The word soul (usage & meaning)

[TedT]

But Hebrews 4:12 presents them as two different things.

It hints that a soul is different from a spirit as I contend in that a spirit is not bound in a body like a soul but this verse does not specify that they are indeed completely different species or creation.

 

[TedT]

“Our soul is our personality, who we are. With our soul we think, reason, consider, remember, and wonder. We experience emotions like happiness, love, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion. And we’re able to resolve, choose, and make decisions.”

So an angelic spirit who has all these things can be said to be / have a soul also like any other person!

Angels think, reason, consider, remember, and wonder. They experience emotions like happiness, love, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion. And they are able to resolve, choose, and make decisions which is how the Satanic fall happened.

 

[Hillsage]

Question: Do you suppose the body God made for Adam was like a dead corpse or did it have a heartbeat before He breathed into him?

Not a bible supported opinion.

James 2:26 or as or as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also the faith apart from the works is dead so also the faith apart from the works is dead.

 

[Clare73]

So an angelic spirit who has all these things can be said to be / have a soul also like any other person!

Angels think, reason, consider, remember, and wonder. They experience emotions like happiness, love, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion. And they are able to resolve, choose, and make decisions which is how the Satanic fall happened.

I'm thinking the soul is solely natural life and is the difference between rocks and animated physical life which moves, including in the animals, but has no spiritual (divine life) capacities, which belong to the natural human spirit, which is capable of receiving eternal (God's) life.

 

[eleos1954]

My view is this; We are not made in the image of God and after His likeness. Adam and Eve were. But that all changed with the sin of Adam/Eve and the BIRTH of the first human being.

GEN 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:

If I say you are the spitting image of your father, what does that mean? It means you are physical substance is like him (hair eyeballs, teeth, features). And if I say you 'You act just like your dad.' What do I mean? I mean you have the same 'character' likenesses (personality, emotional expressions).

JOH 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word and THE WORD was GOD"....not the fleshly body of Jesus. That "sinful flesh body" wasn't "in the beginning" of creation.

But "the image/substance of God was, and still is spirit.

Joh 4:12 "God IS SPIRIT"

Luke 24:39 "a spirit has not FLESH AND BLOOD"

Above, Jesus is speaking, not out of His fleshly body, but His resurrected spiritual body. God is spirit again because "The Word" which "gave up equality with God" as a spirit to "become FLESH..." is now again spirit.

JOH 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

God is spirit/in substance/image
God is love/a functional characteristic/likeness.

God created dirt, then made a dead body out of it. Then He breathed into that dead body spirit the image/substance of God. Thus making man in his image. If God just breathed AIR into that dead body, what would happen? It would EXPIRE air right back at Him out of its dead lungs. But if God breathed a spirit of life into that dead body, then the brain/soul would come alive and be functioning. It would tell the diaphragm muscle to contract inhale air and keep breathing as 'a breathing creature'. (a Hebrew definition of soul).


1CO 15:45 Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 But it is not the spiritual (body) which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. (Not a spirit Word body first, but a spirit Word become flesh body first).
47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven (Word/spirit become the flesh/body of Jesus).
48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven (born again spirit of Christ in us).
49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image (spirit) of the man of heaven. (eg the spirit of Christ)

I know I'm way down the rabbit hole concerning your "We are mortal" comment. But if you can hang in there a little longer I think I can put where I'm coming from to hopefully be understood by 'most'. Hopefully anyway. I know this was long, but does what I've just said make sense? I'm not asking if anyone believes it. But can you scripturally follow what I've said so far? I am not twisting scripture, but I know I am challenging orthodoxy....That's why I come to the UNORTHODOX forum.

all discussion is welcomed on the subject ;o)

Yes I understand that God is spirit and that we were created in His image .... but that does not mean He created man and "implanted" His spiritual nature into man and thereby making him immortal.

According to Genesis immortality was dependent (conditional) by eating from the tree of life .... of which was removed when sin entered the world.

“The LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever’” (Genesis 3:22).

