2st Spirit, Soul, Body (11)
2004-07-18 | Pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee | John 3:5-7
If you know your soul and body clearly, you can come to know yourself and change into a person of spirit. The soul and body are witnessing in the 3rd session. Today, before we testify about the field of spirit among the 2nd soul and body, we would like to look at the words about the spirit that we witnessed through the 1st body and soul.
When you watch a movie or a cartoon, the body and soul of two people may change. If there are two people named Cheol-su and Yeong-hui, if Cheol-su’s soul is in Yeong-hee’s body, people will say, “You are Young-hee,” while he will argue, “I am not Young-hee, I am Cheol-su.”
Also, after a person’s death, you can see a scene where a soul that looks just like you comes out and is surprised to see your body lying there, because the people of the world also recognize the soul and body to some extent.
No matter how many people acknowledge the soul and body, they do not know exactly what the body is, what the spirit and soul are, and how their own spirit, soul, and body were created. Moreover, few people can accurately tell the difference between spirit and soul. However, spirit and soul are two completely different terms, and the expression soul has a completely different meaning.
Nevertheless, since there is no one who can accurately explain these things, many people live their lives without knowing exactly about themselves. A man who calls himself the lord of all things is more valuable and more honorable than the beast because only man has a spirit. Therefore, for man, the spirit is the most essential and important part of the soul and body.
1. Definition of Spirit
The Spirit is “that which is immortal and immortal, unchanging, eternal, life, and truth itself.” God, who is a spirit, first made Adam’s image by molding it out of the ground, and then breathed life into his nostrils to make Adam come to life (Genesis 2:7). Here, ‘breath’ is the crystallization of all God’s power, and it became the driving force of life that allowed Adam to live.
In this way, He breathed life into Adam and shared some of the attributes of God who is the Spirit, so Adam who received the breath also became a man of spirit. Therefore, Adam created by God is called a living spirit, that is, a living spirit, because spirit and living spirit are different.
For reference, the reason Adam’s body was made of clay is because of the characteristics of the soil. Soil itself has no life, but it becomes a material for nurturing life. If you sow a seed in the soil, the life within the seed will be revealed, and it will sprout and bear fruit. In that sense, God made man out of dust and breathed life into it, just as a seed was planted in it, and it became a living spirit. Soon, a field was needed to sow the seed of life and obtain fruit, and the material for this field was soil.
If you look at what God had shown you in a vision in the past, the soil that was used as a material to make man was not dry soil, but clay. Spiritually, after the mixture of water, the word of God, and the soil, the material, breath of life was breathed in, Adam’s body made of clay was transformed into human flesh and bones, and blood began to circulate in it.
2. spirit body
When God breathed life into Adam’s body, Adam’s spirit remembered the image of his body and became a spiritual body. Just as Adam’s body took the form of Adam, so the spirit also took on the same form as Adam’s.
Simply put, the spirit body is the image of the spirit, and you can think of it as a vessel that contains the spirit. The flesh also has a visible “flesh”, so a body with the shape of a lion is called a lion, and a body with the shape of an eagle can be distinguished as an eagle.
Likewise, the spirit has the spirit body of an angel if it is an angel, and the spirit body of the heavenly host if it is a heavenly group.
3. The content of the spirit
Then, what content was contained in Adam’s spirit body? The content of the spirit can be said to be “the knowledge of the spirit.” At the time of creation, Adam’s spirit did not yet possess the knowledge of the spirit, so it was in a state of blank paper. It is like a newborn baby, although it has the form of a human being, but has no knowledge in its head.
Just as a baby needs to learn various kinds of knowledge from the people around him and in school and society as he grows up to become a human being, Adam also learned various spiritual knowledge from God over a long period of time after his creation.
Adam received these knowledges as a spirit and stored them in his soul. You will soon receive it in your heart and store it in your head. The soul of an animal perishes and disappears when the body dies, but the reason that the soul of a man does not perish is because it is joined to the spirit and acts as the soul. So even if the body dies and the brain’s memory is gone, the knowledge in it remains in the spirit body.
The spirit and soul in this combined state are said to be “soul.” At this time, the spirit took the lead in Adam’s heart, so when the spirit wanted to do something, the soul and body immediately obeyed the spirit.
