The Composition of Man (3)

It's good to study the Word, isn't it? Good to open our Bibles and be able to study what the Word of God says about many things. And particularly we're looking at what the Bible says about us, about mankind and our condition in sin. And we've been looking at what the Bible teaches about mankind, and particularly the last three, nice couple of times, we've been looking at the composition of man. And what we're talking about there is how we're made up, what we're made of, what composes a person. And we looked at a few views that often are presented as to how we are made up. And one of those was tricotomy. We looked at that a couple of weeks ago that we're made of three parts, body, soul and spirit. We looked at the dichotomous view which basically says a human being is made of two parts, the material body part and everything else, the immaterial, the unseen part inside us. And that unseen part expresses itself in a lot of different functions. And it is those different functions that are described by the words like soul and spirit and mind and heart and conscience and all of those different words. We're going to look at some of them tonight. We also looked last time a view called essential unity. And that really is kind of a follow up and amplification of the dichotomous view which I think is the more biblical way to look at how we're made up. And that is that God made us to be body and soul, material and material part together. We are a unity of material and immaterial parts. We are designed that way. We are not designed to be without a body. And so we talked about whether or not in heaven we will have a body, certainly we will have a resurrection body in the eternal state. And there is at least some evidence that even before our bodies are raised from the grave and we are given a resurrection glorified body that if we were to die in our soul we're going to heaven now that we would have some kind of intermediate body, some kind of physical presence. So that's where we left off last time. We're going to tie together a few loose ends tonight on the whole composition of man thing and then next week we'll get into where does the soul come from? How do we get our soul? Is it created at conception? Is it passed down through our parents? How do we get our soul? And that has great implications for what we believe about human life and the dignity of human life and conception and so forth. So we'll get into that next time. But we're going to look at a few of those biblical words tonight for man's composition. We're going to take a few of the words that we've kind of talked about before soul, spirit, mind and conscience and some of those words. And we're going to look at them a little more closely tonight. Look at the actual biblical words for them and how they're used and what they mean to get a little better feel for what the Bible teaches about what is going on in us and how we're made up. So we're going to begin with the soul. And what I would like to do is give you the Hebrew word and the Greek word for each of these English words that we're going to look at tonight. Now the Hebrew is the Old Testament word. The Old Testament was written in the Hebrew language. The New Testament was written in the Greek language. And so if you study those words and what they mean, it can really give you insight into what the Bible is talking about by those words. And when we see the word soul, then we understand better what the Bible means by that English word. The Hebrew word for soul is nefesh. It's printed out for you on your outlines on the screen. The Greek word is Pseucay. And you can tell with many of these Greek words, we get English words from them. Pseucay, we get psychology from. And all of the derivatives of that psychosis, psychotic, all of those because psychology means the study of comes from the Greek word Lagos, by the way the word or study of something, the study of the soul. So the Greek word is Pseucay. And those words have specific meanings but wide and varied meanings. Let me just take a moment to give you the meanings of those words. The Hebrew word nefesh has a wide range of meanings. It can refer to the whole person. It can refer to the unity of body and will and just the life inside us. It emphasizes in the Old Testament personal desire or inclination. And so that term is used in all of those ways has a very broad meaning. And the Greek word Pseucay is the same way. It has several different meanings. I want to show you some of the verses and how it's used in the New Testament with a wide range of meanings. The Greek word for soul or the word Pseucay can simply mean someone's life. A life. For instance, look at this verse on the screen, Acts 27, verse 22. And I'm going to give some of these in the King James because they will have a tendency to translate the word soul even when it means has a little different shade of meaning. They'll still translate it that way. But not in this verse actually. Paul is on his voyage to Rome and they're about ready to have a shipwreck. And he says, now I exhort you to be a good cheer for there. She'll be no loss of any man's life. You see the word life there among you but of the ship. The word life is Pseucay. It's the word for soul. And so when Paul is saying nobody is going to lose their Pseucay, is he saying nobody's going to lose their soul? You might