The Soul, Spirit, and Heart Explained
2. The Soul, Spirit, and Heart Explained.
A.The Soul (Seat of Emotions and Desires).
The soul is connected with our thinking and is that conscious life that God has created within man.
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." The Word of God lets us know that the soul can be...
Grieved, |"And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel" - Judges 10:16
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Weariness and bitterness of the soul,
|"My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul"- Job 10:1
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Desiring,|"But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth" - Job 23:13
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Boasting, and joyful,
|"My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad" (Psalms 34:2). Joyful, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God..." -Isaiah 61:10
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Sorrowful,|"Then said he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful..."- Matthew 26:38
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Troubled,|"Now is my soul troubled..." - John 12:27
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Vexed,|"The man of God said, Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her... - 2 Kings 4:27 b
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When our soul is grieved, weary, desiring, joyful, sorrowful, and etc., it is connected with our thinking. It is not our pumping heart muscle, but rather that conscious life that is within man. The word "soul" is also used in referring to the individual as a whole being. (James 5:20; Romans 13:1; Ezekiel 18:20; Numbers 31:28). For example: Have you ever heard someone make the statement, "Oh look at that poor soul!" It is an expression that is referring to the person in general and not the soul specifically. In Revelation 16:3 we find
"And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea."
This is a person alive that died physically in the sea by drowning. This has no reference to the soul itself specifically. The reason is, the soul itself never dies. In Revelation 6:9; Revelation 10:1-11 we find some people who had died physically, but John sees and hears them in Heaven; very much alive,
"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: (9) And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"(10) The body is the means through which we express our feelings and desires which come from our soul. When the body dies, the soul and spirit depart. In Revelation 6:9; Revelation 10:1-11, these people had received Christ as Savior and were seen alive and talking while "absent from the body, but present with the Lord." This is the confidence Paul, the Apostle, had when he said in 2 Corinthians 5:8, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." When one dies who has rejected Christ, their soul and spirit also leaves the body and goes to a place of torment. In this place of torment they are just as much alive as they were on earth in their body. Here is a literal account of just such a man. We have the record found in Luke 16:22-24,
"...the rich man also died, and was buried (i.e., the body only); (22) And in hell (lit. Hades) he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. (23) And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." (24) Read the whole account from Luke 16:19-31. As far as life after death is concerned, the only difference between the saved and the lost is their location. One is in Heaven, the other in torment. As the soul and spirit never die, death of the body only released them to a different location to live eternally.
I think it would be noteworthy, at this point, to acknowledge the Jehovah's Witnesses' attack upon this man who went to torment. They teach the soul and spirit accompany the body into the grave and remains there until a general resurrection. They explain away Hell, teaching the lost will never be tormented eternally for rejecting Christ. Concerning Luke 16:19-31, they teach this is only a parable.
How does the child of God answer their false teaching concerning Luke 16:1-31? We should be ready at all times to answer such attacks upon God's Word. In 1 Peter 3:15 we are told,
"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear."
Let us point out several reasons why Luke 16:1-31 is not a parable, but a literal account of a lost man who went to torment.
If one would make an exhaustive study of all the parables in the New Testament, you would find that no parable ever uses a proper name. There are no exceptions. In Luke 16:1-31 there are two proper names used, Abraham and Lazarus. You cannot find this principle violated anywhere when you make a complete study of the parables. No, this is not a parable; but, a literal account of a real man who rejected Christ and has been in Torment almost 2,000 years.
The word "parable" is from the Greek word "PARABOLE" which means "to lay along side of," "to liken to," and "to compare." A parable is used to compare and convey and illustrate a Biblical, literal truth. If this were a parable, which it is not, then it would be illustrating a truth which would be worse than that of the illustration, or parable. Saying it is a parable would only make the torment worse than is described here. One must remember that the Jehovah's Witnesses' eternal life is predicated upon their own humanistic, good works, and not the grace of God. Is it any wonder they want to do away with eternal torment?
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" - Romans 5:1 The peace the Christian has with God comes by faith in Christ. Jehovah's Witnesses try to have peace with God by doing away with Hell and establishing their own good works.
This literal account agrees totally with other Scriptures concerning the subjects of Torment and Hell, as the following:
"Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of ETERNAL FIRE." - Jude 1:7
" . . . I am tormented in this FLAME." - Luke 16:24 b
"Then shall he say also unto them (lost) on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into EVERLASTING FIRE, prepared for the devil and his angels." - Matthew 25:41 In conclusion, man's spirit and soul never die, they only change location upon death, to Heaven or torment. The soul and spirit never goes with the body into the grave, for the body cannot die while the spirit is present.
"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also" (James 2:26).
Man and animals both have souls; but only man has a spirit. The soul of an animal is connected with the body. The soul dies with the body of an animal. Remember, the soul and spirit are not the human, pumping heart.
B.The Spirit (The Seat of One's Understanding and Intelligence).
This is where man differs from animals. In 1 Corinthians we are told,
"For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit..." - 1 Corinthians 2:11; 1 Corinthians 2:10 a When one is saved, they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who illuminates our understanding of the Bible. We can now understand the things of God; whereas before, the Bible seemed like a Book of mysteries. So it is when the Lord made man, He gave us the human spirit of intelligence that enables us to reason and understand things. Notice in Job 32:8, "But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding."
Animals do not possess this spirit even though they have feelings, emotions, and desires from the soul. In Psalms 32:9 we read,
"Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee."
Believe me, I know horses have no "understanding" in the Biblical sense! I believe I can verify this with a personal illustration. A friend and I went horseback riding one day. The people who owned the horses were relatives and had wanted to have the horses ridden periodically. The horses needed to be kept in the habit of being ridden.
Needless to say, it turned out to be a disaster. My friend got on his horse first with no problem and went trotting across the field very nicely. By the way, we were riding bareback with only a bridle. I stepped up on top of a picnic table and climbed on mine. I tapped him gently in the ribs with my heel and we were "full-throttle" immediately. I was yelling, "Whoa, Whoa," and "Stop, Stop" at the top of my lungs and pulling back on the reigns as hard as I could, but that horse did not have enough understanding and soon we parted company! My ride lasted a total of about 45 seconds.
Wild animals act upon a God-given instinct to hunt and etc. Domestic animals do things by habit and relate certain things together. I had a Siberian Husky whom we taught to do various tricks for a piece of candy. These things are not things that are comparable to the spirit that is in man. For example, what animal can learn a foreign language, invent a car, build plants, invent electricity, build a home, draw blueprints, understand mathematics, and etc? This kind of intelligence is from the human spirit that only man possesses. In Hebrews 4:12 we read,
"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."
The Bible teaches us that the Word of God is so sharp that it could even divide the soul and spirit. But, to the contrary, we have no Biblical evidence they are ever separated.
C.The Heart (Seat of Our Conscience).
We want to emphasize again, this is not the heart muscle. When the Word of God uses the word "heart," it is referring to a person's conscience and reasoning. It is that inner part of the spirit.
"Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." - Romans 2:15
"Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." - Hebrews 10:22
"But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts ... (6) And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?" - Mark 2:6; Mark 2:8