Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. (1 Corinthians 6:17)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
Introduction
As a young Christian I took a Bible school class called Spirit, Soul, & Body which had a profound impact on me. Coming to understand the difference between my spirit and my soul not only helped me to better grasp a great many Bible passages dealing with all sorts of topics, it helped me recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit distinct from my own thoughts which are in my heart and mind (the soul). A proper delineation of the spirit and soul is essential for the Christian and will thus be a focus here.
I must say that this was the most complex and difficult Bible study that I have ever undertaken. Throughout it all, there was a lot of cross-checking and textual re-analysis to ensure that I was letting the word of God speak for itself. I was driven on by the notion that our understanding as believers must match the level of complexity that the Bible presents to us. It is there for a reason and the knowledge that God wills that we have will lack if we do not accept this reality.
In conducting this study it was essential to be led by the underlying Hebrew and Greek words. There are some mis-translations into English, no doubt because the very material in this teaching has not been properly understood by Bible scholars. (There is no substitute for the teaching of the Holy Spirit.) More importantly, adherence to the original Hebrew and Greek leaves us with clear definitions of all the non-material components of man which, in English, we call spirit, heart, mind, and soul.
Tripartite Man
Man is a tripartite being—spirit, soul, and body. The apostle Paul spelled this out clearly:
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
A key takeaway from this verse is that the spirit is distinct from the soul. Keep this classification in mind as we move forward.
The description of God’s creation of Adam provides the most insight into the architecture of man:
then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Genesis 2:7)
God first formed the man from the "dust from the ground" which is a simple way of saying that He used the chemical elements that He had already created to make his physical body. He then breathed into him the “breath of life,” the neshamah chay in Hebrew, which means the spirit of the living. Breath and wind are used symbolically throughout the Bible to describe the human spirit because we cannot see it but we can recognize its effects on the natural world. Finally, man became a “living creature”, a chay nephesh in Hebrew, or a living soul. Adam became alive—his soul was turned on—when God gave him his spirit. We can see here that it is the spirit, the “core” of our being, that powers our soul, our volition, intellect, and emotions, which is ultimately reflected in the visible actions of our body. James noted that "the body apart from the spirit is dead" (2:26a).
The details of this Creation account established the three classifications of the architecture of man: spirit, soul, and body. Paul's writing to the Thessalonians was a reaffirmation of this tripartite structure. Digging deeper, this Genesis account also established two foundational concepts for understanding the architecture of man: segmentation and integration.
Segmentation is the recognition that there is (1) a non-material component of man that comes exclusively from God (spirit), (2) a non-material component that is unique to man (soul), and (3) a material component (body). Man does not have his own separate spirit, in the sense that his spirit is somehow his own, did not come from God, and he has control over it. Man does have his own unique soul, in the sense that he has the free will to steer his own course (in the body) by the desires of his heart and mind, yet it must be activated by his spirit which comes exclusively from God.
Integration is simply the reality that God designed all three components of man to function together. This teaching will cover this concept in great detail.
Heart
The heart and the mind play prominent roles in what the Bible has to say concerning the inner architecture of man. The heart and the mind are components of the soul and not separate from it. This teaching will demonstrate this assertion.
I find the following statement by Jesus to be an excellent starting point for defining these components and understanding how they work together:
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." (Matthew 22:37-38)
Heart in the New Testament is the English translation of the Greek word kardia. To understand what the "heart" is from a spiritual standpoint, it is best to let the context of the Scriptures define it. I will also include Old Testament verses here because the use of the Hebrew words for heart, leb and lebab, are consistent with the New Testament. Moreover, Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 when He reiterated the command in the above verse.
Leb appears 593 times in the Old Testament and the vast majority of the time it is translated "heart." It is never translated "spirit" or "soul". Lebab appears 252 times in the Old Testament and the vast majority of the time is likewise translated "heart." It is also never translated "spirit" or "soul."
