Part 7 – Body, Soul and Spirit

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Once I came to accept this biblically-validated truth as the foundation for my own Christian experience–that I am in union with Christ and am thus one spirit with Him–I still had questions that had to be answered. (Let me interrupt and say that it is my experience that most people have these same questions.) Does the Holy Spirit take us over in our union with Him and automatically eclipse our freedom to choose and thus make it impossible for us to sin? Or can we say that because of our oneness with Christ, He is somehow responsible for our sin? Of course we must say NO to both of these suppositions. From Scripture and experience, two things are very clear: Christians (union people) do sin, and Christ has never sinned and never will sin. Another question that plagues us as Christians regarding sin is this: Do we have to go Satan’s sinful, anti-God way?

To gain clarity on these questions, we must understand our humanity and how it functions. To do that, we must first gain an understanding of the difference between body, soul, and spirit. Each of these is part of every individual and each has its distinct and separate function, but all work together to make us the very glorious creatures that we know ourselves to be.

Following is a simple drawing which, along with the others presented earlier, has helped me and many others understand the inner make-up of the human self. Of course, these diagrams can only give an idea of what we as persons look like and how we function. No human explanation can adequately portray spirit truth. Please note that a true grasp of these truths only comes to the honest seeker by Holy Spirit revelation.

The outer circle represents our body, the middle circle our soul, and the inner circle our spirit. The body is the outer clothing or the outer expression of the soul and spirit.