What Is the Nature of Man?

[duxrow]

The Soul?
1. a living breathing creature..
2. one's life
3. the thoughts, feelings, and emotions
4. one's entirety both physical and emotional
#4 definitely rubs me the wrong way and #2 also...
The Spirit sometimes compares to the heart (or the bowels: whatever turns you on when you see something breath taking). At least that's the way I think of it...

Understand Mt10:28 to be referring to Satan (god of this world, 2Cor4:4) who is the oppressor, Acts 10:38, and Our Adversary, Rev12:10.

You touched on it: how God breathed into Adam who became a Living Soul -- then in John 20:22 Jesus breathes on his disciples, and finally in 2Tim3:16 we learn of the "God-breathed Word" available to us for our reading and understanding.

[Bob May]

My undersdtanding is that we are Body, Soul and Spirit.
Our spirit returns to God from whence it came at death. Raw material.

Our spirit died because of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
That fruit is death. Fruit=outcome, the outcome was death.
The knowledge that we partook of is the "cause and effect" do good, get good mentality. This is the beginning of the Law mindset. The end of the law is death also.

We recieve a new Spirit when we believe. It is alive.
Our soul needs restoring because it has all the wrong ideas. We have created our own soul, in the sense that we have filled it with memories, thoughts, emotions, etc... all based upon cause and effect mentality.

We have to change our soul (ideas, our view of reality) to fit the new life we have been given. This is the work of salvation of the soul. But it cannot happen while we are under the law mentality or we would just be filling it with more cause and effect ideas. When we believe we become aware of Grace. That is that which flows down from God. A gift. And part of that gift is the restoration or Re-storing everything that makes up our soul.
The Father does that. We just watch and agree with the choices He makes.

It has always been the soul that we are worried about at death. It is US as far as our normal waking consciousness is concerned. Where does it go? Where do we go? It is the fear of losing ourselves, the fear of death that has held us in bondage.
Oblivion or eternal pain? Those are the choices for someone who is under the law and knows of the requirement of perfection.
But along with an awareness of Grace comes an awareness of imputed righteousness. That is also one of the gifts. (Not taught enough in churches)

The body is planted and rots and like a seed we get another one of a different type. Paul writes about this. The plant is not the same as the seed planted.

Good question tough to answer. That is my current understanding.
Bob

[duxrow]

Hi Bob, from another Bob,
..Our spirit died because of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That fruit is death. Fruit=outcome.
Hadn't thought of it like that - so maybe this was the famous "poison apple"? and then we were only 2-part? Problem for me though because I believe babies and young children haven't lost anything (yet..).

We have created our own soul..? No: God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul, Gen2:7--now our "breath" comes via 2Tim3:16 "the God-breathed Word".
Personally I think of soul as the memories and understanding, which don't change automatically just because we're born again, even though (at least in my case) my motives are not what they used to be. amen?

[Bob May]

Hi Bob, from another Bob,
..Our spirit died because of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That fruit is death. Fruit=outcome.
Hadn't thought of it like that - so maybe this was the famous "poison apple"? and then we were only 2-part? Problem for me though because I believe babies and young children haven't lost anything (yet..).

Yes, two,... spirit and soul at that point. We got the bodies later when we got the coats of skins. God said we would die when we ate. We did and we did. That was our spirit in my understanding.
They didn't lose it if they never had it. We all lost it in the garden.

We have created our own soul..? No: God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul, Gen2:7--now our "breath" comes via 2Tim3:16 "the God-breathed Word".

""...We have created our own soul, in the sense that we have filled it with memories, thoughts, emotions, etc... all based upon cause and effect mentality.""
We didn't actually create it. That was not my point. We made it what it is. We filled it.

Personally I think of soul as the memories and understanding, which don't change automatically just because we're born again, even though (at least in my case) my motives are not what they used to be. amen?

Your memories don't change but your viewpoint of those memories will. For one thing you will not feel ashamed at things you were ashamed of before because when God forgives he forgets. And shame was nailed to the tree.
Also memories sometimes change in the respect that you may see things in your past that happened only now you may see a reason you did not before.

As we grow in the awareness of Grace our entire viewpoint changes. So does our understanding. What was filtered through a mind disconnected from God is now filtered through a mind that is becoming aware that we are forgiven.
Everything changes.

I don't know what you mean by automatically. I would say gradually but there are times in which there is more or less change.

Bob

[duxrow]

Not bodies until clothed w skins? Sounds like you're ribbing me.., since Adam's "flesh" was closed after Eve was extracted. 2:21. "The foolishness of God is wiser than man"..1Cor 1:25.
Agree I should've said 'gradually' instead of 'automatically. Somezymers again.
Adam lived 70 yrs. short of making it to 'Day Two' by the Lord's POV when a thousand years are as a day, so he died on Day One.. at least that's the way I see it. Not sure whether eating was a sin worthy of death. ??

[Bob May]

Not bodies until clothed w skins? Sounds like you're ribbing me.., since Adam's "flesh" was closed after Eve was extracted. 2:21. "The foolishness of God is wiser than man"..1Cor 1:25.
Agree I should've said 'gradually' instead of 'automatically. Somezymers again.
Adam lived 70 yrs. short of making it to 'Day Two' by the Lord's POV when a thousand years are as a day, so he died on Day One.. at least that's the way I see it. Not sure whether eating was a sin worthy of death. ??

Isa 43:7 Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

Isa 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

Various levels spoken of here. Both of the "earth" and of mankind.
We are threefold in nature. Body soul and spirit.
Man was called forth, created formed and made.
The earth was created "not in vain"
Formed to be inhabited.
The "made" we fell into.
Man is threefold. With a forth level for those who are called by His name.

The way I see it the spirit and soul of man who was created androgynous were separated at the taking Eve out of Adam. The "flesh" was of the formative world.
It also says at that event that God put a deep sleep upon Adam. It never mentions that God ever woke him up. But there is a lot in the rest of the bible that shows that God has been trying to wake us up since then.

Maybe the significance of that is that because of this separation between soul and spirit, they have been out of communication or synch. Just speculating here.
But whatever the case may be with that, the process of waking up or coming back to life begins with belief. With being born from above.

With that experience comes the ability to begin to hear what the scriptures are saying as it applies to us.
Without the Spirit, it is just words.

"Ribbing me!" Now I get it.

Also Bob