The Soul of Man: Understanding Our Divine Essence - Body, Soul, and Spirit
The Soul of Man
We read in Genesis: “The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [nishmat chaim]; and man became a living being [in Hebrew a living soul—Nefesh Chaya]” (Genesis 2:7, NKJV).[i]
God created man in His image, male and female He created us.[ii] We are complex beings comprised of a body formed by the hand of God and made from the dust of the earth and a soul, a spirit that God breathed into us. While certain basic instincts and emotions chemically derive from our physical bodies, our God-breathed souls contain the more profound essence of who we are. For this reason, we are not like any other creature.
Judaism teaches that our soul is comprised of three parts: The breath of God (neshama), the wind of God (Ruach), and the soul itself (Nefesh).[iii] These function as one singular and indivisible unit. The word Nefesh comes from the root nafash, which means rest. The Lord has promised us eternal rest in Christ, an imperishable body and soul that will rest forever in His spirit. Yeshua demonstrated this when He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46).
Some theologians refer to our created nature as a triune of the body, soul, and mind, even comparing us to God’s triune nature—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. On the other hand, the Bible tells us that we have a physical and spiritual nature. In other words, we have two parts: one is temporal, and the other is spiritual. Paul said, “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44). Yet, our physical and spiritual bodies are indivisible and function as one organism. They are incomplete and cannot operate to their fullness without each other.
The spirit of man is the exact image of who we are but lacks any physical attributes unless housed within a physical body. All the parts of man work together as one complex being. Our physical side comprises our brain, which processes our thoughts, memories, emotions, and feelings. Our spiritual nature contains our soul, giving us volition and consciousness and bringing life to our inner man.
Scientists cannot study this spiritual realm because they cannot tangibly connect with it. However, we know that we are more than just flesh and bones for us who believe, and this belief comes from God. Deep inside every person is a soul that thirsts for something beyond this temporal world. Our soul yearns for the supernatural; as it is written, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
We know this present body will eventually die and return to the earth. On the other hand, our soul, which came from God, has an eternal quality because God is eternal; He took part of Himself and placed it in each person through Adam. Therefore, our soul comes from God’s innermost essence in the same way breath comes from a person’s lungs. And because our soul was initially part of God, it has immeasurable value in Jewish thought.
Everything else in existence was created out of nothing, Ex Nihilo. Therefore, it has lesser value because of its created nature. But how can we measure the value of something that came from God? It is impossible. For this reason, Yeshua said, “Lay up for yourselves treasures [souls] in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 13:44). These treasures, I believe, are the souls of men and women that we have led to the Kingdom of God. Everything else in this world is temporal and perishable.
Paul tells us: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Galatians 5:17). Therefore, the flesh of man will die and return to the dust of the earth. With our perishable bodies, the Lord will bury His righteous judgments against our flesh forever for the sins we have committed in the flesh. He will also execute His final judgment against every unredeemed soul. Thus, Yeshua warned His disciples, saying, “Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). But in Christ, our soul is being redeemed and will be resurrected to a new imperishable and incorruptible body.
In scripture, the soul of man is called the “heart.”[iv] The heart of man is the seat of our emotional and intellectual life. Out of the heart flows our moral, spiritual, and physical being. The heart is also the seat of thought, emotion, feeling, volition, and consciousness. These attributes are called mahshebot libbo in Hebrew. Therefore, in Judaism, man’s mind, heart, and soul are considered one.[v]
Yeshua said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). So he instructed His disciples to love God with our whole created being—our body and soul—and He told us that everything within our created being (our thoughts, emotions, feelings, volition, and consciousness) was to love God first and primarily above anything else.
At the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, humanity separated from God. Through this separation, our bodies and souls became corrupt; as written, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
However, God made provision in Christ for the atonement and redemption of our fallen souls by shedding His blood. As is written, “The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). The blood nourishes and sustains the flesh, and without it, there is no physical life. That which feeds and sustains our soul is the Spirit of God. And without His Spirit, there is no life at all.
In Christ, God has given us a new heart and spirit and made us a new creation in Him.[vi] So, while we now have a new spirit connected to God that sets our hearts on the things of His Kingdom, the brain and mind that process the deeper aspects of man’s soul must still be renewed daily.[vii] Why?
