James H. Cagle
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; 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).
Man is spirit, soul, and body. He does not have a spirit, soul, and body but is a spirit, soul, and body. These three parts make up the whole. If one part is not functioning, then the man cannot be whole or complete. Each part functions in a different realm of experience and if one part is not functioning that realm is not being experienced.
The body through its senses makes us conscious of the world in which we live. The soul makes us conscious of our selves. The spirit is where we become conscious of God.
For the lost the soul rules the being. The spirit because it is dead in trespasses and sin is subject to the soul and the body animates the self-life to the world. The lost may know about God but have not experienced God through salvation and the spirit is therefore not conscious of His indwelling Spirit.
When a person gets saved, the spirit is quickened or made alive through Christ Jesus and the Spirit of Christ takes up its abode in the spirit. The spirit with the Spirit’s help begins to rule the being and through the medium of the soul begins to animate the life of Christ to the world through the body.
It’s been said that man is intellect, will, and emotion. Man was made in the image of God. God is a person. How else can we explain the personality of man?
Man is self-conscious, with a power to objectify self, and make self an object of thought and judgment. Man has the power of choice or self-determination, or self-directive, a power whereby man is able to choose his goals and direct his energies toward realizing those goals. Man is a moral agent with a moral-consciousness or a sense of right and wrong, a power whereby man has a feeling or intuition that there is a thing as right and wrong and is obligated to do the right and avoid the wrong.
If man loves God with all these powers, or with his heart, soul and mind, or the whole man, all the activities of his being will be used to glorify God.
