What is the body, soul, and spirit?
Scripture presents the human person as a unity made by God: dust that He breathed into living being. It speaks of body, soul, and spirit to describe the whole person in relation to God and to eternity, not to divide us into detachable parts. We are embodied souls, meant to be whole, and destined not to shed our bodies but to have them raised and renewed.
This question arose from studying What is the flesh versus the Spirit? and What happens when I die?.
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Go into the Word
Not a summary of these passages: the passages themselves. Read them, then come back to the study below.
The study
What the Scripture says
We are dust and breath from God's hand
Genesis gives the shape of the human person: 'Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.' We are not a spirit trapped in a body, nor a body that happens to think; we are a created unity, earth and breath joined by the hand of God, fearfully and wonderfully made.
Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.
The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
Body, soul, and spirit name the whole person
When Scripture lists 'spirit, soul, and body,' it is praying for the whole person to be kept blameless, not drawing a diagram of detachable parts. Jesus said to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength: the whole of who we are, in every dimension, is to be His. These words describe our life from the inside out and under God, every part belonging to Him.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’This is the first commandment.
He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
At death, body and spirit are parted for a season
At death the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. For the believer, this is not the end but a going home: to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. On the cross Jesus Himself committed His spirit into the Father's hands, and Paul said that to depart is to be with Christ, which is far better.
and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.
Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Having said this, he breathed his last.
But I am in a dilemma between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
But we are destined for a raised, whole body
The Christian hope is not a disembodied eternity but a resurrection. It is sown a natural body, Paul says, and raised a spiritual body; this perishable must put on the imperishable. The Spirit who raised Jesus will give life to our mortal bodies. Our bodies are not garbage to be shed but God's creation to be redeemed, and we await their renewal, not their loss.
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.
For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.
So we honor God in the body as well as the soul
Because our bodies belong to the Lord, the whole of embodied life is worship. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and you were bought with a price, so you are to glorify God in your body. Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, Paul urges, but present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. Our hands, our words, our physical lives, our unseen hearts: all of it is His.
Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own,
for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
Neither present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
As you read, you may wonder…
Scripture raises the next question
Studying the Word naturally opens more of it. Follow what you just read: it leads somewhere.
We haven't written this one yet. Take it to your church or small group: the Word answers it wherever it is asked. If we study it here later, all the better.
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Verses to meditate on
Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.
Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
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