What is the Soul?

You have a common question as far as I am concerned. The answer is really quite simple. The soul is "you" right? Well when God told Adam he would die the day he ate of the tree He wasn't lying or falsely predicting. Adam did die that die. He died spiritually and began to die physically. It is believed by many theologist and myself that before Adam and Eve ate of the tree God had planned for us to live free of labor, in pretty much paradise. This was before sin. When Adam and Eve did sin (sin is the stuff that seperates us from God) God had to rpovide a way for man to get to Him, or to be reconciled with Him. This is when animal sacrifices and food sacrifices started. Something had to die to pardon sins. Well this practice continutes throughout the Old Testament and...drum roll please!!!...JESUS CHRIST was born, and He lived and died for our sins so that no more sacrifices had to be made. Anyway, to answer your original question your soul is "you" just as Billy Graham sad. If you believe in Jesus as Lord and Savioour God grants you eternal life through faith in Christ. If you do not believe your soul is cast into hell for all eternity. I hope this helps you understand a bit better.

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Originally posted by swlsal
This is one of the most common words in the Bible, but there seems of be some uncertainty as to just what the soul is.
Billy Graham made the statement on TV, that the soul is "you" in contrast to your body. Along with 90% of professing believers, he feels that the soul is "immortal."
But how can "you" be immortal when God told Adam: "...in the day that you eat of it (the fruit) "you" will DIE."
Was God predicting something that could not happen? And after Adam did eat, God told him: "You are dust and to dust you shall return."
Did Adam even EXIST when he was dust? Death seems to be a RETURN rather than a going forward to something.

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Hello swlsal


I believe the soul is the mind, in the Bible it seem's to be interchangeable with spirit . We are mind (soul), body & spirit.


>>>"Did Adam even EXIST when he was dust? Death seems to be a RETURN rather than a going forward to something."


I dont know what you mean here? I'll give it a shot.....We do not pre-exist, God in His word say's, "I formed you in the womb."


>>>"in the day that you eat of it (the fruit) "you" will DIE."

They did in a sence, the death process began. Some say they litterally died spiritually also, but that raises more questions then it answers. If they died spiritually, what would happen if they weren't saved & they died? No spirit, no existance, the bible does not teach that. I believe it to be seperation spiritually from God, which is a death anyway. Remember God kept them from the tree of life so they wouldn't live forever.


Hope this answers it for you.

God bless, M.O.G.

Yes, MOG. I am in full agreement with you.
Any sin, big or small is the great partition between us and God,
and therefore death in that we are dead to God.
He loves us so that He made the repairations we were unable to make. God didnt have to either. He could have just destroyed us and started completely over.
What a mighty God we serve.

I think we are spirit in a soul-flesh suit.
Heb 4:12
12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged 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.
(KJV)

If you can divide the soul and spirit then one is truely us and the other just something we live in.

How do you see this?

Do a word study on the Hebrew word "nephesh" , which is translated "soul"

This "Hebrew" word is also translated - "mind" - "soul" - "heart" - "life" - "breath" - "self" - "dead" -"creature" - "body" etc.

It means three different things >

#1 - breath life - ability to speak

#2 - people - who are alive

#3- the mind (thoughts) - especially the word "remembrance"

And the Greek word - "psuch" and you will find the same three things pertain !

This "greek" word is translated "soul" - "heart" - "life" - "mind"

Love IN Christ - Hervey

I understand a human being (that's you and me) to consist of Spirit, Soul and Body.

The body is our physical frame in which we live.

The Soul consists of three elements- the mind (the rational area), the will (the volitional area) and the emotions (the emotional area).

The Spirit is what makes you - you (includes your conscience and your creativity).

If it helps, consider an example of two identical twins. Even though they will both look alike physically and they may experience situations where they think alike and experience similar emotions, their spirits are totally unique. If you ask them both to paint a "still life" picture (i.e. area of creativity) I guarantee that the pictures they produce will be totally different.

God is Spirit and we are made in His image i.e. we have been given a Spirit and that makes each one of us truly unique and different from any other living being. Other animals will have a body and a soul, but they will not have a spirit - that area is reserved for humans.

I shall stop at this point.......for sleep.

swlsal,

You have some very good points. As you have alluded to, the "soul" is not immortal. In fact, no where in the Bible does it say that there is an immortal soul.

The soul is the person.

Gen 2:7 - 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.

All:

The soul can not be killed > Matthew 10:28, but the body can.

Be careful when you read this verse, because the word in the second half of the verse, plainly uses a different word than "kill", as it does in the first half of this verse. It uses the word "destroy". To destroy is not to kill. So be careful when reading the understanding.

The soul can not be killed !

The spirit of man goes back to God, when you die.

The body goes back to dust.

Love IN Christ - Hervey

On another message board, someone mentioned that man is like a computer. The body - hardware, the mind (soul?) - software. The hardware can be shut down, but the software would be unaffected.

A rather interesting way of looking at it.

The soul is simply life's energy,everything that lives has a soul.

swlsel,
I agree with you 100 %.+




Hebrews 4:11-13 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged 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.



"dividing asunder of soul and spirit"

so to address the soul I must address the whole makeup of a person+.

The difference between the spirit and the soul.

I’ll do my best to explain how I see the difference.

The body is made up of 3 parts.

The body = (dust of the ground)
The spirit = (the breath of life)
The soul = (the unique individual comes to life through the combination of the body and the breath of life. Read gen 2:7)


The soul is the make up of an individuals thoughts, feelings and decisions. Every single soul is unique because of this. So, we all have a unique soul.

