Man: A Tripartite Being: Composed of Spirit, Soul and Body
Herbert Chisholm Anstey
Table of Contents
In the Light of the Old Testament
It may be asked, What do we know of the origin of spirit, soul and body? It is right that we should seek to know the meaning of what God has seen fit to write in His Word. Neither intellect nor science can answer this question. These notes from Scripture on this subject have helped the writer; they may also help and interest the reader.
Man, as God’s creature, is made up of these three distinct parts. Like men, the animals are said in Scripture to possess both soul and body, but not spirit. In the Word of God (Gen. 1), where alone we can read anything of the origin of this present creation, God has been pleased to instruct us as to this matter. “Let the waters bring forth . . . the moving creature that hath life [or, in Hebrew, nephesh, soul]” (ch. 1:20); and again, in verse 21, “Every living creature that moveth [or, every living soul — the same word].” So also in verse 24, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature [or, living soul] after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.” God thus created them, by His word, living souls [ghahy nephesh] upon the earth; and verse 30 tells us that that class wherein there is soul [nephesh] includes every beast of the earth, every fowl of the air, and everything that creeps upon the earth.
But when we come to man, we read something different. As to all the animals, God had but spoken and had called them into being. At the fiat of their Creator they had come forth; but He now consults as to the creature that is to have dominion. That is man. Neither the earth, nor the air, nor the sea is called upon to produce him. He is to be made, and made also in the very image and after the likeness of God. “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (ch. 1:26). “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [n’shahmah ghahy ] ; and man became a living soul [ghahy nephesh]” (ch. 2:7) —the same expression as we find used of the animals in Genesis 1:21. But what an important and twofold difference! First, man was, as to his body, God’s own formation out of the dust of the ground — not, as they were, called into being by a word. Second, he was, as and when he was thus formed, the receiver (from God still) of this n’shahmah of life into his nostrils. Thus the formation of his body and his inspiration, by which it is said he became a living soul (ghahy nephesh), are by no secondary means. Both are immediately from God, two things which we do not read of any of the lower creatures.
But further, “There is a spirit [rooagh] in man: and the inspiration [n’shahmah] of the Almighty giveth them understanding” (Job 32:8); so says Elihu. But that the beasts have “no understanding” David tells us in Psalm 32:9, using this same word for “understanding.” Again, he also says, “Man that is in honor, and understandeth not [same word], is like the beasts that perish” (Psa. 49:20). The prophet Isaiah also declares that they (the beasts) have not the spirit (rooagh). “Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit” (Isa. 31:3). With men, therefore, the beasts partake both of soul and body, but not of spirit. As to the spirit (rooagh) in man, it too (as soul and body are) is God’s work. The first place we read this word rooagh in Scripture, it is applied to God (Gen. 1:2). We read that “in the beginning God [Elohim] created the heaven and the earth.” Later, when the creation, as it at present exists, was formed, we read, “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Elihu also, who applies this word to the spirit in man (Job 32:8), applies the same word to God in Job 33:4. This spirit God forms in man. “The Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit [rooagh] of man within him” (Zech. 12:1).
That both soul and spirit were not confounded, but were known and distinguished, we may learn from other passages of the Old Testament. Hezekiah said that he spoke in the bitterness of his “soul [nephesh]”; but he adds, “In all these things is the life of my spirit [rooagh]” (Isa. 38:15-16). Job says, “I will speak in the anguish of my spirit [rooagh]; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul [nephesh]” (Job 7:11). Job also contrasts soul and spirit — the first being that of every living thing, and the second that which is alone in man — when he says, “In whose hand is the soul [nephesh] of every living thing, and the breath [rooagh] of all mankind” (Job 12:10).
As to the spirit being a separate formation of God in every man, and not a mere influence, we read of “the spirit [rooagh] of Zerubbabel,” and “the spirit of Joshua,” and “the spirit of all the remnant” in Haggai 1:14; of “the spirit of Elijah” (2 Kings 2:15); of “the spirit of Pul” and “the spirit of Tilgathpilneser” (1 Chron. 5:26), as well as of “the spirit of Cyrus” (Ezra 1:1).
