Do You Know The Difference Between Your Spirit and Your Soul?

by Barbara Latta

Some people use the terms spirit and soul interchangeably while referring to the same element of our being, but the Bible clearly makes a distinction between the two. 

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 (I Thessalonians 5:23). This verse specifies three separate parts of a person.

The body is obvious to us. This is the physical part of we can see and where we experience our senses such as sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

Our soul is our personality, or our mind and emotions. This is where we think, feel, and

Our soul contains our emotions

make decisions.

The spirit of a person is the part that communicates with God, hears His voice, and will live forever.

2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us we become new creations when we are born again. Then why doesn’t everything about us become new at that point of decision? Why can our thoughts and actions revert back to our old ways?

We are three part beings

Picture a target with an inner, middle, and outer circle. The inner most part is our spirit, the middle our soul (mind, emotions), and the outer our body. For something to influence our spirit, it must go through our body (hearing or sight), through our mind (thought processes where we make decisions) to our inner most being (where we become born again.) The reverse is also true. For us to benefit from what God has deposited into our spirit, we must have revelation knowledge of our gifts. 

Soul

The corruption of the mind gets in the way of revelation. Influences of the world, people, and traditions we have been taught will dominate what we think and do unless we change our perceptions based on what God says. Romans 12:1-2, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

We hear the term “soul-winning” a lot in Christian circles. But our soul is not what gets saved at salvation. It is our spirit. Saving our soul happens when we renew our minds.

Body

Our bodies have not been redeemed yet. Because sin entered the world, and through sin, death, our bodies age and deteriorate (Romans 5:12). We will receive a glorified body in heaven, but this part of us will not be redeemed until we meet Christ face to face. 

(1 Corinthians 15:53.)

Spirit

Live in the spirit through the Word of God

Romans 8:11 says we have the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwelling in us. My spirit is the real me. Ephesians 1: 18 tells us "the eyes of our understand being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints."

Our inheritance is in our spirit, but we bring it out to benefit us through our soul by understanding through His Word what He has given us so we can walk in it in this life (Colossians 1:10).

"...because as he is so are we in this world" (I John 4:17). We are like Christ in our spirit but we have to bring our mind and body into submission through His Word.

Now that you know you are a three part being, what does that mean to you? Join the conversation.

For further teaching on this subject Andrew Wommack’s book “Spirit, Soul, and Body” is available at www.awmi.net.