“Aside from having a spirit which enables him to commune with God, man also possesses a soul, his self-consciousness. He is made conscious of his existence by the work of his soul. It is the seat of our personality. The elements which make us human belong to the soul. Intellect, thought, ideals, love, emotion, discernment, choice, decision, etc. are but various experiences of the soul.
That which constitutes man’s personality are the three main faculties of volition, mind and emotion. Volition is the instrument for our decisions, revealing our power to choose. It expresses our willingness or unwillingness: “We will” or “We won’t”. Without it, man is reduced to an automaton. Mind, the instrument for our thought, manifests our intellectual power. Out of this arise wisdom, knowledge and reasoning. Lack of it makes a man foolish and dull. The instrument for our likes and dislikes is the faculty of emotion. Through it we are able to express love or hate and to feel joyful, angry, sad or happy. Any shortage of it will render man as insensitive as wood or stone.
The soul life: There are three different words employed in the Greek to designate “Life”: 1) bios 2) psuche 3) zoe. They all describe life but convey very different meanings. Bios has reference to the means of life or living. Our Lord Jesus used this word when He commended the woman who cast into the temple treasury her whole living. Zoe is the highest life, the life of the spirit. Whenever the bible speaks of eternal life it uses this word. Psuche refers to the animated life of man, his natural life or the life of the soul. The bible employs this term when it describes the human life. The words soul and soul life in the bible are one and the same in the original. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for soul- nephesh is used equally for soul life. The New Testament consequently employs the Greek word psuche for both soul and soul life. Hence we know Soul not only is one of three elements of man but also is man’s life, his natural life. In many places in the bible soul is translated life. Genesis 9:4,5; Leviticus 17:11; Matthew 2:20; Luke 6:9; Acts 15:26; Acts 20:24; Matthew 20:28; John 10:11, 15, 17. (Study these scripture and do the word study. See if you can get the same meanings)
The life of man is but the soul permeating the body. As the soul is joined to the body it becomes the life of man. Life is the phenomenon of the soul. The bible considers man’s present body a “soulical body” (I Corinthians 15:44 ), for the life of our present body is that of the soul. Man’s life is therefore simply an expression of the composite of his mental, emotional and volitional energies. Soul life is man’s natural life.
That the soul is man’s life is a most important fact to recognize for it bears greatly upon the kind of Christian we become, whether spiritual or soulish. (simply put living in the spirit realm or living in the soul realm) More on the soul, next time.
This is an excerpt from: The Spiritual Man by Watchman Nee
Please print this out and read and re-read. Do the word study and let the Lord give you revelation knowledge, something that no one can take from you.
Your Sister in Christ
Rosita