When Eve ate of the tree and then asked Adam to eat of it God expelled them from the garden so they could not eat of the tree of life and live forever.

 

[eleos1954]

“Our soul is our personality, who we are. With our soul we think, reason, consider, remember, and wonder. We experience emotions like happiness, love, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion. And we’re able to resolve, choose, and make decisions.”

Using this as a backdrop, let’s now apply this to animals.

Do Animals Have Souls?
People will often use the term soul and spirit interchangeably, and how you use the word will determine how you answer the question do animals have souls. If you are equating the soul with the spirit, then I would say that animals don’t have souls. If you are defining the soul as we did above as the place where your emotions flow out of, where you think, reason, and make decisions, then absolutely animals have souls. Animals can think, reason, sense danger, experience happiness, sadness, and all of the things we mentioned in our definition of the soul.
Do Animals Have Souls?
The soul is the principle of life. Since animals and plants are living things, they have souls, but not in the sense in which human beings have souls. Our souls are rational–theirs aren’t–and ours are rational because they’re spiritual, not material.
Do Animals Have Souls like Human Beings?

Were we created with a "immortal soul"? Do we have a immortal soul?
Please provide scripture.

 

[misput]

According to scripture as a whole, all mankind live eternally either in heaven or in hell.

Scripture shows Adam taught his children to offer sacrifice to God which shows faith in God/Christ so I would not dare to say anyone has not had access to salvation.

 

[Hillsage]

all discussion is welcomed on the subject ;o)

Yes I understand that God is spirit and that we were created in His image .... but that does not mean He created man and "implanted" His spiritual nature into man and thereby making him immortal.

I agree that just having 'a spirit' doesn't give us immortality. That is something we have to work for by totally overcoming sin, I believe.

We who are born again have the holy spirit of Christ IN US, just like Jesus did. He was born with it, we received it when our spirit was born again. For 30 years he worked out the salvation of His soul as, "one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." Heb 4:15 Jesus wasn't born perfect he was born sinless and became "perfect through suffering" Heb 2:10 the same "sinful flesh" nature we struggle with.

ROM 8:3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

ROM 2:7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
If we suffer and overcome sin totally, we too can put on immortality this side of glory.


1PE 4:1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of (the) time in the flesh no longer by human passions but by the will of God.
The word (the) is not in the Greek.

ROM 8:11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you. 12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- 13 for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.

ROM 8:6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

GAL 6:8 For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

If we reap eternal life by being led of the Spirit TOTALLY, "work out your salvation of your souls with fear and trembling" (Phil 2:12), we will reap the 'ETERNAL LIFE' from the Spirit that will give immortality to our soul and bodies. And we will "destroy the last enemy of death" (1Cor 15:26).

According to Genesis immortality was dependent (conditional) by eating from the tree of life .... of which was removed when sin entered the world.

“The LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever’” (Genesis 3:22).

When Eve ate of the tree and then asked Adam to eat of it God expelled them from the garden so they could not eat of the tree of life and live forever.

I believe Jesus was the pattern son for us to follow unto perfection and sinlessness. If we attain that, we have access to the same 'LIFE' on earth He did. That is "the high calling of Christ"

PHI 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded:
EPH 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;

Yes it is a high calling to which we are called, if we want to put on immortality this side of glory.

 

[disciple Clint]

I believe they have both 'spirits' and 'souls'. Your first URL 'Do Animals Have Souls', says "animals do not have spirits." I tend to disagree;

NUM 16:22 And they fell on their faces, and said, "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh,

NUM 27:16 "Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation,

Genesis 7:15 And they/ANIMALS went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath/RUWACH of life/CHAY.

GEN 6:17 For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die.

GEN 7:22 everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.

how do you define soul and how do you define spirit?

 

[disciple Clint]

So an angelic spirit who has all these things can be said to be / have a soul also like any other person!

Angels think, reason, consider, remember, and wonder. They experience emotions like happiness, love, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion. And they are able to resolve, choose, and make decisions which is how the Satanic fall happened.

Very good question, that can be argued both ways.

