The lack of vitality and penetration in human literature and intercourse is most clearly evidenced by the utter failure to distinguish between soul and spirit. It is almost universally the case that when the soul is spoken of, the spirit is intended.
The English words which have been derived from psuche, the Greek word for soul, all refer to various aspects of spirit. Psychology has to do with mind, not sensation. These words which originally meant soul, have now been transferred to spirit. Psychic, instead of bearing its true meaning, soulish or sensual, denotes pneumatic, or spiritual.
These are not mere curiosities of philology, but the sure indexes of the present day confusion which we must detect and avoid if we wish to get the truth on the subject of the soul.
To get a firm grasp of the true and proper idea conveyed by the term "Soul" is not the work of an instant. It can only come by a careful consideration of the contexts in which it occurs. These form an infallible index of its force. Yet here the English reader is at a great disadvantage because the version which he is accustomed to use conceals their force by translating the same words in the original by a variety of terms. They translate soul so often by the term "life" that the distinction between soul and life as well as between soul and spirit is almost obliterated.
With two exceptions the word soul always represents the Hebrew word nephesh . Job 30:15 and Isaiah 57:16 have no reference to the soul. The latter should be rendered "breath". Apart from these, every occurence of "soul" in the Authorized (KJV) may be depended upon to be correct.
But in a multitude of instances nephesh has been translated by other expressions. We give a list of these passages so that the student may correct them in his Bible. In all there are about forty-four variations. These are grouped together where the meaning is allied.
appetite, Proverbs 23:2 Ecclesiastes 6:7
beast, Leviticus 24:18
body, Leviticus 21:11 Numbers 6:6, 19:13 Haggai 2:13
breath, Job 41:21
creature, Genesis 1:20,21,24, 2:19, 9:10,12,15,16 Leviticus 11:46
dead, Leviticus 19:28 21:1 22:4 Numbers 5:2 6:11 Joshua 4:8
dead body, Numbers 9:6,7,10
deadly, Psalm 17:9
desire, Ecclesiastes 6:9 Jeremiah 22:27 44:14 Micah 7:3 Habakkuk 2:5
fish, Isaiah 19:10
ghost, Job 11:20 Jeremiah 15:9
heart, Exodus 23:9 Leviticus 26:16 Deuteronomy 24:15 1Samuel 2:33 2Samuel 3:21 Psalm 10:3 Proverbs 23:7 28:25 31:6 Jeremiah 42:20 Lamentations 3:51 Ezekiel 25:6,15 27:31 Hosea 4:8
hearty, Proverbs 27:9
him, Proverbs 6:16
life, Genesis 1:30 9:4,5 19:17,19 32:30 44:30 Exodus 4:19 21:23,30 Leviticus 17:11,14 Numbers 35:31 Deuteronomy 12:23 19:21 24:6 Joshua 2:13,14 9:24 Judges 5:18 9:17 12:3 18:25 Ruth 4:15 1Samuel 19:5,11 20:1 22:23 23:15 26:24 28:9,21 2Samuel 1:9 4:8 14:7 16:11 18:13 19:5 23:17 1Kings 1:12 2:23 3:11 19:2,3,4 10:14 20:31,39,42 2Kings 1:13,14 7:7 10:24 1Chronicles 11:19 2Chronicles 1:11 Esther 7:3,7 8:11 9:16 Job 2:4,6 6:11 13:14 31:39 Psalm 31;13 38:12 Proverbs 1:18,19 6:26 7:23 12:10 13:3,8 Isaiah 15:4 43:4 Jeremiah 4:30 11:21 19:7,9 21:7,9 22:25 34:20,21 38:2,16 39:18 44:30 45:5 46:26 48:6 49:37 51:14,30 Lamentations 2:19 5:9 Ezekiel 32:10 Jonah 1:14 4:3
lust Exodus 15:9 Psalm 78:18
man, Exodus 12:16 2Kings 12:4 1Chronicles 5:22 Isaiah 49:7
me, Numbers 23:10 Judges 16:30 1Kings 20:32
mind, Genesis 23:8 Deuteronomy 18:6 28:65 1Samuel 2:35 2Samuel 17:8 2Kings 9:15 1Chronicles 28:9 Jeremiah 15:1 Exodus 23:17,18,22,28 24:25 36:5
mortally Deuteronomy 19:11
one, Leviticus 4:27
person, Genesis 14:21 36:6 Exodus 16:16 Leviticus 27:2 Numbers 5:6 19:18 31:19,35,40,46 Deuteronomy 10:22 27:25 Joshua 20:3,9 1Samuel 22:22 2Samuel 14:14 Proverbs 28:17 Jeremiah 43:6 52:29,30 Ezekiel 16:5 17:17 27:13 33:6
pleasure, at, Deuteronomy 23:24 Psalm 105:22 Jeremiah 34:16