In one place only, where man is questioning about things existing “under the sun,” is rooagh ascribed to beasts; and then it is by one who confesses his own ignorance of what he is writing about. He, himself wise, asks the question about it, “Who knoweth?” without answering (Eccl. 3:19-21).
The beasts perish (Psa. 49:12), but as to man, both soul and spirit are immortal. This, found fully in the New Testament, to which I do not now refer, we find also in the Old. It is written, “God hath made man upright” (Eccl. 7:29). Of his threefold formation we have already spoken —“spirit and soul and body.” We may now look at what is immortal in him. Job, of whom we have already heard, who spoke of all three — spirit, soul and body (see Job 10:1,11-12), and lived most probably long before the writing of the book of Genesis — knew himself as one who would exist after death. In speaking of that event, and of the time when the worm should have destroyed this outward, visible frame, he says, “Yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:26). That is, I, the man Job, the complete workmanship of God, spirit, soul and body — “in my flesh shall I see God.” For that which is destroyed by death (and even this, as to man, is only for a time) is merely this external shell, the tenement that contains both spirit and soul.
Daniel also may be referred to: “But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days” (ch. 12:13). Daniel speaks of Nebuchadnezzar’s “spirit [rooagh]” (ch. 2:1,3), and of his own “spirit [rooagh]” (ch. 7:15). This spirit and the soul and the body formed the man Daniel; and this man will stand in his lot “at the end of the days”; the body may have long since turned to dust; Daniel still rests and still waits to stand in his lot in the end of the days — an end not yet come. The soul departs at death from its tenement. It is not affected by death. “As her soul [nephesh] was in departing, (for she died)” (Gen. 35:18). Here too Ecclesiastes is clear as to the future of the spirit, speaking now of man, and without doubt on the matter: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit [rooagh] shall return unto God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:17).
It is by means of the body that the varied feelings and emotions of man manifest themselves. Some of these are ascribed to the spirit in Scripture, some to the soul, some to both soul and spirit. Thus the spirit (rooagh) is troubled (Gen. 41:8; Job 21:4; Dan. 2:1); revives, or is strengthened (Gen. 45:27); is anguished (Ex. 6:9; Job 7:11); is endowed with wisdom (Ex. 28:3; Deut. 34:9); is jealous (Num. 5:14); is sorrowful (1 Sam. 1:15; 1 Kings 21:5); is contrite or humble (Psa. 34:18; Prov. 16:19; 29:23; Isa. 57:15; 66:2); is broken (Psa. 51:17; Prov. 15:13); is overwhelmed (Psa. 142:3; 143:4); is faithful (Prov. 11:13); is hasty (Prov. 14:29; Eccl. 7:9); is haughty (Prov. 16:18; Eccl. 7:8); is wounded (Prov. 18:14); is patient (Eccl. 7:8); is grieved (Dan. 7:15; Isa. 54:6); errs (Isa. 29:24; Ezek. 13:3). It learns too the humbling lesson that there is nothing under the sun for the “spirit” of man, but only “vanity and vexation” (Eccl. 1:14,17; 2:11,17,26; 4:4,16; 6:9).
