We have looked at the creation, the fact that human beings are in the image of God. Today we are going to look at the immaterial nature of humans. We have already talked about the body and that God created us with bodies. We are physical beings. I encourage you to do a study sometime on the body in Scripture. The body is talked about a lot, especially in the New Testament, and how important it is that we honor the Lord with our body, and our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. So, the physical nature, material nature, of human beings is very important. There is also what we might call the immaterial aspect of human beings. That is, the part that you cannot see which is interior. What is that all about? Let’s talk about that for just a moment.
What is going on inside? In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, it says this, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here it seems to indicate that there are three divisions of a human being: the spirit, the soul, and the body. Some divide up the human being into those three categories. We have a physical body, which is obvious, but interiorly, our immaterial nature, is made up of two components: spirt and body. Others say no, that is not necessarily the case. They say we have an immaterial nature and within that immaterial nature are several components identified in the Bible. Spirit and soul are both identified in the Bible, but is there something else? Are we just body, soul, and spirit or is there more to it than that? I think there is more to it than that. We see the spirit here, but how is that different biblically from the soul, if at all? It is part of the immaterial nature but is there a real difference? It is very hard to find a consistency of that in Scripture.
I want to go back to the Scriptures to show that there is more to the immaterial man. I want to look at Matthew 15:19 that speaks about what is going on in the body as well as the mind and soul. It says, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” Jesus is warning there about the heart. That at the very core of our being, as far as our immaterial nature is concerned, He calls it the heart. We saw in the writings of Paul, the soul, and the spirit and now we have the heart. What is the difference between the heart, soul, and spirit or is there any difference at all or is there overlap?
Let’s look at Matthew 22:37, which says, “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 what we often call the “great commandment.” We have in the immaterial nature of humanity: the heart – this core of our being, the soul – the inner nature of our being, and now it brings up the mind. You cannot see the mind. You can see the brain if you do the right kind of medical imaging, but you cannot see the mind. It is different than the brain, yet the Lord speaks of loving Him with all those things as well . . .