whither will, Deuteronomy 21:14
will, Psalm 27:12 441:2 Ezekiel 16:27
would have, Psalm 35:25
they, Job 36:14
thing, Leviticus 11:10 Exekiel 47:9
self, Leviticus 11:43,44 Deuteronomy 4:15 Joshua 23:11 1Kings 19:4 Esther 4:13 9:31 Job 18:4 32:2 Psalm 131:2 Isaiah 55:14 46:2 47:14 Jeremiah 3:11 17:21 37:9 51:14 Amos 2:14,15 6:8 Jonah 4:6
omitted,Genesis 37:21 Leviticus 24:17,18 Number 31:35 Deuteronomy 19:6 22:26 Judges 18:25 1Samuel 22:2 1Chronicles 5:21 Isaiah 3:20 56:11 Jeremiah 2:24 40:14,15
By combining this list with the occurrences of "soul" the student will have at his command every context which the Hebrew Scriptures afford for the study of this most important term.
We suggest that these passages be translated uniformly. It is no crime to cross out mere human deviations and insert Divine verities in their place. If soul meant "life", as our translators so often suggest, why was it not written with the Greek word for "life" in the original instead of the word for "soul"?
We have already convinced ourselves of the fact that soul and life are utterly distinct by the phrase "living soul". If we translate the word nephesh in that phrase as it is so often translated, we come to the absurd conclusion that, as the result of the impartation of the Breath of Life, man became a "living life". Could Job have said "My life is weary of my life"?
The distinction between soul and spirit is no less pronounced. Besides the passage in Hebrews, which gives the word of God the monopoly of this distinction, we have the list "spirit and soul and body" in 1Thessalonians 5:23. It is needless to say that this does not enter into the relation of the soul to the spirit and body at all, but only to its blameless preservation unto the coming of the Lord.
The fact that the soul is the effect of the union of spirit with body is neither taught nor refuted by this text. It is thoroughly in harmony with the two-fold constitution of man, for, while the soul is not one of the units of which man is constituted, its condition in view of His coming has a place quite as important as the body and spirit. And the preservation of the entire man involves the soul just as much as the two units on which it is based.
Now, instead of soul and spirit being the same, they are put in striking contrast in the discussion of the differences between the first man and the last Adam. The first became a living soul, the last a life-giving Spirit. This contrast is more cogent still in the adjectives "spiritual" and "soulish".
In the second chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians this distinction is obscurred by the rendering "natural". NOT the natural, but the soulish man does not receive the Spirit's things. This is reserved for the spiritual man. So, too in the fifteenth chapter: the body is there called a soulish, NOT a "natural" body (ICor. 15:44,46) in contrast to the spiritual body of the resurrection.
The truth that soul refers to sensation or conscious experience is really acknowledged by the translators themselves, though they concealed it from their readers by their rendering. Many who think of the soul as the seat of our highest spiritual faculties would be suprised to know that it has its proper place between such words as "earthly" and "demoniacal"!
In James 3:15 we have: "Earthly, soulish, demoniacal". The translators rendered it: "Earthly, sensual, devilish". Here, however, if we take the word sensual in its present day acceptation, they have overshot the mark. But in their days it probably meant very nearly what soulish means-- one who is swayed by physical sensations. The crowning proof of its antipathy to spirit lies in its last occurrence (Jude 19). There we read of those who are "soulish, having not the spirit". Here again the translators rendered it "sensual".
