The Difference Between Spirit, Soul and Body

To learn to be led by the Holy Spirit we need to learn to be able to discern and listen to our own spirit. More specifically, we need to be able to recognise our spirit as opposed to our mental-emotional and physical realms.

‘God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.’ Genesis 1:26-17 ESV

We are made in the image of God. We are of the same ‘kind’ as God. Just as animals were made as one form of life, to reproduce after their own ‘kind’, we have been made in God’s image, destined to produce after our own kind. God took what was his nature, a creative spirit and made human beings as creative spirits so that he could fellowship with us.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul prays the God would sanctify us completely, ‘spirit, soul and body’.

One way of describing ourselves is to say: ‘I am a spirit, I have a soul and I live in a body’. Our spirit is the eternal us, the part of us who is ‘born again’ when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Our spirit is our ‘inward person’. Paul said ‘though our outward man perish, our inward man is renewed…’ (2 Cor 4:16). He also said that if he was to die, ‘he’ would depart and be with Christ, but if he were to remain, it’s because he would be abiding in the flesh (Philippians 1:23-24). Clearly, Paul believed that the real ‘Paul’ was his spirit, who lived in his body.

Our soul is our mental and emotional realm. The book of Hebrews says the word of God is able to divide between our soul and our spirit (Heb 4:12) and Paul says that when we pray in the spirit our ‘mind’ is unfruitful (1 Corinthians 14:14). Our mind and emotions should be brought in line with God by meditating on and walking in God’s Word (James 1:21, Romans 12:2)

Our bodies are our physical house in which we live, while we are alive on the earth. In 1 Cor 9:27 Paul says he needed to bring his body under subjection. We can’t go around doing everything our bodies tell us to do!

We could say, our spirit is in touch with the spiritual realm, our mind is in touch with the mental and emotional realms and our body is in touch with the physical realm. Of course it’s not quite as simplistic as that because each area relates to the other- but it’s a good way to begin to understand who we are.

Coming up we will discuss how to recognise and develop our spirit, soul and bodies so we can be better led by the Holy Spirit.