Spirit, Soul & Body
Hey Juli,
This is Dustin and I just wanted to thank you once again for the articles and the video postings. I know you're busy but there is something I would like to ask you. For several months I've been understanding the difference between our spirit, soul and body. I've read Andrew Wommack's book Spirit, Soul and Body a couple of times and several other teachings on that subject and have really benefited from these truths. From what I've learned I understand that we are a spirit, we have a soul, and live in a body. I have read that when God sees us from the moment we are born again, He sees us as clothe in His own righteousness, covered in the Blood of Jesus, and His work perfected in our lives. I totally agree with these truths. I understand that our spirits are the part of us that became righteous, holy, perfect, blameless, and the list goes on. I understand that are souls are in the process of being transformed as we renew our minds and experience revelation, and our bodies will one day in the future be glorified. I understand that God sees us righteous even when we fail because we are justified apart from our works and performance.
But something that started bothering me yesterday was about how God sees our soul. Some of the thoughts I was having was that God only sees our spirits as righteous but our souls are a different story. Does God see our whole being, spirit, soul and body as righteous or just our spirits? How does God see the soul of a person when he fails? I know that God does not impute sin to us even when we fail. I believe that are minds are always being renewed for the rest of our life. No matter how mature we grow or how much revelation we have, I believe that as long as we are on this earth we will always continue to experience some kind of renewing in our souls. So in the midst of the thoughts we have day by day, does God view ours minds as filthy and defiled from some of the things we think, or does He only see the mind of Christ in us. I don't think that when God sees us that he begans to disect us and say that only your spirit is perfectly righteous, but you're presenting you're members as instruments of unrighteousness, so that he sees 1/3 of us righteous but the other 2/3 still dirty. So my final question is, does God see just our spirits righteous but not the rest of us, or does He see His work already perfected in our entire being?
Thanks
Hi Dustin,
Dustin,
Nice to hear from you again. Funny, I just gave that book to a friend of mine last Wednesday... it's a good book and such an important building block for understanding the Word.
In answer to your question, I would say that God sees our whole entire existence as already perfect because of what He did and gave us in our born again spirit. I say this because He gave us a new nature and His work is done. After reading that book you understand those statements. He did everything he's going to do, so it only makes sense that he sees us as wholly righteous. Also, everything was given in our new spirit to combat any rising of the flesh or sickness so those things are not really us anymore after salvation... your observations about renewing ones mind are right on, that's the key to overcoming.
Couple passages come to mind. First, I John 4:17 says 'As he is in this world, so are we'. If we're identical in this world to Jesus then we're identical period... that how God sees us otherwise He wouldn't have said that. Since we are made up of 3 parts, that includes all of it. Also, as you mentioned we are given the mind of Christ... ( I Corinthians 2:16 )
Secondly if you pay attention to Romans 5 & 6, it addresses this. First, Romans 5 explains how Jesus undid everything that Satan and mankind corrupted in the fall. In fact, it says justification reigned more through Christ, grace abounded more, love abounded more... everything! So if sin and the fall destroyed our minds, our bodies, etc. Then Christ undone and redid exceedingly more that what was lost.
Also, Romans 6 explains how we died to the old nature. If anything remains it's the body of that old man not the living thing (Not sure if that makes sense). Take for illustration a body after death, it remain for awhile while it decomposes but the person is not there. Same is true for us. We might has some of the 'body' of the old nature hanging around, but it is not us, this is why renewing our minds is key, it speeds up the process of decay and renewal to who we now are. But if anything resembling the old nature rears it's ugly head, it's really contrary to who we are in Christ, even if it tries to deceive us saying that we haven't changed.
II Corinthians 5:17 says we are an entirely new creation in Christ Jesus. The Greek is where we get metaphorous from, were talking Caterpillar to butterfly. A completely different being... that is how God sees us. We might have trouble seeing ourselves that way, which is why the Word is full of this truth.
I really believe God's see us perfect, righteous and holy in entirety because of Jesus. That's amazing grace!
Good question. Made me stop and think for bit... love that!
Hope you are well. Have a blessed night!
Juli