Of the soul (nephesh) we read that it departs from the body at death (Gen. 35:18; 1 Kings 17:21-22), as we have seen the spirit does in Ecclesiastes 12:7; that it blesses (Gen. 27:4,19,25,31; Psa. 103:12); it loves (Gen. 34:3,8; Song of Sol. 1:7; 3:14); knows anguish (Gen. 42:21); has appetites or tastes (Lev. 7:18,20; Num. 21:5; Deut. 12:15,20-21; Job 6:7; 33:20; Psa. 78:18); has lusts or desires (Deut. 14:26; 1 Sam. 20:4; 1 Kings 11:37; Psa. 42:2; 84:2); hates (2 Sam. 5:8); abhors (Lev. 26:43; Zech. 11:8); thinks (Esther 4:13); sorrows (Lev. 26:16); is vexed (2 Kings 4:27; Job 19:2); is bowed down (Psa. 57:6); is troubled (Psa. 88:3); faints (Psa. 107:5,26; Jonah 2:7); is relieved (Lam. 1:11,16,19); is in bitterness (Job 10:1; Isa. 38:15); is weary (Jer. 31:25); sins (Micah 6:7) and therefore needs atonement (Ex. 30:1516; Lev. 17:11; Num. 15:28); has to be afflicted while it is made (Lev. 16:29,31); so also it needs redemption (2 Sam. 4:9; Psa. 34:22; 49:8,15; 71:23), salvation (Psa. 35:3) and conversion (Psa. 19:7). These lists, which are not exhaustive, may serve to illustrate what, in chief, is attached to, or emanates from, both soul and spirit.
From the fact that Scripture nowhere asserts that the beasts have “spirit,” also that we have quoted the passages insisting upon the contrary, as well as from a careful comparison of these two lists, I think it is clear that the “spirit” is the higher part in man. It (rooagh) is also spoken of the Spirit of God. Man becomes like the beasts, if he has no understanding, as David says; and it is “the inspiration [n’shahmah] of the Almighty” (Job 32:8) — not given to them as it was to man — that is the secret of this understanding in man. The understanding, therefore, is connected with the “spirit” in man, and not with the “soul.”
I find the word “soul [nephesh]” used for the whole man, just as it is often used now, in Genesis 12:5; 14:21; Exodus 1:5; Numbers 15:27-28, and in other places; but I have not found “spirit [rooagh]” so used for the man. How fitting, therefore, that we should find in Scripture, as we do, that sin, atonement, redemption, conversion and salvation are all connected with it, not with rooagh, but with nephesh, the soul; for it is the man, spirit and soul and body, that has sinned, and that needs this power of God to be put forward in grace on his behalf.
Gathering up from what has been said of both soul and spirit in the Old Testament, it is not difficult to see that the eternal existence of man is taught in it, and was accepted long before the light of the New Testament, as to these things, shone out in all its fullness. If man is blind, he cannot see it; and then he may go so far as to deny (as some have done, and do still) that it is there. Even in his blindness he may teach that man does not exist forever; but there it shines, God’s truth, nevertheless.
There is a solemn word in Malachi 2:16, where we read a final exhortation to the “spirit [rooagh]” which was led away through the desires and affections (Gen. 3:6; 1 Tim. 2:14) of the “soul.” “Therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.” “Vanity and vexation of spirit” ought to turn the man to God, ought to lead him to take heed, and to look above the sun for what he fails to find beneath it. But to deny the immortality of the soul or spirit, and the resurrection of the body, or, in a word, the eternal existence of the man whom God has formed, is thus to deal treacherously with ourselves and with God, and leaves still all the “vanity and vexation” there. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Blessed words, words of life and light, coming from Him who “made man upright”; words sounding amid all the wearying vista of this life for every poor sinner who will “take heed.”
In the Light of the New Testament
It is unnecessary for those who believe in the divine inspiration of the whole Word of God to seek to prove from the New Testament that which we have already seen brought before us in the Old. We merely remark that examination will show to any who seek it that Old Testament truths are all established in the New, and fully unfolded. But there are others which come before the reader of the New Testament respecting “spirit and soul and body”; for now He, on whom in Himself death had no claim, has gained the victory over death and all its power, and has brought “life and immortality [incorruptibility] to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10), and this for man. Let us then first observe the distinct words (as in the Old) employed to distinguish “soul” and “spirit” in the New Testament.
