The spirit (Inward Man), Soul and Body

Many writers and preachers have already addressed this topic of the “inward man”. I don’t intend to add anything more but I hope to highlight just a few basic things.

Man is a spirit. In the beginning when man was created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore if God is spirit then man too is an eternal spirit. Man also possesses a soul. The soul of man is his reasoning faculties – his intelligence, his mind, will. The outside of a man is called the body. It is the flesh with the five senses. So to summarize, Man is a spirit who possesses a soul and is in a body (earth suit).

Before sin entered the world, man was in communion with God. His spirit was in fellowship with God. When sin entered the world it caused spiritual death. In other words, the human spirit/ man was disconnected from God who is life. Man was now in communion with the devil and thus was dead.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”. When we accept Christ, we are “in Him”. Therefore if we are in Him, old things have passed away. What is this old thing? This old thing is the old sinful nature or the spirit in communion with the devil. When someone says that  a person has passed away, what does it mean? It means that he or she has died. So when the bible says that the old man ( or the spirit in communion with the devil) has passed away it means that the old nature was DEAD.

Well if the old man died, something new was recreated in its place. That was our new spirit. This new spirit is reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:18). In 1Peter 3:4, Peter calls the spirit as the “hidden person of the heart” Why hidden? He calls the spirit hidden because it is not possible to for the flesh (5 senses) to access the spirit of man. We can neither ‘feel’ nor sense the spirit physically. The flesh or the ‘carnal/natural man’ cannot access the things of God nor does it have the ability to do so. God can only speak to our spirits and fellowship with our spirits. I Cor 5:7 help us understand this concept. Jesus said I have come to give life and life more abundantly. He was talking about our spirit being given the eternal and abundant LIFE.  Also Jesus said about the Holy Spirit to the disciples that He is with you and will be in you. So the Spirit of God comes and dwells in our spirits

This implies that the spirit of man has the nature of God. The spirit of man has a desire to obey God. Paul talks about the spirit of the man calling him the “inward man” in Romans 7:22. If you read the whole chapter of Romans 7 you will understand that the spirit man desires to do good. Paul even says that the evil tendencies that he face is not really him but the flesh that he has, implying that the real him is His spirit. (Note: I can already hear religious folks screaming “oh does that mean we don’t have a responsibility over the flesh? Does that mean you can do whatever we want and blame it on the flesh?” I never ever said we don’t have a responsibility for the actions of the flesh. Read Romans 12:1-2 I address that in another article). This was prophesied in the Old Testament by Ezekiel - Ezekiel 36:26-27 we read “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” So when God’s Spirit is in us He CAUSES us to walk in obedience to God’s ways. This desire to obey God is an inherent part of the new recreated spirit whether you choose to believe it or not. We may not even physically or even emotionally feel like obeying God. But the spirit does! In addition, the spirit has been united with Christ in his death and resurrection. When Christ died, our old man died. When Christ was resurrected, our new spirit was formed into his likeness / nature (Romans 6:5).

When we say we are “born again” surely it is not our flesh. Is our flesh born all over again? Let us go to John 3:5 When Nicodemus asks how can he go back into his mother’s womb in order to be born again , Jesus says that Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. Obviously Jesus was saying it is the ‘spirit’ that is born again / recreated.

Neither is it our reasoning faculty (soul). For example a person who doesn’t do so well in Math doesn’t all of a sudden become smart because “He is a new creation”. Our old way of thinking remains. The soul (reasoning faculties) is influenced easily by the flesh/body (five senses). For example if I have to study a subject, I have to read a book, I have to listen to a teacher etc.

While the body cannot influence the spirit (since it born of God), vice-versa is possible although not directly. This is how the spirit influences our body: Soul is influenced by the five senses inherently. It is safe to say that the spirit can directly influence the soul if we allow to do so. We must train our soul to respond to our spirit by the renewing of our minds (reasoning faculties).  Once the thoughts have been influenced the spirit, our external actions (body) get influenced by our thoughts (soul). Read Romans 12:1,2

All that we need for our walk on earth toward godliness and Christ-likeness has already been deposited by God in our spirits (2 Peter 1:3) This is something that will radically change your thinking when you understand and realize all the spiritual things that you have been seeking externally is already inside of us (the spirit).  The spirit man having the nature of God who is LOVE has the ability to love another person unconditionally.

For those that say the spirit and soul of a man are the same thing please read  1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12. You will notice “the division of soul and spirit”. I hope I was able to briefly help you understand on the topic of the spirit, soul, and body. Hopefully I will talk more about the inward man or the spirit. Obviously this is not an exhaustive article but a brief summary of my understanding on the topic. In addition to reading the bible, I suggest reading books by Watchman Nee especially The Spiritual Man for a detailed study this topic.