Broadlands Bible Church
October 5, 2022
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Thesis: Man is a composite being made up of "body", "spirit", and "soul".
Introduction: In our study last week, we considered the fact that legitimate understanding is blocked when man's focus is upon himself rather than upon exercising compassion toward others under the direction of God. Thus, if we do not share Jesus' "compassion" we will not share His "perspective" of what is important. Therefore, it is indisputable that "a biblical perspective" can be absolutely frustrated when a person rejects God's perspective on "sheep who have no shepherd".
This evening we are going to turn back to our dominating illustration as given in the handout several weeks ago picturing Man as A "Creature" of "Eternity". The final claim on that illustration page is that the God Who has spoken has spoken to men in harmony with the way He created him. God addresses us according to our identity as creatures of eternity. This boils down to addressing us according to our root needs (as dependent creatures) so that we can experience "eternity" as those who "Live" (as opposed to those who experience eternity as those existing in Death).
- I. The Key Text And Follow Up Texts.
- A. The key text is Genesis 2:7.
- 1. It addresses man's physical composition "out of the dust of the ground".
- a. Though there is more water than dust, the water element is totally ignored.
- b. It is the "dust" that takes up the focus.
- 1) The issues of "dust", in Genesis, are four.
- a) The element of creation from which God made man (2:7 and 3:19).
- b) The magnitude of its presence as an element of creation (13:16 and 28:14).
- c) The degrading of the idea of "significant status" (as a part of the curse upon the deceitful serpent: 3:14; and as a descriptor of one of great insignificance: 18:27).
- d) The use of it to frustrate the creatures of the dust in their need for water: 26:15.
- 2) The pertinent characteristic is the magnitude of the frailty of man as "creature".
- 2. It addresses man's capacity to actively function.
- a. This capacity is attributed to "the breath of life" which God breathed into man's nostrils.
- b. This introduces man's capacities to function (live, move, have an active presence) in the creation.
- c. This is the root of man as a possessor of what I call "a stewardship of 'power'".
- 1) It is the ability to take action and pursue objectives of value.
- 2) It is a "stewardship" in that "all power" that is exercised in God's creation will ultimately be subjected to God's evaluation in respect to His purposes for granting it as a "stewardship".
- 3. It addresses man's "developed identity" as a "living soul".
- a. The Hebrew term for "soul" is "nephesh".
- b. Its essence is discovered from its "physical aspect".
- 1) In the realm of physical creation, the "nephesh" is the part of man's body that extends from the nostrils down to the lower neck.
- a) As this part of man's body, the focus is upon his capacity to breath, eat, and speak.
- b) This part of man's body is relegated to a passivity of ability in that it cannot initiate; it can only respond to what it is compelled to experience.
- 2) Like the "heart" of man, the "nephesh" has a non-physical counter-part in the realm of metaphor as it relates to how we understand as we reason from physical to relational.
- a) As the metaphor for man as "body plus spirit", the "nephesh" highlights the actual reality of "man": he is "responder", not "initiator" (he is "creature" not "Creator").
- b) When "spirit" was introduced into "body", it set up the "body" to "take action", and it turned man into a "nephesh" who is subject to the actions taken by others as well as his own "spirit energized body": man, as "nephesh", exists in the cause/effect universe and is subject to that fundamental law.