It is generally admitted, by those who have had ability to examine it, that our Lord and His apostles quoted the scripture from a Greek version of the Old Testament, then in common use, and not from the older Hebrew. This Greek translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew was called the Septuagint. But by thus using it, our Lord accredited this version, and set His seal upon it as the Word of God. This is an important fact; for in this version we have before us the words then used as the equivalents in Greek to the Hebrew rooagh and nephesh, words we may also expect to find distinctively employed therefore by the writers of the New Testament.
Now in this Greek translation of the Old Testament (manuscripts of which still exist) we find in the passages we have already referred to (namely, Genesis 1:20-21,24,30; 2:7), speaking of the soul’s formation, the Greek word psukee as the equivalent to the Hebrew nephesh. For spirit (Hebrew rooagh) we find in Job 32:8, where its existence is declared, as also in Zechariah 12:1 and Amos 4:13, where its origin and formation at first by God are spoken of — in all these places, the Greek word pneuma is given as the equivalent for rooagh. In this same translation also, where all three parts of which man is composed are spoken of in one chapter (Job 10), the same distinction as to the use of the words is maintained. “My soul [psukee] is weary of my life; . . . I will speak in the bitterness of my soul [psukee]” (vs. 1). “Thy visitation hath preserved my spirit [pneuma]” (vs. 12). “Thou hast clothed me [the man Job; that is, both soul and spirit] with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews” (vs. 11). In Ecclesiastes 12:7; Haggai 1:14; Ecclesiastes 1:14,17; Malachi 2:16, passages already referred to, the Septuagint has also pneuma for rooagh.
In entire harmony, and using the same words for soul and spirit as the Septuagint version gives, we find all the scriptures of the New Testament. There is no confounding of them; there is no confusion. In coming to the New Testament, we are emerging from a night of shadows into the full light of day as to all that concerns man. “The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth” (1 John 2:8). But apparently small thing as it is, is it not fitting that we should see in this entire harmony of both Old Testament and New Testament God’s care of His Word? “He is the Rock, His work is perfect” (Deut. 32:4). Thus sang Moses, and this perfection is manifested in the little (as men speak) as well as in the greatest of His works. May it give to us, as we ponder it, increased confidence in Him who, Jehovah to Israel, is to us our Father (John 20:17), while He permits us to trace both Him and His ways (1 Cor. 2:10) in His Word. He will speak to us and instruct us therein (John 6:45) as to all that it is necessary for us to know. May the knowledge of who He is humble us. While our Father, He is, nevertheless, the Alpha and the Omega, the unchangeable God. As He says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8).
The three parts of which man is constituted, “spirit and soul and body,” may for a time be separated. That hour is death. “Man dieth, and wasteth away,” says Job (ch. 14:10), when regarding the body. Paul, in the New Testament, repeats it, but follows him beyond the grave. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). Death is the penalty attached to sin. “Sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. 5:12). It is that condition of the body when seen without a tenant. The body is the man’s earthly house or tabernacle, the habitation of both spirit and soul, so that while in it he is said to be “at home in the body” (2 Cor. 5:6). While in the body, he is also said to be “clothed” (Job 10:11). But he leaves the body at death. Thus we read, “Willing [desiring] rather to be absent from the body” (2 Cor. 5:8); again, “To depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better” (Phil. 1:23); and again, “The body without the spirit [pneuma] is dead” (James 2:26). Here we learn that at death the spirit is not there. But we also read that the death of the body does not affect the soul. “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul [psukee]” (Matt. 10:28). At death the soul (psukee) is “required” (Luke 12:20), and then all that ministers merely to the body is left behind for others.