Having noted that there is a distinction between life and spirit and soul, we are now ready to inquire more closely into the characteristics which define the latter. The first few occurrences in Genesis will supply us with the information which we need at this point. There we find developed the broad distinctions between flora and fauna, plants and animals.
It is most instructive to note the contrast betwen the introduction of plants on the third day of God's work of restoring the earth and the creation of living souls on the fifth and sixth days. Plants are, indeed, living organisms quite as much as animals, yet they differ from animals in a number of important particulars which are duly emphasized. Plants do not swarm.
But the first mention of living souls brings out this characteristic. "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls"-- Genesis 1:20. This rendering may, perhaps, best convey to our minds the fact that the words "bring forth abundantly" and "moving" of the common text are but different grammatical forms of one expression in the Hebrew. To "swarm" or breed corresponds with the seed of the plants, but seems also to involve the idea of motion, which is further developed in the next occurence of the word "soul".
Plants cannot move. They are rooted in their place. But not so with animals. This is brought out in the second statement: "And God created... every living soul that moves"-- Genesis 1:21.
Plants are never called souls, yet, like the animals, they derive their nourishment from the soil and carbon from the air. But in them this combination causes no sensation or consciousness, which is the chief characteristic of a soul. Generally speaking it is only those forms of life which can move from place to place, which possess the further function of sensing the outward world, of being conscious of their own existence.
Now when, a few verses later, man is brought upon the scene, we are informed that he, too, becomes a living soul. What shall this convey to our minds?
Simply that he, too, like the animals, would propagate by breeding, would be able to move from place to place, would have the power of sensing the world about him and a conscious realization of his own existence. He is not a plant, but an animal and possesses these endowments in common with other animals.
Instead of this phrase marking a difference between the man and the previously created animals, it shows his similarity to them! In fact, until we study and appreciate what has already been said of living souls, we are at a distinct loss to realize what is meant when the man becomees a living soul.
A striking recognition of man's distinctly human attributes is found in the Apostle's address at Athen-- Acts 17:28. The spirit is recognized in the statement that "In Him we live". The soul is implied in the words "and move", and the body in the third phrase "and have our being".
"In Him we live and move and have our being is a clear indication of the apostle Paul's analysis of mankind. And that he considered it most elementary is evidenced by the fact that he does not hesitate in proclaiming it to unbelieving idolators.
Plants have life as well as animals, but it is not a conscious life. They do not see and feel and hear and taste. This is the force of being a "living soul".
The connection of soul with the senses is evidenced by a selection of interesting passages. The taste is especially intended in such scriptures as :
"whatsoever thy soul lusteth after" (Deuteronomy 12:15,20,21),
"thy soul longeth to eat flesh" (Deuteronomy 12:20),
"eat grapes at thine own pleasure" (Deuteronomy 23:24),
"their soul abhorreth all manner of meat" (Psalm 107:18),
"a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul..." (Proverbs 6:30),
"...eateth to the satisfying of his soul" (Proverbs 13:25),
"a honeycomb, sweet to the soul..." (Proverbs 16:24),
"if thou be a man given to appetite..." (Proverbs 23:2),
"the full soul loatheth an honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet" (Proverbs 27:7),
"should make his soul enjoy good" (margin- delight his senses) (Ecclesiastes 2:24),
"the appetite is not filled" (Ecclesiastes 6:7),
"to make empty the soul of the hungry" (Isaiah 32:6).
In all of these uses of the Hebrew word for soul, the point lies in the sensation accompanying the use of food, the physical satisfaction accompanying the use of food, the physical satisfaction which the soil furnishes when we partake of its products.
This is amply confirmed by our Lord's words: "Be not anxious for your soul, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink... is not the soul more than food...? (Matthew 6:25). These creature needs is what the soul craves, yet true satisfaction is not to be found in them. Even as He said on another occasion: "For what shall a man be profitted if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew 16:26)
This is the evil which the wise man saw: "A man to whom God giveth riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacketh nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof..." (Ecclesiastes 6:2)
So, too, he who prefers the indulgence of his physical senses to loyalty to Christ, who shrinks from the discomfort and distress which His disciples must endure, he shall lose his soul in the time of His exaltation. But he who "loses his soul" now for Christ's sake, he will gain it in that day.