Because our brains are wired to remember the old rebellious nature, and this memory, coupled with the lusts of the flesh, continually taunts us to return to our old sinful ways. Therefore, the apostle Paul acknowledged this battle raging in our minds.[viii]
Our Brain
The human brain is the most remarkable organism in existence. Without the brain, we are unable to think and reason. But even more importantly, we cannot feel and express the deepest emotions of the human heart.
Therefore, the brain acts as the portal that connects our physical and spiritual natures, processing and feeding the heart with the things we experience in the natural. It expresses in the physical realm that we feel deep inside our soul from the spiritual realm.
Think of our brain as a complex computer, but remember, we are far more than machines. We are sentient beings, acting with free will at our discretion. And our brains can learn, adapt, store, program, and be reprogrammed. Thus, our brains are not artificial intelligence. Instead, they are the pinnacle expression of God’s unbound intelligence within His creation that He has deposited into mankind.
When our spirit responds to something physical, the brain chemically produces our reactions and feelings. Conversely, when our body reacts to something spiritual, these reactions and emotions are again processed in the brain so we can also experience it.
If we set our hearts on hateful things, our brains will likely process hostile feelings. If we put our hearts on loving things, our brains will likely respond with warm feelings. When the Spirit of God touches man’s heart, the involuntary response will affect our spiritual soul and physical being. The result is feelings, emotions, and even physical stimulation, such as tears or goosebumps. God is spirit, and yet He is real and physically present in our lives.
External experiences can also influence or trigger inner emotions. For example, if someone treats us with hate, we will likely respond with hateful or fearful emotions. However, our brains can reason with our feelings and emotions and even suppress and override them. Therefore, the resulting actions might be contrary to what we are experiencing.
For example, we might feel anger towards someone because they mistreated us, yet the Holy Spirit can stimulate receptors in our brain that remind us to love even our enemies. So, it is written, “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:26).
At that moment, we might not feel any loving feelings towards this person, but we can surrender to God and rationalize the proper biblical response. As the Lord said to Israel: “Come now, and let us reason together, Says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18).
The Fall of Man
We read, “And God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Genesis 2:8). Here in the Garden of Eden, man walked in intimacy and fellowship with God, and we were spiritually connected to Him as one.
Mankind had not sinned yet, and there was no death. There was no separation between God and man, and we were His children. Adam was called “the son of God.”[ix] Soon after, a struggle began in our minds. This conflict initiated a battle between God’s will and man’s.
Later, we read about this cosmic struggle in the Book of Genesis. We read, “And Jacob was left alone. And a Man wrestled with him until the ascending of the dawn. And He saw that He had not prevailed against him. And He touched on his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip socket was unhinged as he wrestled with Him” (Genesis 32:24-25). “And Jacob called the name of the place Face of El because I saw God face to face, and my life is delivered. And the sun rose on him as he passed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh” (Genesis 32:30-31).
In this story, God’s spirit is wrestling with man’s soul, but God chooses to relent and submit to man’s will. However, this would only be for a season when mankind would rule and have dominion apart from God’s Kingship.
In wrestling with God, humanity has never walked fully upright in God’s glory.[x] Jacob limped on his thigh, and the children of Israel faltered this day. For more than six thousand years, God has allowed man to choose his way, resulting in a world filled with death and destruction.
However, one day soon, at the coming of the dawn, the return of Christ, a new day will begin. The Son of God will rise in His glory, and every knee shall bend, and every tongue confesses that He is Lord.[xi] Yeshua will rule all the nations.[xii]
Although told explicitly of Israel, the battle we read about between God and Jacob represents all humanity. This expression of man’s free will was not only Adam’s first sin but has remained the greatest sin of all creation. Adam’s sin was not just willful disobedience to be independent of God but was an expression of his free will to be just like God.[xiii]
Therefore, the fall of man was more than just a singular act of disobedience resulting in God’s stern punishment against humanity—Adam’s desire to be like God created a chasm between man and God Himself.
God is one, and there can be no other gods besides Him.[xiv] Anything else would divide God’s singularity and unity of existence, and He will never allow this division. Nothing can exist without Him, and everything that exists does so because of Him. God will not copy or replicate himself because He is One. As the Lord declared, “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8).
