Spirit and Soul

The Christian Bible tells us that Man was created in God’s image. Most Christians accept that

God is a “Triune”, or in other words, made up of three functions... the Father, the Son, and the Holy

Spirit, all in one. Man is a “triune” also, Body, Spirit, and Soul.

Before I address the Soul let me digress and answer the difficult question of how can God be

Three Persons in One, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? An illustration might go as follows;

I am married and I am a Husband. I have children, and I am their Father. To my parents I am a Son.

All three things are equally true yet different facets of my life, each is a different function and

relationship, yet all are true, three in one. I am truly a Father, a Son, and a Husband.

The Body is understood by all, it is our physical self. The body is where we live in this world. It

dies and we are told in Scripture that we, as Christians, will get a new Heavenly body in the hereafter.

The Spirit is less understood, but it is what we might call “life”, and it is who we are, what

makes the body a living being. When the Spirit leaves the body, we are dead. Spirits can sense one

another, which is why when we see someone and maybe have a warm feeling, or sometimes a

coldness that tells us not to trust, or get too close to that person. A Christian can most always meet a

person and sense if they are also a Christians, for example. The Spirit is who we are in this body.

The Soul - Now we have the difficult task of trying to figure out what is our “Soul”, and the

function of the Soul. We are told in Scripture that there is a war going on for possession of our Soul.

Souls are saved or lost. The Soul is the true “us” yet the Soul does not seem to be part of our

existence. Souls are what is, in simple terms, what goes to Heaven or Hell... to God or Satan.

I was inspired, after praying for understanding of the Soul. I was looking at a display of some

flowers in a store. There was a big bulb at the base of the plant that the stem and flower grew out of,

and it hit me. The bulb is not pretty and is mostly out of sight, yet it contains the entire essence of the

plant. One can take the bulb and plant it anywhere it can grow and the same flower will come forth.

That bulb could be called the soul of the plant. What grows out of the bulb is the plant body, what we

see above ground, What grows can only reflect what type of bulb it has. The plant cannot be anything

else, it is what the bulb is.

The plant that grows is the body. Destroy the plant body and it grows back anew. Destroy the

bulb and the plant is gone forever. The flower grows and produces beautiful flowers, it has a nice

smell, it interacts with the world, it gives pollen and interacts with the environment, bees and insects,

and people. The spirit is the life, beauty, and function, the plant itself is the body, the bulb is the soul.

The soul is the real you, the body is dictated by essence of the soul and is your physical form.

Your spirit is your ‘flower’ and how you interact with others, and the world... your actions. It all

grows out of your Soul. The Soul does not die when the body dies and the Spirit leaves. The Soul is

the real us.