die, but your soul will still be here on the ship. Obviously not. You're not going to lose your life. And so sometimes that word is used in general terms of a person's life. Look at this verse, Acts 323. And it shall come to pass that every soul, here's an instance where the King James does use the word soul. Every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. In one of the sermons of Peter, he's quoting from the Old Testament and he says, every soul that does not hear the prophet. And again, that's just used of the person. Obviously, he's not trying to say it is the soul's function to hear and not the ear or not the heart or not the spirit. The soul here is a very general term just used for the person. Every person, in fact the NIV translates this, anyone, anyone who does not hear that prophet shall be destroyed. And that's really the meaning of the word here. The word psuke can also be used of feelings. Look at this verse in Acts chapter 14, verse 2. But the Jews who refuse to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against their brothers. Now the whole idea of poisoning their minds, this is the word psuke. And here it's translated mind. It is the word for soul. If you were to translate it literally, it would be soul. But here obviously it is their feelings have been aroused against Paul and those who were with him to oppose them on their missionary journey. So to stir up their minds, poison their minds is to change their thinking to the point that they get all worked up, emotional and ready to stone these men to death. So that's the idea here. So again, Lord soul translated in the NIV minds here, but really has the idea of the way you look at something, the feeling of being aroused. So again the word is used several different ways. It's interesting that Paul never uses the word psuke of the part of a person that leaves it death. Paul prefers to use the word spirit for that. So basically the word soul refers to the natural life and sometimes just refer to the person, the inward feelings, the mind. Again it's a very broad term. I just wanted to point that out to you again that when the Bible uses these words, it's not always trying to make a specific distinction like the soul is distinct from the spirit and they never have any overlap. Sometimes they mean much the same thing. We'll see that with the word spirit. But before we move on, any question about the soul and any of those verses we looked at? Okay, let's go ahead and talk about the spirit because we've talked about the soul and the spirit, Simon. I want to get through these fairly quickly because I think of more interest to us will be what the Bible teaches particularly about the conscience and the flesh. Those words of our particular interest to us. Spirit. The Hebrew word is ruaq and the Greek word is numa. And again you can see the influence of Greek on the English language, numa. The basic meaning is wind or breath. And so you can see we get a lot of English words from that, pneumonia, pneumatic drill, anything that is air related, wind, breath related. That comes from the Greek word for spirit. And the idea is it can be translated breath, feelings, will, spirit. So it's used in a lot of different ways. I want to show you some verses and show you the different ways the word spirit is used. Sometimes it's used of perceiving something. For instance, Jesus in Mark chapter 2 and verse 8, immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts and said to them, why are you thinking these things? So Jesus knew in his spirit. In other words, he perceived, he knew what the Pharisees were thinking. This is the occasion where they had brought a man to the synagogue for him to heal on the Sabbath knowing they could trap him. They felt into doing that and he knew they were just trying to trap him and he knew any spirit what they were doing. So his insight, his perception is a function of his spirit. All right, it's interesting. You would think it would be his mind, but the Bible attributes that insight, that perception to his spirit. Then secondly, the spirit is that which leaves the body at death. At least that's the typical word used in the New Testament for what leaves the body at death. For instance, Luke 8.55, this is the healing of gyrosist daughter. Remember she had died and Jesus goes in and raises her from the dead and this is how it's described. Her spirit returned and at once she stood up. So if her spirit returned, that means her spirit had left. When she was dead, her spirit was gone. But now he raises her back to life and the way that's described is not that she started breathing again or she opened her eyes. It's her spirit returned. So the spirit is that part of us which the New Testament particularly sees as leaving when we die. Now again, to show you the overlap in these terms, a lot of times when the Bible speaks of people who are in heaven, it speaks of them as souls. And so again, these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The third way that the term spirit is used is of the mind or the inner person, the psychological functions of our mind and inner being. So here there's a great overlap with the word for soul, suke, which means the mind and the function of the inner being in that way, psychological function. A couple of verses to show you that. 1 Corinthians 734. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs. Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. Just the two functions of mankind, body, material part and immaterial part. But here he's talking obviously about a devotion of a single woman who doesn't have a mate or a family to be concerned about. And so she and another verses he talks about a man the same way, can devote herself completely to the Lord. Body and in spirit. And so the spirit is used here just of a person's inner feelings, inner the working of the heart, the mind, kind of everything lumped together here in this one word spirit. Inwardly and physically she would be able to devote herself more fully to the Lord. Another verse, 2 Corinthians 2 13. Paul says, and again, I use the King James here because it translates the word literally spirit. I had no rest in my spirit because I found not tightest my brother but taking my leave of them. I went from that into Macedonia. Again, this is the mind. The inner person, Paul had no rest in his spirit. The in-i-v translates this that Paul had no peace of mind. And that's the idea. There are no rest in your spirit. It means the expression we would use for that today is no peace of mind. He was troubled in his mind because tightest was not there. So sometimes the word spirit is used of the psychological functions of the mind, the feelings, the impressions and so forth. So again, my goal here has been to show you that soul and spirit are two functions of the immaterial part of us but they have different range of meanings and sometimes they overlap and can mean really the same thing or something very similar. If there is a distinction, and I said this before, but let me repeat it, if there is a distinction between the two, then the soul refers to the consciousness that we have of ourselves in this world, in this material world, that I am talking, I am seeing you. It is my soul which I'm talking about. I is the person inside this body. So the soul is my consciousness of my relationship to my surroundings, myself and you and my surroundings. Whereas the spirit seems to have more the consciousness of our relationship with God or that which is spiritual. Something that is within us that makes us realize there is more than just what there is here in this life. There is more to us than what we experience in this world and that what Solomon calls in ecclesiastes, eternity in their hearts. That sense that there is something beyond us which only finds its rest obviously in a personal relationship with God through Christ and that is when our spirit finds its rest in a relationship with God. So if there isn't a distinction, the soul has to do with more of the consciousness of what is around us, ourselves living in this world and the spirit, the relationship of something beyond us which ultimately finds its peace in God. Okay, questions about soul and spirit, those two functions of the immaterial part of man. Okay, let's talk about the mind. What the Bible talks about, by the way of mind, interestingly enough, the Old Testament, Hebrew language has no word specifically referring to the mind as we know it. There is a word that is used to describe the functions that we attribute to the mind in the Old Testament. It's the word, L-E-B, it looks like a lab, but it's L-E-B and the idea, it's a very broad word. It is actually the word for heart. So remember Proverbs 23-7 as a man thinketh in his heart. In the Old Testament, the heart is seen as the broadest word for the inward working of man, including his mind. It's not just the emotions, it also has to do with his mind. So that's the Hebrew word which expresses the function of the mind among other things. The Greek word is noose, noose, and not a noose like a rope, but a noose like the mind. Now here's how that word is used in the New Testament. Again, a wide range of meanings, but all of which we would associate with the mind, or the ability of the mind to function. Because the word soul is used of the mind in the sense of the outlook on life or the disposition that you have. For instance, Romans 1, 28. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, this is talking about culture's rejection of God and his values, so God gave them over. Here it is, to a depraved mind so that they do what ought not to be done. The depraved mind here is much more than just the thought processes. It is a way of looking at life. It is a way of living life. It is how you view your values in life. That is an expression of the word mind, the Greek word noose. And in the same way, Ephesians 4.17 says much the same thing. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. He goes on in the next couple of verses to talk about how they were darkened. Their heart was darkened. Their mind was darkened. So it is talking about your outlook on life, your philosophy of life, your value system. That is a function of the mind in the New Testament. Sometimes the word noose or mind is used of the practical reasoning ability that determines what you will do. For instance, Romans 7.23, look at this verse. But I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my noose, my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. If you would have read the verse before this one, it says, in my inner man, I delight in the law of God. I see another law at work in me waging war against the law of my mind. This concept of the law of the mind refers back to the