 

[disciple Clint]

Were we created with a "immortal soul"? Do we have a immortal soul?
Please provide scripture.

I am not aware of any Scripture that indicates that man has an immortal soul. Man as created was not intended to experience death but I think it would be wrong to conclude that man had an immortal soul. The immortal soul was introduced in the philosophy of Plato, if my memory is correct.

 

[Davy]

The word 'soul' in most cases means the 'person', the id.

In Matthew 10:28, when Jesus said don't fear those who can kill our flesh, but not our soul, that reveals our soul (psuche, i.e., breath, spirit, what God breathed into Adam), continues alive, and is not dead with the flesh. Reason is, the flesh is of one order, and our soul-spirit is of another.

Thus when God breathed the 'breath of life' into Adam's nostrils, that was not like taking a bunch of dust from the earth, forming it, and then subjecting it to electricity like in some Frankenstein movie. No, because in Genesis 6:3 God said that Adam also is flesh, meaning flesh and something else. That something else is a spirit. That is what God breathed into Adam's flesh, a spirit with a soul. And that is what is living in a flesh body. Ecclesiastes 12:5-7 then shows at flesh death, the flesh and our spirit (with soul) go their separate ways.

 

[Hillsage]

how do you define soul and how do you define spirit?

I believe we are a triune person. I have a spirit, soul and body of flesh.

1TH 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe the 'spirit' provides animating life to my body ('sinful flesh nature').

When Jesus died on the crossed He yielded His spirit (the spirit of Christ not The Holy Spirit of God) into the Father's hands. When that 'spirit/animating life force' left His body, His functioning brain (soul) quit sending signals to breathe and he "breathed his last" or died.

LUK 23:46 Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last. (body of Jesus died not his spirit or soul)

When Jesus raised the little girl from death 'her spirit returned' reanimating her physical life.

LUK 8:54 But taking her by the hand he called, saying, "Child, arise."
55 And her spirit returned, and she got up at once;

The word soul in the Greek comes from the word PSUCHE. It's the same word from which we get English words like PSYCHE, PSYCHOLOGY, PSYCHOTIC, all words dealing with the functioning mind/brain. But none of those functions is 'the brain', but it is 'part' of the living, and functional aspect of the brain.

 

[eleos1954]

I agree that just having 'a spirit' doesn't give us immortality. That is something we have to work for by totally overcoming sin, I believe.

We who are born again have the holy spirit of Christ IN US, just like Jesus did. He was born with it, we received it when our spirit was born again. For 30 years he worked out the salvation of His soul as, "one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." Heb 4:15 Jesus wasn't born perfect he was born sinless and became "perfect through suffering" Heb 2:10 the same "sinful flesh" nature we struggle with.

ROM 8:3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

ROM 2:7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
If we suffer and overcome sin totally, we too can put on immortality this side of glory.


1PE 4:1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of (the) time in the flesh no longer by human passions but by the will of God.
The word (the) is not in the Greek.

ROM 8:11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you. 12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- 13 for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.

ROM 8:6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

GAL 6:8 For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

If we reap eternal life by being led of the Spirit TOTALLY, "work out your salvation of your souls with fear and trembling" (Phil 2:12), we will reap the 'ETERNAL LIFE' from the Spirit that will give immortality to our soul and bodies. And we will "destroy the last enemy of death" (1Cor 15:26).

I believe Jesus was the pattern son for us to follow unto perfection and sinlessness. If we attain that, we have access to the same 'LIFE' on earth He did. That is "the high calling of Christ"

PHI 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded:
EPH 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;

Yes it is a high calling to which we are called, if we want to put on immortality this side of glory.

soooo .... the question is ..... are we mortal or immortal until Jesus comes?

 

[eleos1954]

I am not aware of any Scripture that indicates that man has an immortal soul. Man as created was not intended to experience death but I think it would be wrong to conclude that man had an immortal soul. The immortal soul was introduced in the philosophy of Plato, if my memory is correct.

Thank you!

 

[Hillsage]

The word 'soul' in most cases means the 'person', the id.