I specifically selected the following verses to put context around the spiritual meaning of "heart" because they also help us answer several other key questions:
- What is the heart and what is its function?
- Is the heart different from the spirit? If so, then how?
- What is the relationship of the heart and the soul?
Keep these questions in mind as you read through these verses. I will answer the third question later on after we also examine the soul and the mind.
But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as he is this day. (Deuteronomy 2:30)
"Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. ..." (Deuteronomy 4:9a)
But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29)
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. (Deuteronomy 6:6)
"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?" (Deuteronomy 10:12-13)
Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; (Deuteronomy 11:16)
"This day the LORD your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deuteronomy 26:16)
And his armor-bearer said to him, "Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you heart and soul." (1 Samuel 14:7)
And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart. (2 Chronicles 25:2)
My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding. (Psalm 49:3)
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. ... The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:10, 17)
When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. (Psalm 73:21-22)
I said, "Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart." Then my spirit made a diligent search. (Psalm 77:6)
My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. (Psalm 84:2)
When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul. (Psalm 94:19)
My son, be attentive to my words: incline your ear to hear my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:20-23)
Wisdom rests in the heart of a man of understanding, but it makes itself known even in the midst of fools. (Proverbs 14:33)
A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed. (Proverbs 15:13)
The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (Proverbs 17:22)
And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 1:13a)
I said in my heart, "I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge." (Ecclesiastes 1:16)
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? "I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds." (Jeremiah 17:9-10)
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8)
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)
The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. ... As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. (Luke 8:12, 15)
"For where you treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Luke 12:34)
But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. ... So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. (John 16:6, 22)
... God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5b)
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:10)
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father ... that according to the riches of his glory he might grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ... (Ephesians 3:14, 16-17)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
What is the heart and what is its function?
The heart is the steering wheel of the soul. The last verse above tells us plainly that the heart holds our thoughts and intentions. It is the instrument of faith, but also the battleground of faith. It is where we process the words of God and plan our ways and our choices produce good or evil. Our hearts can receive the word of God which leads to joy and an abundant life (in our souls) or we can reject it and become deceived and obstinate. If I had to define heart in one sentence, it would be: "the driver of the soul; that from which comes the thoughts, will, and emotions." The centrality of the heart to our non-material life mirrors the centrality of the physical heart to physical life which I suspect is why it took on the same name over time.
Is the heart different from the spirit? If so, than how?
Yes, the heart is different than the spirit. For starters, different words are used for each in both the Old & New Testaments. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word, ruwach, which means "spirit, wind, or breath," is translated "spirit," whereas, as previously mentioned, the Hebrew words leb and lebab are used for heart. In the New Testament, the Greek word, pneuma, translated "spirit" in English, means just that, whereas, the previously mentioned kardia is used for heart. Throughout the entire Bible there is a clear linguistic demarcation between heart and spirit.
Out of the verses I selected above, the following five make a clear distinction between the heart and the spirit:
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. ... The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:10, 17)
I said, "Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart." Then my spirit made a diligent search. (Psalm 77:6)
A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed. (Proverbs 15:13)
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father ... that according to the riches of his glory he might grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being [spirit], so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ... (Ephesians 3:14, 16-17)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)
The heart and the spirit play distinct roles within the nonmaterial framework of man, however, these verses disclose a unique connection between the two. It seems that the heart fuses the spirit and soul. The heart receives spiritual information from the spirit which feeds into the volition, thoughts, and emotions. Here we see the foundational concept of integration at play in the architecture of man. We will explore this concept later on, after laying more preliminary groundwork.
Recall that the other foundational concept to the architecture of man is segmentation. I previously stated: Man does have his own unique soul, in the sense that he has the free will to steer his own course (in the body) by the desires of his heart and mind, yet it must be activated by his spirit which comes exclusively from God. Moses declared to the young nation of Israel:
"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?" (Deuteronomy 10:12-13)
Here we can see this segmentation at play. Led by the heart, the soul is the non-material component of our architecture that we are responsible for serving God with. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to serve God with our spirit. The spirit is our non-material component that is unique to God. If we love and serve God with all our heart and soul, it will automatically function in the proper integrated role that God designed it for. If we reject God in our heart (and soul), the integrated spirit will suffer.