previous verse, which is talking about the inner man, delighting to do the will of God. So here, the mind refers to the ability to think through things in a way that you make a choice, and you delight to do what God's word says. It is that thinking capacity which leads you to a choice. Another way the word is used is just of insight or understanding. For instance, these two verses, Luke 24, 45. Jesus is on the road to a mess. Actually, he's in their home by now with the two disciples on the day of the resurrection remember, and he talked to them about the Old Testament prophecies. Then he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures. Here the mind clearly has the concept we most think of with the mind, the insight and ability to think, the ability to reason through something and to have insight and understanding of it. Same thing is true in Revelation 13, 18. This calls for wisdom, let the person who has insight, Greek word, noose, calculate the number of the beast for it is the number of the man that number is 666. So here again, we're talking about insight, the ability to understand something. All of those functions of the mind are in this one Greek word, and there's also another one, Romans 14.5. One person considers one day more sacred than another, another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. This is in your own thinking, your own judgment, your own personal conviction, and that's what Romans 14 is talking about. Issues of personal conviction in matters of Christian liberty, where the Bible is not going to say this is wrong, it is sin, or this is right, it's holy, the Bible is going to say this is an issue you make up your own mind about, and you make up your own mind according to your own personal convictions, so be convinced in your own mind. So that has to do with not just the thinking, but making a judgment, having a conviction about something. So the word mind really covers a lot of territory, doesn't it? A lot of the different functions that we think of of our disposition, our outlook, our reasoning ability, our determining what we will do, our insight and understanding, making a conviction and judgment about something or resolving to all of that's a function of the mind. So in biblical terms, all of those functions are under that word mind. Our mind does all of those things. Okay, comments or questions about the amazing mind that God has given us. It's obvious here really, we're not just talking about gray matter, right? We're not talking about the physical organ of the brain, although that's where our thought processes come from, but when the Bible talks about mind, it's not talking about the brain necessarily, it's talking about what the brain does, making judgments, making choices, forming convictions, understanding something, having insight into something, it's talking about really what the brain does, not just the physical organ. Okay, any questions there? All right, let's look at one that I think is one of the most interesting aspects of our inner being and that is the conscience. The Hebrew word again is the word lave, which is the word for heart. It also includes the mind and includes the function of the conscience as well. Hebrew does not have a separate word for conscience. Greek, which is a much more precise language, does have a different word and is the word soon a basis. Soon a basis is the word for conscience. And here's, I think the best verse that describes what the conscience does. Let's look at it for a couple of minutes. Romans 2.15. This is talking about unsaved Gentiles, but they're good moral people. Okay, they're not wild sinners like Romans 1 has described in their outward behavior. These are moral law-biting people. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts. Their consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. Now notice there are three different functions of the inner person described in this verse and they all work together. This is really fascinating. This is biblical psychology, by the way. You see the word heart, which is the most general word for the inner person who we really are on the inside. And then you see the word conscience and then you see the word thoughts. Now the Bible says that deep in our inner person there is something of the law of God which is written deep down inside of us. In other words, God's requirements, something about God's nature, God's power, who he is, what he would expect of creatures is ingrained in us. And the way we see that biblically is that's part of the image of God. Remember talking about that? We're made in his image with the capacity to have a relationship with him and that's really what that's talking about. The requirements of the law written on their hearts. Now along with that, along with that expression of the image of God in us, our consciences bear witness to that. Now the conscience is that in us which allows, it stands alongside the heart and passes judgment on what the heart is telling us. In other words, it can distinguish right from wrong. So the conscience is that part that God has built into us that is able to say, remember he's talking about unsaved people here, that is able to say because of what God has written on our hearts, bearing his image, you know, that's right and that's wrong. And an unsaved person can see that something's right and something's wrong. And the