To me scripture seems plain that soul refers to 1/3 of ‘the person’. The other 2/3 is spirit and body. Just like Jesus had.

Matt 26:38 Then says he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death:
Matt 6:41Watch and pray, that all of you enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is flesh is weak.

In Matthew 10:28, when Jesus said don't fear those who can kill our flesh, but not our soul, that reveals our soul (psuche, i.e., breath, spirit, what God breathed into Adam), continues alive, and is not dead with the flesh. Reason is, the flesh is of one order, and our soul-spirit is of another.

Jesus said what he said because He knew your spirit can never die. Spirit was the only part of mankind which was long dead in Soul and body when Jesus went and preached to their eternal spirits.

1 Pet 3:18 For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

Thus when God breathed the 'breath of life' into Adam's nostrils, that was not like taking a bunch of dust from the earth, forming it, and then subjecting it to electricity like in some Frankenstein movie. No, because in Genesis 6:3 God said that Adam also is flesh, meaning flesh and something else. That something else is a spirit. That is what God breathed into Adam's flesh, a spirit with a soul. And that is what is living in a flesh body. Ecclesiastes 12:5-7 then shows at flesh death, the flesh and our spirit (with soul) go their separate ways.

He left the soul out in Ecclesiastes. He was dividing between the spirit and the soul and the church mostly doesn’t and apparently can’t. That’s why we’re here.

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is active, 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

 

[eleos1954]

To me scripture seems plain that soul refers to 1/3 of ‘the person’. The other 2/3 is spirit and body. Just like Jesus had.

Matt 26:38 Then says he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death:
Matt 6:41Watch and pray, that all of you enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is flesh is weak.



Jesus said what he said because He knew your spirit can never die. Spirit was the only part of mankind which was long dead in Soul and body when Jesus went and preached to their eternal spirits.

1 Pet 3:18 For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

He left the soul out in Ecclesiastes. He was dividing between the spirit and the soul and the church mostly doesn’t and apparently can’t. That’s why we’re here.

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is active, 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

Paul tells the Ephesians to be “made new in the attitude of your minds”. The Greek word translated as “attitude” in the NIV is the word “pneuma”, whose more common translation is “spirit”. So Paul tells us here that our mind is “spirit”.

Our spirit is our minds (thinking) .... Gods spirit is His mind (thinking). He desires to change our spirit (thinking) to conform to His spirit (thinking) and imparts the Holy Spirit to help us do that.

 

[Davy]

To me scripture seems plain that soul refers to 1/3 of ‘the person’. The other 2/3 is spirit and body. Just like Jesus had.
....

Because Jesus in Matthew 10:28 said don't fear those who can kill your body (flesh), but can't kill your soul, that is direct revelation that our 'soul' part is definitely NOT... part of our flesh body.

I well understand how the orthodox Jews think that our soul is part of our flesh, and that is where they get their false idea that at flesh death we are literally... asleep in the casket in the ground. That's simply not so per The New Testament, and I showed one Scripture by Lord Jesus that proves it.

 

[Hillsage]

soooo .... the question is ..... are we mortal or immortal until Jesus comes?

That depends IMO. If your spirit is saved/justified by regeneration it is wholly saved once and for all. Once saved always saved. Then you have to work out the complete salvation of your soul through ‘sanctification’. And you have to do that to the point you are walking in complete obedience to the leading of the ‘holy spirit of Christ in you’, just like Jesus walked, for 30 years in sinlessness before He received the baptism of the Holy Spirit OF GOD.

That’s a rabbit hole of stuff not believed obviously.

 

[eleos1954]

That depends IMO. If your spirit is saved/justified by regeneration it is wholly saved once and for all. Once saved always saved. Then you have to work out the complete salvation of your soul through ‘sanctification’. And you have to do that to the point you are walking in complete obedience to the leading of the ‘holy spirit of Christ in you’, just like Jesus walked, for 30 years in sinlessness before He received the baptism of the Holy Spirit OF GOD.

That’s a rabbit hole of stuff not believed obviously.

What is one's spirit?