The body only is that part in man which is mortal. In Hebrews 9:27 it is seen to be both capable of, and liable to, death, and after that also to corruption. (Compare Acts 13:36; 1 Cor. 15:42; Rom. 6:12.) “Flesh and blood [of which the body is formed] cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50). So the remark of Martha, “Lord, by this time he stinketh” (John 11:39), though spoken of the man, could only refer to the body. She knew corruption had begun in it; but the cry, “Lazarus, come forth” (vs. 43), from Him who was both the Creator and the Life, was answered at once by the whole man, “spirit and soul and body.” “And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go” (vs. 44). We see therefore that that part of the man, the body in which he dwelt, and in which he is said to be clothed, “skin and flesh . . . bones and sinews” (Job 10:11), this only rested in that grave at Bethany, where corruption had already begun its work. It was there in the condition of which James speaks — “without the spirit [pneuma]”; for the Lord had before said plainly, “Lazarus is dead.” That the sorrow attendant upon death is also because of the absence of the soul (psukee), we learn from other scriptures. Paul said, “His life [soul — psukee] is in him,” as a reason why they should not be troubled about the young man whose body they took up (Acts 20:10); but this only shows that the usual trouble and mourning at death are because the soul and spirit have left the body. And it was certainly so that day at Bethany; for they well knew that Lazarus would “rise again” (vs. 24), but at present, and from them, their brother was gone.
Having thus seen that death is the dissolving of the tie that has kept together the man, “spirit and soul and body,” and having noticed that he is variously spoken of as seen sometimes connected with the one part of his being, and sometimes with the other, we may now ask, What light has the Lord been pleased to give us as to the place of the spirit and soul (or the man) when they have left the body? To this we will now turn, first remarking that, in seeking an answer, we shall have brought before us of necessity the wondrous way whereby Christianity triumphs over all the misery that sin and its consequence (death) have introduced into this world.
First, then, what is death to the believer? The Lord says to the poor thief dying by His side, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). These words, addressed directly to the man, did not refer to his body; for that neither remained with the Lord, nor entered paradise with Him that day. The Lord’s body was borne to Joseph’s tomb, while the mangled remains (John 19:32) of the poor malefactor were “taken away” by other hands (vs. 31) to find some other, and apparently in man’s esteem, a more suited and fitting resting-place for such as he than the rich man’s sepulcher. The Lord’s body, resting there three days, saw “no corruption” (Acts 13:37), while the other returned to its kindred dust. But it mattered little. The veil had been lifted from that dark future that lay beyond the grave, by His own hand who came to bring “life and [incorruptibility] to light,” and to remove the sting from death. And what the Lord said to the thief, He meant and fulfilled. The rejected and dying Saviour thus leaving the world, and the first believer who, dying, left it when the way had been opened by Him through death — these two can nevermore be separated. The words, “Today . . . thou . . . with Me,” eternally linked together thus, declare the extent and the value of the blessed work He accomplished that day for every weary child of Adam’s fallen race who will trust in Him.
This paradise was not a place that existed only for that moment, that is, for the Lord ere He ascended, as some have taught. It was the place called also by the Apostle Paul “the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2) — an existing place then, long after the death of the thief; for he says he was “caught up into paradise.” When there, he had lost all consciousness of the existence of the body; for he said, “Whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell” (vs. 2). Yet he retained the consciousness of a man; he heard words which it was not possible for him to utter. Inexpressibly blessed was it to be in such a place, and freed from every hindrance, as one quietly reading the chapter must admit. And the blessedness of the place is also shown in the only other passage where this word paradise is used. The promise made to him that overcomes in the message to the church at Ephesus (Rev. 2:7) is that he shall “eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Paradise then, only named in these three places, is shown to us as a place of unspeakable yet conscious pleasure and rest and delight. It is with the Lord, which in itself is enough; but it is also to be there to hear and to feed, which, though it may be figurative language, conveys to us clearly enough the conscious enjoyment of the place.