In the phraseology of today, to "lose your soul" is the very worst calamity which can occur. It is equivalent to eternal damnation! Yet our Lord used these very words and urged His disciples to "lose their souls" for the Kingdom's sake!
"Whosoever will save his soul shall lose it" (Matthew 16:25)! He who would save his soul (which is continually put before the sinner today) is discouraged and restrained by the fact that such will lose their souls. Once we allow the true scriptural force of "soul", the passage is luminous with meaning and "the salvation of the soul" takes on an entirely different color.
"Salvation of the soul" is never used once in Paul's epistles. In fact, he speaks but very seldom of the soul. Indeed, he highly commends Epaphroditus for "risking his soul" for the sake of his fellow Philippians. (Paul could never commend anyone risking their salvation for any cause!)
But in Hebrews, James, and Peter's first epistle do we read of the salvation of the soul, which refers to the physical blessing of the earthly kingdom.
[I would add that salvation of the soul refers to the soul being converted from carnal dominion to spiritual liberty, per Psalm 19:7-- editor}
The term "soul is often used as a figure of speech to denote the person from the standpoint of his sensations or experience. This is called a metonymy of the adjunct, because an object is characterised by some closely related thing.
Thus we speak of a ship as a "bottom" when we refer to its cargo, or we may call it a "sail" when we call attention to its speed and appearance. So human beings, when we wish to point specially to their feelings or sensations or experiences, may be called "souls".
A familiar instance is the phrase "the soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). Now they had been using this proverb in Israel: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge"-- in other words, they accused Yahweh with punishing them for the misdeeds of their fathers. In reply, Yahweh says that the soul that sins-- the one who actually experienced the sensations connected with the sin-- that soul shall die, and not one that was never experientially connected with the sin.
With this key in hand, how much more impressive and harmonious is the proverb, "A righteous man regardeth the soul of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel"!
It is not simply the life of the beast which is here spoken of, but the comfort and strength and sustenance of the beast which is the object of the righteous man's solicitude. He will not overload it; nor will he underfeed it. He will see that it is well taken care of at all times. That this is the real thought, the second member of the couplet confirms, for all of this is in contrast with the cruelty of the wicked.
And how luminous does our Lord's invitation become in the light of a true understanding of the soul! "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden... and ye shall find rest unto your souls." (Matthew 11:28-29) It is the soul that feels the pressure and distress of life's burdens and responsibilities and it is the soul that finds its rest in His yoke.
And the same light shines from that striking contrast--with the rich man who said: "Soul, thou has many goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry." But his soul was never to enjoy the feast he had prepared for it.
Therefore He told them not to be anxious for their soul, what they should eat. We would have said that eating was a care of the body, not the soul. But He knew better, and, while He spoke of clothing as connected with the body, eating was for the soul.
Indeed all living souls need nourishment, but not necessary covering. No soul can live without food, but the animals, except man, need no protection from the elements beyond what is provided for them by nature.
Just as the divine illustration of the spirit was in the breath, so we have the divine picture of the soul in the blood. Much has been lost by the arbitrary change of the word soul to "life" in the pasages where this is clearly taught. "The soul of all flesh is the blood thereof" (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11,14).
So that our Saviour's sacrifice is graphically described by Isaiah: "He poured out His soul unto death". As to fact, it was His blood which He poured out; as to truth it was His soul.
Now why should the blood be chosen to picture the soul to us? We have already seen that the soul has its origin, not in the body merely, nor yet in the spirit alone, but in their combination. And what could better portray this than the blood? It is fed from food by means of assimilation and thus is linked to the body and the soil; it is fed from the air by means of respiration and is thus linked to the breath and spirit.
Having learned that soul is synonymous with sensation and that the soul of the flesh is in the blood, we are prepared for the further truth that "it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul" (Leviticus 17:11).