There is nothing within God that is divided. Even the entire creation is unified with Him and would not continue to exist without Him.[xv] He created the world out of nothing, and the world would cease to exist if He removed Himself for even one moment because something made from nothing cannot continue to exist unless the One who created it wills it to live.
We have become orphaned children in our desire to be independent and separate from God. Humanity, equipped with the knowledge of good and evil, has gone opposite to God’s desire in every sense. As it is written, “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). And Paul said, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
God did not create mankind to be sinful. However, apart from God, we focus entirely on our selfish and lustful desires; we become nothing but corrupt or, worse, evil. Because the greatest sin is idolatry, and the highest form of idolatry is the worship of oneself. This sin is revealed as pride and arrogance as it says, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Samuel 15:23).
Pride directs our steps and motivates our actions, all contrary to God’s will. Our sinful nature perverts everything that God created and established as good. For example, God created marriage as a loving union between one man and one woman, and man destroys marriage through sexual immorality. And so, it is with every aspect of this fallen world.
God has turned mankind over to his selfish desires to be in limited control for a short lifespan and not live in an eternal body. Therefore, the Lord declared, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Genesis 3:22).
Because God foreknew the consequences of man’s decisions, that apart from God, we would see our demise and ultimately cease to exist. As written, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam” (Romans 5:14).
While we view death as a curse (and it is), God has turned death into a blessing for us who are in Christ. Therefore, it is written, “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). “[For] we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Our physical death now permanently frees us from the bondage of our sinful nature that dwells within our mortal bodies. Our soul has returned to its source, Yeshua, who breathed His Spirit into our bodies.[xvi] And now God is breathing into us again; as it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45).[xvii]
The Temporary Covering of Sin
When the Lord created the nation of Israel, He established a governing system of laws that defined God’s moral standard of conduct for humanity. He set up a temporary covering for involuntary sin. Regrettably, God’s Mosaic Law left uncertainty about the permanent removal of sin and did nothing to alter our sinful nature.
The Law did provide the Jewish people with a yearly cycle of repentance and cleansing. Still, it left an unfulfilled expectation intended to direct us toward our need for a Savior, a Messiah who would permanently deliver us from this vicious and endless cycle of sin and death.
The Law of Moses was intended to bring us to a place where we would continually ask this question: How can water purification rituals or sacrificing an animal, even our flesh, purify and redeem the deeper parts of our heart and soul? Unfortunately, the answer to this question remains a mystery.
The Lord provided three sacrifices in the Temple as a temporary covering for sin. The scapegoat symbolically removed the personal guilt of the Israelites. The red heifer symbolically took away the defilement of death that separated man from God, and the living bird offering dipped in water and blood for purification from leprosy symbolically removed the death that came from personal sinfulness.
Once again, the Old Testament dispensation had no provision within its sanctuary for complete spiritual purification. Nevertheless, and although not completely understood, these three temporary sacrificial offerings provided hope for the coming salvation of our Messiah.
The complete removal of our sin and spiritual redemption, the removal of personal guilt, and the rescue from the subsequent spiritual death were all beyond the reach of the Temple. These rituals pointed directly to our need for a Savior. Every death, every case of leprosy, and every Day of Atonement was a call for the Messiah’s appearance.
Under the Old Covenant, sin was not permanently blotted out or removed but was only temporarily put away from the people until Yeshua would ultimately come. Those acting righteously in following the Law were not earning their salvation. On the contrary, they were submitting their will to God and receiving the outward, but not the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It is so that He might guard their souls against the shadow of death. As it is written, “For You have delivered my soul from death, My eyes from tears, and my feet from falling” (Psalm 116:8).
If we understand that God only required these temporary offerings and sacrifices for their foreshadowing of the coming of Yeshua, then we see that even the covering of sin could affect only the outer layers of the soul.
The priests were given limited authority to offer animal sacrifices that covered sins not attached to the soul, only those connected to the flesh and the soul’s outer expressions, which are part of our thoughts, speech, and outward actions.[xviii] As it is written, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3).