Soul
Jesus next told us to love the Lord our God with all our soul. The Greek word psyche is translated here in English as "soul." Psyche is synonymous with life. It appears 105 times in the New Testament and 40 times it is translated "life." The equivalent Old Testament term is the Hebrew word nephesh which I mentioned earlier in relation to the creation of Adam. Nephesh appears 753 times in the Old Testament and the vast majority of time it is translated soul or life, however, it is translated "heart" 15 times and "mind" 15 times. Neither nephesh or psyche is ever translated "spirit," reinforcing the tripart classification.
Here are a few select verses that help us understand the Biblical definition of the soul with a particular focus on what Jesus said about it (translations of the underlying Hebrew and Greek words for "soul" as different English words are bolded for clarity):
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:5)
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deuteronomy 30:6)
Whoever keeps the commandment keeps his life; he who despises his ways will die. (Proverbs 19:16)
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39)
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:29)
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:25)
Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45; quoting Genesis 2:7 - confirming the equality of nephesh and psyche across both Testaments)
Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever ... (1 Peter 1:22-23)
Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul ... (1 Peter 2:11)
From these verses we can plainly see that our soul is synonymous with our life. It is not our body (physical), nor is it our spirit (spiritual), rather, it is activated by the spirit and the output of our heart and mind which ultimately defines us. The soul itself is never described as a decision making entity. Excluding the spirit which is a distinct component of man that comes exclusively from God, the soul is essentially the output of our non-material aspects that are expressed through the body. When Jesus, quoting the Law (Deuteronomy 6:5 and 10:12), commanded us to love the Lord our God with all our soul He was essentially telling us to love the Lord with the full actionable output of our lives that proceeds from our heart-mind connection. Jesus described this complete connection succinctly when He declared: "For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also."
This reminds me of a question that a friend once posed to me when I was talking about the need for us to lose our lives for the Lord. It was something like, "How do I practically lose my life?" My answer was by surrendering important decisions to the Lord, such as, who do I marry, where do I live, what do I do for work, how do I spend my time, etc. After a period of time of only doing what the Lord has directed, one finds himself in a new life dependent upon the Lord. My point here is that the soul is the output of our decision making processes.
The soul includes an action element—culminating over time into the identity of our life. The heart makes the faith decision but the soul must carry it out to validate it. This is a tightly integrated process. Even though the heart and mind are part of the soul, I believe God separated them out in His word so we could understand this integration.
Mind
Jesus told us to love the Lord our God with all our mind. The Greek word, dianoia, translated here in English as "mind," means "the mind as a faculty of understanding or imagination."
Concerning himself, Paul wrote declaratively:
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being [spirit], but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law the of sin. (Romans 7:21-25)
The Greek word, nous, translated here in English as "mind," means "the intellect, the mind in thought, feeling, will, understanding." Paul's affirmation that, "I myself serve the law of God with my mind," is equivalent to Jesus' command to "love the Lord your God ... with all your mind."
The flesh is the fallen, sinful nature of man. In the previous section on the soul we had the following verse:
Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.
Paul pinpointed that the sin wages war against the mind, the understanding component of the soul. This is because the lord of sin, Satan, from whom comes the law of sin, does not want our minds to be reprogrammed to serve the law of liberty in Jesus Christ that the Spirit has taught us. Paul wrote that he served the law of God with his mind by which he meant that he served God the right way according to the truth that the Spirit of God had taught him.
There is another Greek word, noēma, which is mostly frequently translated in our English Bibles as "mind." It means "mental perception, thought, purpose, or that which thinks (i.e., the mind)."