We don’t have a unique spirit but rather the spirit in us is in every thing and every one and it is the spirit of life.

The spirit is the expression of the soul.
The soul thinks and feels and from that the soul will display a spirit according to how the soul is feeling or thinking. The spirit could be joy or depression according to the souls thoughts.


To follow the spirit successfully we must under stand the difference between the spirit and our own soul.

To walk in the spirit is to understand that our spirit is the expression of our own soul and there for we renew our mind to the mind of the spirit of Christ (by repentance and change) and change our soul to come inline with the spirits of Jesus commands and there for the soul express the holy spirit (love, peace, joy patience, longsuffering, gentleness and the biggy, self control) thru the change that takes place in our heart and minds because of the testimony of salvation for mankind through what Jesus has done for use.



Spirits are eternally in the earth and can be expressed by any soul and are even produced by mans own wickedness or holiness.

Example: the soul of Jesus no one can become like because he is the only one with that personality but we all can walk in his spirit (the holy ghost) by changing our soul and literally choosing to express the spirits of god (love ,peace, joy and so on.)

Another example of the soul expressing the spirit is:
We spend time in the presences of god and then we walk in his spirit of, lets say love, and then as our soul is generating the attitude and presence (spirit) of love along comes the enemy of our soul (the serpent) and through his angels he intimidates that spirit of love by speaking into our souls (usually by others) things to turn our soul from expressing this love (as spirits are extremely cottages) so he provokes the soul with thought to produce the spirit of RESENTMENT, BITTERNESS AND JELOUSY, when he manages to steal this love for others and replaces it with these three spiritual forces so there soul express this instead. Once he has achieved this and destroyed this love he then sends stronger forces against us to bind us in hatred until he has his final work. Which is for that soul to committee murder.


THIRDLY: how to stay in the spirit.

1. If you understand what I’ve written then you will start to see how important it is to guard our hearts with all diligance and how important it is to identify and discern spirits.

2. . Pray and seek for spiritual discernment so you can identify the spirits of the serpent from the spirits of the Holy Ghost because it is so easy to get drawn away from god by these spirits.

3. So many Christians start in the spirit and once the serpent steals their spirit they can’t get into the spirit until the next assembly because they rely on other people to infect them again with gods spirit. This is normal for babes in Christ but if done for to long and you don’t learn how to come into god’s presence on your own you become religious and even a counterfeit.

This is all done by the control and renewal of the mind and soul to bring about the mind of Christ so we can walk in the spirit of god and not the spirit of this world.


Some more examples:

5a. In the Holy Ghost we achieve joy but the serpent comes at that spirit with the spirit of DEPRESION, DISCOURAGEMENT AND DISPAIR until joy is gone. Then he brings HOPELESSNESS until he commits his final work, SUICIDE.

5b. In the spirit we have peace but our enemy attacks with TENSION, WORRY AND CONFUSION until he brings about fear and his final work is that souls insanity.

5c. In the spirit we have patience until the fallen one temps us with IMPATIENCE, TEMPER AND DISHARMONY, until he achieves the spirit of ANGER from that soul until it reaches VIOLENCE.

5d. THE BIGGY, self-control is a spirit of god and is attacked by SELF INDULGENCE, COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND GOSSIP AND SLANDER. Until the liar achieves EMOTIONAL INSTUBILITY and ADDICTION for that soul until ADDICTION makes him a MANIAC

I could go on forever on how to recognize the liar at work but as you can see it is all up to us to choose between expressing gods spirits from our soul and obeying the spirits of the father in heaven and not the father of lies himself.

But to do this first it helps to no the truth, as Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
Then we need self-control to establish this truth.



Hope this helps

celtic

A simple analogy would be this:

A light glob (body) is plugged into electricity (the spirit of life) and the light comes on (the soul comes to life) and when the bulb brakes (body brakes) the electricity can’t flow through it (spirit) and so the light (soul) perishes and goes out.

So, when we die our soul perishes and the spirit leaves the body, our hope is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and will return to raise the souls back to life in a reunion of body spirit and soul in the resurrection or the dead and the final judgment.

The bible says he has the book of life and the books of remembrance so he can recall every one and everything at the last day when he will raise those souls that sleep in the grave and we will be free from the spirit of this world.

the soul is simply a part of your flesh... better put: your grey matter. the brain.

This encompases: mind, will, and emotions.
And is expressed only: through the body.

The spirit of a man is that which is dead until Christ makes him new and alive. That is why when you are saved, your become a "new man" and the old flesh has died. Simply put, it means the righteous spirit that God sees and lives forever is now the "you" that slowly takes over the rest of "you" which is flesh and in the world.

When you die, your spirit goes to heaven. You are seperated from the flesh, from the grey matter (your brain) going straight to Jesus, awaiting the moment with Him to return with him and be "transformed...in the air" in a perfect, resurrected body capable of living righteously forever in the New heaven on the New Earth in accordance with your righteous spirit!

How does that fit in with the "orthodox" view? It doesn't.
Man does not "have" a soul he "is" a soul.
Gen. 2:7: ...God breathed (naphach) into man's nostrils the breath (neshama) of life and man became a living soul

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I think in this you are a prophet of God and we should fear you. You speak was has come to pass.

But you have spoken other things, and not in love. You know the bible tells us that you can not say to others "Know God!"

I believe We are a soul. A living being. We have a spirit and a body. The spirit is the breath of God. When we are believing in the Sacrifice made before the foundation of the world available to all men who believed even before the manifestation, then our spirit is lead by God a.k.a Holy a.k.a Son of God is in us when we look at the cross.