We are warned against sin throughout scripture because sin hardens our hearts and separates us from God. The more we sin, the more distance we place between God and us. This increasing distance is called the descent of man. King David understood this by saying: “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7).
However, despite our sins, God reaches out to us and then waits for us to respond; as it is written, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And it is our soul, our spirit man, that responds to the Spirit of God. As Yeshua said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).
A Living Sacrifice
Foreknowing man’s fate, God created and foreshadowed a path for our redemption. He spoke prophetically to Adam, saying: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; For dust you are, and to dust you shall return… Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:19-21). And Paul said, “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1).
Therefore, we know from these scriptures that our flesh is destined to return to the earth from where it came and that our short existence in these bodies is comparable to someone living in a tent, a temporary dwelling made of animal skin.
Knowing that the punishment for sin was death, God placed man’s sinful nature in his flesh. He allowed a foreshadowed covering for the sins through the shedding of animal blood, thereby sacrificing our physical bodies to free our spirit man and the most in-depth and most valuable things of the heart, our souls, to be redeemed through the blood of Yeshua. As Paul said, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not” (Romans 7:18).
Like Yeshua, our flesh has also become a living sacrifice. Yeshua told His disciples that He was glorified in His suffering—His death on the cross.[xix] Yeshua did not receive His glory through His powerful teachings, wisdom, parables, prayers, miracles, or even His miraculous healings. No, even before heaven and earth were created, He was glorified in His suffering. Thus, it is written, “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).[xx]
Yeshua told His disciples that He would share His glory with us, and He then said we would be persecuted for His name’s sake and exalted in heaven for our suffering. [xxi] People often pray, “Lord, Send us your glory from heaven.” But the Lord said to me one day, “Eric, turn to your brother, and you will see my glory in His suffering.” Like Yeshua, we also will be glorified in our suffering. Our flesh will become a living sacrifice unto the Lord as we surrender and give everything to follow Him. As written, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).
We know that our fleshly bodies will not be redeemed, and with its death, forever will die the sins of our flesh. God temporarily allowed animal sacrifice to cover Israel’s sins but has always guarded our souls. Because the soul of man is not a creation, it is part of the essence of God.
So, it appears that the death of the flesh covers the sins of the flesh, but the crucifixion of Christ reaches much deeper into our souls, for only His blood not only ransoms but ultimately redeems humanity from the sins of the heart. So, praise the Lord for His redemption of our souls and eternal salvation in Christ, Yeshua.
[i] All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Bible (NKJV) unless otherwise noted, Thomas Nelson Inc., 1982.
[ii] Genesis 1:27.
[iii] Rabbi Kaplan, Aryeh. The Soul—Understanding the source of our soul and its eternal essence. The Handbook of Jewish Thought, Vol. 2, Maznaim Publishing.
[iv] Genesis 34:3.
[v] Kaufmann Kohler, Tobias Schanfarber, Executive Committee of the Editorial Board., Adolf Guttmacher. Heart (Hebrew Leb or Lebab). Jewish Encyclopedia.
[vi] Ezekiel 11:19. 2 Corinthians 5:17.
[vii] 2 Corinthians 4:16.
[viii] Romans 7:23.
[ix] Luke 3:38.
[x] Yeshua is the Hebrew name for Jesus and means Salvation. Jesus is the English form of the Greek spelling Iesous. Early forms of the Hebrew name Yeshua are also Yehoshua, meaning GOD is Salvation and pronounced Joshua in the English language.
[xi] Romans 14:11.
[xii] Revelation 2:27, 12:5, 19:15.
[xiii] Genesis 3:5, 3:22.
[xiv] Genesis 20:3.
[xv] Hebrews 1:3.
[xvi] John 1:3-4.
[xvii] John 3:5-8.
[xviii] Lesson in the Tanya—Iggeret HaKodesh, middle of Epistle 25. The Tanya of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, elucidated by Rabbi Yosef Wineberg. Translated from Yiddish by Rabbi Levy Wineberg and Rabbi Sholom B. Wineberg. Edited by Uri Kaploun. Published and copyrighted by Kehot Publication Society. Chabad.org.
[xix] John 12:27-28.
[xx] John 1:29.
[xxi] John 17:22, 1 Titus 1:12.