However, today’s people said, “I want to get up early in the morning” before going to sleep, but when dawn comes, they are tired and can’t wake up at the time they want. Because the action of the soul occurs, such as “I don’t like it” or “I want to sleep more,” the body obeys the soul and falls asleep again without waking up. Even though the heart wants it, the body and the soul do not obey it.
Also, when I heard something, I made up my mind to say, “I must never tell anyone else these words.” This is also because the body and soul do not obey what the heart desires.
When Adam was a living spirit, his soul and body obeyed the spirit, and he did it without any difficulty. But after Adam committed the sin of disobedience before God by eating of the forbidden fruit, the situation changed. As he said, “I will surely die”, as the spirit dies, the soul becomes the master and has dominion over people.
4. Meaning of ‘the spirit is dead’
Since the spirit is said to be eternal and unchanging, the death of Adam’s spirit does not mean that the spirit was annihilated and disappeared. It means that Adam’s spirit, whose communication with God was cut off, stopped working and became as if dead. Then, as Satan breathed in the knowledge of untruth through the soul of man, the contents of the spirit that God had provided gradually disappeared.
For example, God planted things such as “serve”, “be meek”, “be true”, and “rejoice with the truth”, but Satan “exalt”, “be exalted”, “seek your own”, “ It is to plant things such as “tell a lie” and “be jealous”.
As the years pass, the contents of the spirit that God has planted disappear, while the untruths given by Satan, that is, the contents of the flesh, are increasing. As the number of untruths increases in the heart, the spirit gradually loses strength and eventually the spirit becomes immobile. When a spider catches its prey, the untruth and the contents of the flesh surround the spirit and imprison it, just as a spider wraps its prey with a web to prevent it from moving.
Then, the spirit completely ceases to function as if it were dead, and only the life itself that God gave at the beginning remains. For example, when a person has brain damage due to an accident and becomes a vegetative person or becomes brain-dead, life is maintained for a while, but it is no different from death. So, if you fall into a brain-dead state, even if your heart is still beating, there are countries that legally recognize that you are dead. Likewise, the original spirit is not destroyed, but when the knowledge of the spirit and the functions of the spirit are also lost, it is said that the spirit is dead.
When the spirit died in this way, Adam became a man of the soul, who was now under the control of the soul. After accepting the untruth through the soul and accepting the corruptible flesh into our hearts, we eventually become a person of corrupt and degenerate flesh and cannot receive salvation. In this way, a person who becomes a man of the soul and degenerates into the flesh must continue to be under Satan’s control and sin, and eventually go to hell.
5. The process of getting well in the soul
In order for us to be saved and go to heaven, our dead spirit must come back to life. Then, how can our spirits come back to life and we can be saved? We just need to replenish the knowledge of the spirit so that the spirit that has already died can be active again. To do this, we must first believe in Jesus Christ and receive Him as our Savior (John 14:6).
When we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, God sends the Holy Spirit into us, who brings the dead spirits to life and enables them to function again and provides the knowledge of the spirits. It helps us to understand sin, righteousness, and judgment, to believe in God’s words written in the Bible, and to obey and act according to the Word.
If you receive the Lord and receive the Holy Spirit, you will be born again. When a dead spirit comes to life by receiving the Holy Spirit, there must be a process of refilling the knowledge of the spirit within it. If a person who has received the Holy Spirit continues to give birth to a spirit with the Holy Spirit, as the truth fills their heart and the knowledge of the spirit fills them, the untruth will gradually decrease.
After Adam’s transgression, people go through the opposite process of becoming flesh. This is the “process in which the soul prospers” and the process of being transformed into a spiritual person (3 John 1:2). If our souls prosper, God will always be with us, bless us in all things, and prevent all diseases and disasters, so we will always be strong, both physically and mentally.
Dear saints,
Those who are born of the Spirit through the Holy Spirit and are transformed into people of spirit resembling God, who have fully received the word of God, can become like gods (John 10:35). Then, not only will you prosper in all things, but you will also be able to show things that are impossible for a human being (Exodus 4:16, Exodus 7:1).
Even today, as long as you fill in the word of God, which is the knowledge of the spirit, to become a perfect spiritual person, as your soul prospers, you will not only be prosperous and in good health, but also achieve all things through faith and live a life that glorifies God. I pray in the name of the Lord that you will quickly become a spiritual person with a good soul, be qualified as a child of God, and fully enjoy the blessings of being a child of God.