Finally in the New Testament, there is the Greek word, nephros, which means "kidneys" but in the sense of the "inmost thoughts, feelings, purposes, of the soul." It is used once in the New Testament and translated as "mind." Nephros is the New Testament equivalent of the Hebrew word, kilyah, which means "kidneys, reins; figuratively, the mind" and is translated in English as "kidneys" and "reins" in the King James Version of the Bible. The English Standard Version translates kilyah as "kidneys," "mind," "inmost being," "inward parts," and "heart" (errantly in my view).
The Hebrew word, sekviy, which means "mind" appears only one time in the Old Testament and is translated in English as "mind."
The definitions of these Hebrew and Greek words makes it clear that the use of "mind" in the Bible is not a reference to the physical brain, but rather the intellectual capacity of man to know, understand, and imagine. Man's capacity to imagine, perceive, ponder, think, and understand does not originate from the physical brain; it comes from a nonmaterial source which the Bible calls the mind. The soul is connected to the body which is where the brain comes into play.
To ensure that I had the true Biblical definition of "mind" in the Old Testament, I was careful to go by the underlying Hebrew words and not rely on the English translations. The English translations often translate "heart" as "mind" and vice versa which unfortunately puts a roadblock in the way of those endeavoring to truly understand how they function within man. This is what I did to select the following verses. Again, like we did with heart and soul, examining a broad selection of verses that reference the right Hebrew and Greek words for mind provides a helpful context for understanding God's design (translations of the underlying Hebrew and Greek words for "mind" as different English words are boded for clarity).
Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? (Job 38:36)
I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart [mind] instructs me. (Psalm 16:7)
Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. (Psalm 26:2)
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. (Psalm 139:13)
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3)
"I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds." (Jeremiah 17:10)
Then he [Jesus] opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, (Luke 24:45)
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (Romans 1:28)
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)
For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16)
Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say "Amen" to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. I thank God I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue. (1 Corinthians 14:13-19)
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. ... But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:17-18, 20-24)
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)
To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. (Titus 1:15)
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:13)
And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. (Revelation 2:23b)
Isolating exactly which Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible refer to the mind while carefully excluding those instances where the Hebrew and Greek words for heart (or something else) were incorrectly translated as "mind" was a difficult exercise. However, this led to an interesting discovery: the functional capability of the mind flows from the heart. Watch this in the emphasized sections of the following verses:
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3)
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (Romans 1:28)
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. (Ephesians 4:17-18)
To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. (Titus 1:15)
These five verses reveal that the faith condition of the heart directly effects the mind. The Bible reveals a pattern of connectivity between the heart and the mind. The heart is the steering wheel of the soul where the words of God are processed and faith decisions are made or rejected. Positive acceptance causes the mind to inherit insight and understanding that reinforce actions of righteousness. This is what Paul meant when he said, "I myself serve the law of God with my mind." His mind was saturated with the law of God because he lived by faith.
This connective heart-mind relationship can be seen in the Old Testament in the interplay of wisdom and understanding, such as follows:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. (Psalm 111:10a)
Wisdom comes before understanding in the Old Testament in the same pattern that heart comes before mind in sentence structure. The picture I have come away with from studying this is that wisdom is received in the heart of those who fear the Lord and have faith and this wisdom leads to understanding in the mind. We see this wisdom-understanding pattern in the Scriptures because the Holy Spirit is shadowing the heart-mind connection of God's design. Consider the following Scriptures:
Wisdom rests in the heart of a man of understanding ... (Proverbs 14:33a)
Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? (Job 38:36)
[Note regarding "heart" and then "mind" in Job 38:36: the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) translates it Who has put wisdom in the heart or gave the mind understanding? and the New English Translation Bible (NET) translates it: Who has put wisdom in the heart, or has imparted understanding to the mind?]
"A man of understanding" has understanding in his mind because his faith caused him to initially receive wisdom which led to him becoming a man of understanding. Thus, wisdom rests in the heart of a man of understanding.