reason they can now track with me because we're going to get to why that's all, that all gets messed up. There's a reason why it all gets messed up. But God has built within us the apparatus to reflect his image in the sense that we know what's right and we know what's wrong or at least we have the capacity of that. And that's what the conscience does. Now in addition to that, the thoughts kick in, you see where the thoughts kick in here, and their thoughts accusing or defending, okay? Here's the way the thoughts work. The image of God in our hearts reflects something of his character, nature, his requirements of his law are written on our hearts and the conscience says, yeah, that's right. And so the thoughts come into it then and accuse us of violating what we know to be right or defend us sometimes rationalize and make excuses for us violating what we know to be right. That's biblical psychology. That's the way God's made the inner person to work. We reflect his image in our hearts, our conscience says, yeah, that's right or that's wrong. And then our thoughts kick in and either accuse us, you know John, that's not the right way to say the thing. You know that's not the right thing to do. Or my thoughts will defend me. Well, you know, you didn't get much sleep last night or, you know, your dad was like that or your mom was like that, you know, your thoughts defend you. So that's how we work on the inside and that's the part the conscience has, the conscience is the ability to determine based on what God's put in our hearts, what's right and wrong, and then our thoughts kick in and start either accusing us or defending us. Now here's the problem. So let me summarize first before we get to the problem. In essence, the conscience is the court of appeal that is ready to render moral judgments. The conscience is the part of us that says this is right, this is wrong. And it is kind of like that little voice in us telling us right or wrong. Now the problem with the conscience is it's been affected like all the rest of us by the fall. By Adam's sin and what we've had passed down to us through our sin nature so that the Bible speaks of the conscience as having potentially three problems. Number one is it can be defiled. It can be defiled. And by the file, I mean it can be all mucked up with dirt and sin based on the information that has given has been given to the conscience. The conscience only responds to the information that is fed it. That's given to it. The conscience is molded and shaped to no right from wrong based on what information you've got. If the information you have is the requirements of the law, then your conscience works effectively. It works right. Even unsaid people who still have the image of God in them and can know from what God's word says, at least to some degree what is right or wrong, their conscience can work well. The problem is the degree to which sin has affected the conscience defiles it. I want you to look at these three verses where the Bible speaks of salvation as being cleansed from a defiled or dirty sinful conscience. This one, first of all in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 9, verse 14, how much more then will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God. He's describing what happens to us in salvation when the blood of Christ is applied to our hearts. One of the things it does is it cleanses our consciences. It wipes away the dirt and the sin all the muck because now we have the life of Christ in us. We have the Holy Spirit now feeding us the right information to reshape and remote our consciences. So that all happens because of salvation. Notice he also says this in chapter 10 and verse 22, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Again, he's talking about the cleansing that comes from being right with God. One of the expressions of that is our hearts are sprinkled, that's cleansing of the heart. But another part is we're cleansed from a guilty conscience. The conscience that accuses us because we know we're not right with God. Another verse, Titus 115, the speaks of a defiled conscience. Not to the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. Now here Paul is speaking to Titus of people, and he's given some illustrations of people in the out of the crepe where Titus is, who are unbelievers, it's clear here, they do not believe, they are corrupted. So what that means is their lifestyle has been reduced to one of utter sin and ungodliness because they believe the wrong information. You see, they've been fed the wrong information, they believe the wrong things, they've done what's happening in our culture and that is they call what's good, bad, and they call what's evil in God's sight, good. That's exactly what Isaiah said, and Isaiah 520 was true of the nation of Judah, and it's also true of our nation today. People's minds have become corrupted by getting wrong information, and they believe it. And because of that, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. You see, if your mind has the wrong information, your conscience can't make the right value judgments. If your mind is telling you what's evil is really good, then your conscience will tend to agree with that. Your conscience is dependent on the information it's fed. If it gets bad information, it will make bad value judgments, and that's what a defiled conscience or