HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2008 / JULY/AUGUST / BADENHORST

JULY / AUGUST 2008
VOLUME 9, ISSUE 4

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A R T I C L E S

A letter to my friend concerning the spirit
Chris Badenhorst

 

Dear Rikki,

Once again I appreciated your comments about our past in Adventism – that it constituted a definite barrier to a deeper spiritual walk and fellowship with the Lord. Although the details of our individual spiritual paths are different and unique since leaving Adventism, the general direction seems to be the same: to experience a closer and more intimate walk with God. I am glad that you, too, are learning the importance of daily living by the Spirit and having fellowship and communion with God through His Spirit who indwells your spirit.

For the sake of clarity, I would like to point out that we are dealing here with the subjective spiritual house we as believers are building for the glory of God. This house is founded upon the objective immovable bedrock foundation laid for it by God two thousand years ago in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ into heaven. It is important that we differentiate clearly between God's objective foundation and our subjective spiritual house built on that foundation. This differentiation, however, is another subject for another time.

To understand this subjective aspect of communion and fellowship with God better and to experience it more fully, we must understand the nature of man, how he has been made and with what faculties God has endowed him so that the divine purpose for man in his creation might still be fulfilled in the lives of those whom He has redeemed. Paul gives a clear description of man's constitution in his first letter to the Thessalonian believers. He says, "May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess 5:23b). Based on this description of man I see him as a trinity—"spirit, soul and body." Some theologians refer to this as a "trichotomy."

Our bodies are the seat of world-consciousness; our souls are the seat of self-consciousness; our spirits are the seat of God-consciousness. Through our physical bodies we are in contact and have communion with the physical world around us by means of our five senses. Our souls, comprising the mind (with which we think), the emotions (with which we act or respond) and the will (with which we decide), constitute our personality - our individual self. Our spirits, which consist of the conscience and intuition, is that part of the believer that is indwelt by God in the person of the Holy Spirit. By means of this faculty we are capable of knowing God, worshipping God, serving God, and entering into a relationship with God and having fellowship with God.

From the beginning God intended that man's spirit, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, should control his being through the soul. Whenever the Holy Spirit instructs us concerning God's will, He does so through the spirit. This instruction is passed to the soul, which in turn exercises the body to obey the command from the Holy Spirit via the human spirit. So, according to God's original design, the human spirit is the highest and most important part of man's constitution. Therefore, it is most important to understand the human spirit and its role in our knowing God. As Adventists, we did not understand what the Bible teaches about the human spirit because Adventism teaches that humans are purely physical beings composed of soul (mind/personality) and body and that the human spirit is only oxygen—the breath we breathe. As a result, we did not—neither could we have—an intimate fellowship with God based on a dynamic relationship with Him.

Related to their belief in "body and soul" is Adventism's teaching about the state of the dead: the "soul sleep" doctrine. This doctrine rejects the Evangelical teaching that the believer's spirit goes to be with the Lord at death (Eccl 12:7b). To substantiate this rejection, it re-interpreted the human spirit to mean oxygen—the "breath we breathe". Thus, in the teaching of Adventism, man is purely a physical being consisting of mind/personality (soul) and body. This belief is also the teaching of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

But the Bible tells us that we are composed of body, soul and spirit. The unbeliever's spirit is, of course, "dead" to God and the things of God because it is "separated from the life of God" (Ephesians 4:18) and God's Spirit (Ephesians 2:1-3). But when a person is saved, he is "born again from above" by God's Holy Spirit (John 3:1-8). By this experience, the believer's spirit becomes "alive" to God and the things of God because God's Spirit now indwells his spirit. We need to understand that God, being Spirit, created the human spirit (Numbers 16:22; Hebrews 12:9) so there could be fellowship between God and man. "Spirit" can only communicate and have fellowship with "spirit". This fact is the foundation for the statement of Jesus that "the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…[and that] God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship [Him] in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23, 24).

Spiritual things not discerned by the mind

In retrospect it became clear to me that one of the problems I encountered in Adventism was trying to discover and understand spiritual truths by means of the intellect (mind) alone. By this means, though, I had at best only a theory of the truth in the form of religious information (doctrines). I subsequently discovered that spiritual truth is received by revelation from the Holy Spirit into our spirits that have been made alive by Him (1 Corinthians 1:6-16). When the Holy Spirit reveals biblical truth to our spirits, that truth is not mere knowledge or information. Rather, truth is alive and dynamic and is the means by which our relationship and fellowship with God is enhanced.