Now as the soul is in the blood, what is more proper as a means of propitiation than blood? The same holds good in the higher sphere of justification or acquital. The blood of Christ, the memorial of His sensations or sufferings for sins, is the pledge of our safety from coming indignation.
He poured out His soul, for when the soldier pierced His side, the blood flowed forth. And when He sought to calm them, he could not say (what would have been most natural) that a spirit hath not flesh and blood, but "a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have" (Luke 24:39).
In perfect concordance with this, we are told that "there is a soulish body and there is a spiritual body". The last Adam became a life-giving spirit in contrast with the living soul of the first Adam.
Flesh and blood, indeed, does not inherit the Kingdom of God, for the blood is badge of a soulish body, but flesh and bones denote a spiritual body.
The statement that His body never saw corruption (Acts 2:31) in the tomb is enough to show that it was the very same body which endured the suffering of Calvary. And this is put beyond question by the nail prints and the spear wound. And the further fact that it is bloodless shows us that propitiation is accomplished. The "blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" had been poured out.
The just and merciful law which Yahweh gave to His people Israel, while it insisted on the death of countless victims in sacrifice and countenanced the slaying of animals for food, made due provision that they should not suffer. It was obligatory that the hunter pour out the blood of an animal taken in the chase (Leviticus 17:13) and blood was never allowed to be eaten.
(The command against eating blood is repeated in the New Testament so that no believer should eat blood today either-- editor)
The blood of the sin offerings was poured out at the foundation of the altar (Lev.4:7,18,25,30,34; 5:9). When their souls were poured out these souls went under the altar. It is said that in Solomon's temple there was a vast pit under the altar to receive the rivers of blood which flowed from the thousands of sacrifices which were offered upon it. So that we must seek the soul of the sacrifices under the altar, where the blood had been poured.
When Abel died, his blood cried from the ground, whence it had been poured. But when the martyrs die for the sake of their testimony to the one great Sacrifice, their blood is, as it were, poured out under the altar, and their death ascends as a sweet savor to God.
Hence we read of those under the fifth seal (Revelation 6:9) who were slain for the word of God and for their testimony, that their souls were under the altar, where it was customary to pour the blood of the sacrifices. And the reason for the figure characterizing them as "souls" is very evident, for they cry for vengeance on those in the land who had shed their blood.
It was the sufferings unto death which they had endured for His sake which cried aloud for vengeance. We do not imagine that Abel's blood, which had been swallowed by the ground, actually became endowed with the organs of speech and made an articulate audible appeal to Yahweh.
Neither do we need to imagine that the souls of the martyred saints received a miraculous embodiment for the purpose of crying aloud for vengeance on their adversaries. To say the least, it would take a large altar to cover them all, or else very small souls to be cramped in such numbers in so small a space. Such a dismal bloody pit would hardly be a fit recompense for their previous tribulation.
The context gives us the needed clue to a clear distinction between soul and spirit: the soul senses the material, tangible, visible, physical sphere; the spirit moves in the realm of the etherial, the invisible, the metaphysical. The soul sees the letters upon the page, the spirit perceives the meaning which they convey.
Terms which primarily refer to soul have been transferred to spirit. We <taste food with the soul, and we taste God's goodness with the spirit. We feel the comforting warmth of the sunshine with the soul, and we feel the effects of his love in our spirits.
It is not that the soul is essentially bad and spirit essentially good. Many evil things, such as pride, are spiritual rather than soulish. Yet, as the delights of the senses are satisfied by the physical, so the spirit craves the metaphysical. The prevailing tendency is towards allowing the soul to rule, giving full scope to the gratification of the senses. THIS IS BECAUSE THE BODY IS A SOULISH BODY. It exaggerates the importance of its sensations. It does not respond to the spirit.
To capitulate, just as the human body is joined to the soil (for the man was formed of the soil before the spirit was imparted), and as spirit is the precursor of life (for man became a living soul only after the spirit was breathed into him), so the soul is the faculty of sensation.
And for human beings, sensation is impossible, except where there is a material body vivified by a spirit. Sensation does not depend upon a distinct entity or organism apart from either body or spirit, but rather upon their union.
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