about it. Step one is the illumination phase when God’s light reveals things that have been hidden from others. Step two is the contemplation phase when our minds seek the mind of Christ and to perceive how God understands what has been illuminated. Step three is the wisdom phase where we seek the discernment of God on what to do about it.

Each phase requires our spirits to hear what God is showing us. Each phase requires our carnal hearts to be subjected to the heavenly ways of seeing things. Each phase requires our minds to perceive as His mind does.

In other words, wisdom doesn’t simply come down from God to help us with insight and understanding, but Godly wisdom is a comprehensive aspect of His character that is meant to transform our hearts, minds and spirits so that all aspects of our lives function as He does in His heavenly realm. All three must be renewed. All three must follow Him. All three must be linked by and to Him.

The issue of the discussion hinged on the matter of whether our soul and spirit are truly distinct entities, whether we can put them into separate compartments, or whether what I suggested above is more appropriate. The first verse I examined in researching this was:

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

This verse seems to say that our soul and spirit can be divided apart (or torn asunder). But is that what it really says?

First consider that one of the definitions for the Greek word for “spirit” (see here) happens to be, “a human soul that has left the body”. Another definition simply calls it, “the soul”.

More basically, the word for “spirit” — pneuma from which we get the English word pneumatics — simply means, “a gentle blast or movement of air”, or “the breath of one’s nostrils”, or the “disposition that governs one’s soul”. The word for “soul” — psyche — simply means, “the breath of life”, or the essence of us that is not dissolved by the death of our bodies.

These two words are nearly interchangeable and the major difference seems to be more the context in which they are used. A soul is more tied to what gives life to a body, while the spirit is the life that lives on after the body is gone. I would think this differentiation comes more from the need to use a different word before and after the death of the body, than anything else.

Notice that Jesus does NOT mention the word “spirit” when He tells us:

Luke 10:27 So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ “

Ask yourself, why does Jesus leave out “spirit” if it is such an essential and distinct part of us?

Now, I found myself often translating the word “soul”, as many use it, into the word “intellect”, as that is more what I keep hearing people talk about. One might say that the word “mind” in the verse above refers to “intellect”, but after looking up that word I’m not so sure. The definition for “mind” — dianoia – can mean, “the mind as a faculty of understanding”, but it can also mean “the way we think or feel, i.e. by means of our spirit”. Or in a narrower sense, it can mean, “the higher powers of the soul to perceive spiritual truth”.

Even the word “strength” may not refer to simply our physical strength. That word means, “ability, force and might”. In other words, we should love God with all our abilities, with all the might of who we are — not just with our physical strength.

To me, these words go way beyond simple definitions. They refer to everything we are. Everything we can be. Everything He made us to be.

To me, the verse in Hebrews (4:12) is talking about how God’s words cut through all of what we are (soul and spirit, bone and morrow, thoughts and intents) to see where there is belief and where there is unbelief. It is NOT a declaration of how soul and spirit are distinct or divisible. The dividing asunder has to do with dividing belief from unbelief. Read the context around that verse to see.

Some suggest that we can hear a different voice for our soul as compared to the voice of our spirit, but consider this. We often hear people tell us what they think they should do. If they give us a stock description based on simple logic, we typically turn to them and say, “but what does your heart tell you”? In this case, the “heart” is really the same as what others might call our “spirit”. It is that voice inside of us that says there must be more, there has to be more to life than this!

Or turn this around. When somebody is telling us all the logical reasons for something and not hearing what we are trying to tell them, don’t we grab them and say, “listen to me — stop listening to all that is running around in your mind and listen for a minute to what God would tell you!” And then we tell them, hopefully filled with God’s Spirit, just what we believe God wants to say to them. Once again, for me this is basically what some would call speaking to a person’s “spirit”.

But in one sense, I’d rather call these two voices the voice of “belief” and the voice of “unbelief”. One comes from the part of us that agrees with the mindset of this Earth and man’s reasoning. The other comes from the part of us that agrees with the mindset of heaven and God’s heart.

It would be easy to call one side the intellect and other side our spirit, but I don’t think it’s this easy. Our “life” can be lived on either side. Our “souls” can partake of either streams. Our “spirits” can dwell in either camps.

Next part 2…