This basic teaching of the Scriptures seems to be lost to many Christians. Throughout the mainline denominations which my wife and I have visited and where we have worshiped, many members are like the Pharisees who thought that truth could be discovered directly through the intellect. In this idea they were confusing the intellectual with the spiritual. Jesus, however, rebuked the Pharisees for thinking that "eternal life"—God's life—could be received solely by means of studying the Scriptures and cramming religious information into their heads (John 5:39, 40). I can sympathize with these Christians in this regard because I was once where they are now.

The Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches, on the other hand, often err in the opposite extreme. Their relationships with God and their worship of Him are often driven by a quest for emotional experiences. Those believers who seek "experience" over grounding in Truth as revealed in the Bible are confounding the emotional with the spiritual. However, a person's emotional faculty is not part of his spirit but of his soul (his personality) just as is his intellect (mind).

Where did this misunderstanding between "soul" and "spirit" come from? I think church history could provide us with part of the answer. It is a fact that the ancient heathen philosophers, in their interminable speculations about life and God, began to ask, What is man? They concluded that man is body and soul—or body and mind/personality. The first century Christians, however, had no interest in what these philosophers believed and taught. They knew they had the eternal life of God in their spirits through faith in the finished work of Christ. They also knew that by this divine life they were having sweet fellowship with God.

During the second and third centuries, some of these pagan philosophers became Christians. Unfortunately, their ideas, based on their speculations, came with them and began to rub off on fellow Christians. This gave birth to so-called "Christian Philosophy"—a philosophy that included the pagan idea that man consists of body and soul—his unique mind and personality. The sad news is that the idea of man as "body and soul" remained while the understanding of "spirit" became obscure. (Continued on page 22)

As a result of this emphasis on the mind, intellectualism emerged in the church, and people began to see truth as defined by their brains instead of through a revelation by the Holy Spirit to their spirits. Over the centuries this idea has become deeply ingrained in Western thinking, and, unfortunately, the Christian faith has suffered spiritually because of this error. As a result, Christians have been building denominational walls based on their doctrines that separate believers from each other.

My present understanding is that man's personality resides in his soul, which consists of his mind, emotions and will. But the living Lord, through His Spirit, resides in the believer's spirit which was made alive to God and the things of God at his "rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5b). Through the new birth, the Holy Spirit imparts the eternal life of God to our spirits, and by this life of God, we as believers are now to live and function under the governance of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, modern godless philosophers, like their ancient counterparts, have no understanding of this matter. They could not comprehend such a thing even if it is spelled out to them simply because this is "spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14)!

In view of what I have said above, it is important that we as believers grasp this most basic teaching of the Scriptures about the role of our spirits in order to progress in our relationship with God and to enjoy intimate fellowship with Him. This is what Jesus referred to when He said, "I have come that they (who believe in Him) may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10).

What I have said above also applies to "spiritual warfare", as I have learned by experience. We as believers cannot fight Satan and his demons (who are spirit beings) with anything physical. Paul states: "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:3, 4). To stand victorious against demonic powers and strongholds we are admonished to "be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power (and to) put on the full armor of God" (Ephesians 6:10, 11). This armor is clearly not something physical but spiritual, just as the enemy we confront is spiritual! The bottom line here is that we can only fight spirit with spirit, just as spirit can communicate and have fellowship only with Spirit!

God Bless,
Your Friend Chris †

 

Editor's note:

Among Christian theologians there is a difference of opinion regarding whether humans comprise a trichotomy (body, soul, and spirit), or a dichotomy (body and soul or body and spirit). The most important issue connected to this subject, however, is the understanding that man has a spirit that can know God and be born again and discern truth by His Spirit.

 

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Chris Badenhorst is a retired civil engineering technician who still works part time on one of South Africa's oil refineries in the city of Durban on the east coast. He is married with three step-children and one grandchild. His wife is also a former Adventist who shares his enthusiasm for the gospel of God's grace. Although they are not members of a particular denomination, they attend a local Baptist church for worship and fellowship.