1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
There are three major components to the make up of mankind and the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul lists those three components for us in the above quoted passage of scripture, i.e. the spirit, the soul and the body. The body is the outward man while the spirit and the soul are the two main components of the inward man. It is because these two components are the main parts of the inward man that when referring to the inward man as a whole, scripture very often refers to mankind as either a soul or a spirit.
Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
As we can clearly see in the above quoted passage of scripture the spirit and the soul are not the same parts of the inward man, for the scripture teaches us that the two parts can be separated. I want you to notice however that it is only the word of God that can separate the spirit and the soul, for God has created them to function together. Nevertheless just as the brain and heart of the physical body have different functions to perform within the body of man, so it is that the spirit and the soul also perform different functions within the inward man.
The inner and outer man
The above diagram shows the three components of God’s creation called mankind. The soul and spirit in this diagram make up the inner man, while the body in the diagram is the outer man. The reason the soul is shown at the top of the diagram is because it is in the soul of man that the will of man resides, and as we will briefly discuss in a later section it is the will of man that governs the various components of man.
Michael E.B. Maher
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