With this instant happiness of the believer after death all the scriptures of the New Testament agree. Thus “to depart” is to be with Christ, which, he adds, is “far better” (Phil. 1:23); and he (Paul), who says that it is “far better,” knew more of communion and fellowship with Him when on earth than many. He knew perhaps more of it than any saint has ever known. Yet it is “far better,” for he says to be “absent from the body” is to be “present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). Peter also speaks of the putting off of the body, “my tabernacle” ( 2 Peter 1:14), yet looks onward to the day when he, together with those who have fed the flock, shall receive at the appearing of the Chief Shepherd “a crown of glory that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 5:4). But as to the meantime, Jesus had said to him, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow Me afterwards” (John 13:36). And where He went, and whither Peter followed Him, we have already seen. Similar, if figurative, is the testimony of Luke 16:22.
Having spoken of Hebrews 9:27, it remains to say a word as to the future (that which is after death) for the unbeliever. The veil is lifted here also, and we read, “After this [death] the judgment.” This is the awful and dark shadow that falls from the future upon the deathbed of the unbeliever, that renders it terrible. Into the world’s judgment the Christian can never come. “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). This is the record concerning such, though all shall appear (be made manifest) at the “judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10).
The believer cannot come into judgment, but there is a “resurrection of damnation [judgment]” (John 5:29). These judged are men —“spirit and soul and body” — for we read again: “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; . . . and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Rev. 20:12). For as the death of the body was a severance for a time of the tie that bound “spirit and soul and body” together, so the destruction of death is the re-formation of that tie, now no more to be severed but to pass, one complete man, into all the horrors of the judgment and the second death — a death not marked by the separation of the parts —spirit and soul and body — but by their eternal union; for we are bidden to “fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years” (Rev. 20:6). To this first resurrection, and to one special class in it, those who “are alive and remain” (2 Thess. 4:15,17), we will now turn ere we close this subject.
We have already seen that death is the wage of sin, and that man in Hebrews 9:27 is said to be both capable of and liable to death, because there he is speaking of the wage of sin, and of those who, not having faith in Him who has once come, are not looking for Him to come the second time. But he immediately speaks of another class who are thus looking for His second coming. These may die or fall asleep; but, though capable, they are not necessarily liable to death. “We shall not all sleep,” he says (1 Cor. 15:51). There are some who “are alive and remain” when the Lord comes and who do not die, but are immediately changed. But what is changed? Spirit and soul? No; Philippians 3:21 says it is the body. “There is a natural body [which we have], and there is a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44), for which spirit and soul are waiting, and which Paul calls “our house which is from heaven” (2 Cor. 5:2). This we shall have “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump” (1 Cor. 15:52). When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. “We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body [or, body of humiliation], that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20-21). Death then has no claim upon or power over the believers who are alive here upon the earth when this assembling shout is given. For them there is no separation of “spirit and soul and body.” He has broken the power of him who had “the power of death” (Heb. 2:14); and He has satisfied all the claims which God’s holiness demanded on account of sin. God was glorified too in it by Him, and it is proved by His own place now, so that “in a moment” they are to be caught away in the power of life. “That where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3). They do not die, but “mortality” is “swallowed up of life” (2 Cor. 5:4). Such is our hope — to see and to be with Him who says, “Fear not. . . . I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:17-18).
As Christians, we have ever to remember that the soul is the seat of the affections and desires, which must be, if we desire to grow in divine things, kept under control, so that the Word of God may at all times be allowed to come in. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul [psukee] and spirit [pneuma], and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The word “sensual” in Jude 19 is psukeekoi, and may be translated “soulish”; that is, they were controlled by it. Similar was the desire of the man in Luke 12:19: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” This has been the language of very many since. The natural affections also, though formed of God, are strikingly referred to in many places as possible hinderers in the path of faithful discipleship, if allowed to govern us. How many have made shipwreck on this rock! “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).
Fitting in the midst of all the snares that surround us, the varied attractions for the mind and understanding, the varied desires and affections of the soul — the what-shall-we-eat, what-shall-we-drink, and (not least, the fashions of the day) wherewithal-shall-we-be-clothed of the body — fitting, amidst all this, is the prayer of the Apostle. And may it be increasingly our prayer for each other: “And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23).