corrupted conscience is. So the conscience can be corrupted. Secondly, the conscience can be weakened. It can be weakened. And this is true even of believers. Now, we've been talking up to this point about defiled conscience in the sense of the unsaved person because of sin and being fed wrong information, believing wrong things. Their conscience is just totally mucked up and corrupted with sin. But you know, even a believer can have a weakened conscience. All talks about that in another passage that deals with Christian liberty and making decisions about what's right or wrong in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 10. He says, if someone with a weak conscience sees you with all your knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Now, this is a very involved passage. It needs a lot of explanation. We don't have time to give, but it has to do with an area of Christian liberty. If you are a strong brother who understands the issue of Christian liberty, you would not have a problem going to this idol's temple to eat a meal there because those in many cases served as restaurants of the day. You would not have a problem with doing that because you're not worshiping anything there. You're not affected by it at all, but a person whose conscience has been weakened, whose conscience has not yet been fed the right information of the Word of God, does not yet fully understand the issues of Christian liberty. They would be tempted to sin against their conscience, emboldened to do something that their conscience says to them is wrong. Their conscience may not be correct because they don't have the right information yet about Christian liberty. But if, then this is Paul's argument, if you cause them to violate their conscience, you're causing them to further weaken their conscience. That's why he appeals to making sure in areas of Christian liberty we don't cause a weaker brother to stumble. The way a weaker brother stumbles is one who's not been well taught yet, does not understand issues of Christian liberty, will be encouraged to do something that their conscience is telling them is wrong, even though their conscience may not be correct. But if they violate their conscience, then they'll violate their conscience in other areas, even where their conscience is correct. So you're leading them to weaken their conscience and that's not a good thing. So the conscience can be defiled and it is defiled through sin. It can be weakened by going against what you believe in your heart is wrong. You can weaken your conscience. But then there's something else that can happen to the conscience and that is it can be seared. If we can go back to the first 10th of the four passage, I think I got them out of the water. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. Now here's a conscience, it's a very graphic imagery. You know when you have real bad nose bleed and sometimes the only thing you'll stop it is to cauterize the blood vessel up there and the way they do that is, well I don't know exactly how they do it, I just know that they cauterize it with an instrument that is in a sense putting hot fire to it and causes it to stop bleeding. It closes it up, it dedens it. Okay? That's exactly what can happen to the conscience. If the conscience is continually violated, if the conscience is fed wrong information and what the conscience is saying to you is constantly rejected, then every time you reject that voice of the conscience in you, you're deadening it a little bit more, searing it. And Paul's talking about false teachers here who have believed the wrong things for so long and lived impure lives for so long that their conscience is no longer bothered them about it. You know we know people today who seem to live in scent, believers who seem to live in scent and have no conscience about it at all. And what's happened in many of those cases at least, some cases they may not be genuinely safe but in some cases they may have seared their conscience, the words deadened and they don't hear the voice of the Spirit of God using the conscience to convict them anymore. So the conscience is a very, very important part of how God's made us on the inside. And it works with our heart, our mind, our thoughts, and all works together. God's designed us that way. The Holy Spirit uses all of that part of us in convicting us, in preventing us from sin. So it's important that we don't feed our minds and our hearts and our conscience as the wrong information so that we don't get it all twisted and mucked up. So it's not working like God intended it to. You know that's the whole point and that's a very critical thing about the conscience. Wow, that clock really sped up. It's already a minute or two after eight. Any questions real quick about the conscience? We're going to have to stop here. Uh-huh, okay. The more he lied, the easier it was to swallow. Yeah. That's a good illustration of what we're talking about here. The more you violate the conscience, the less it will speak to you. Because it gets seared. And you can muck it up and defile it with sin. And so it doesn't function like God intended it to function. Okay. Next time we're going to talk about the heart, the flesh, and the body. And the flesh and the body are not necessarily the same thing by the way. They can be used in two different ways. So we'll talk about that. Let's pray.