Hypocrites and BackslidersLesson 23

Spiritual Death

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Simple Mitosis

Mitosis

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Meiosis in the Male

Sperm

Sperm

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Sperm

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Meiosis in themale

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Meiosis in the Female

Egg

Rejected --Polar Body

Rejected --Polar Body

Rejected --Polar Body

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Meiosis in thefemale

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The Three Part Man

• Throughout both the Old and New Testament, the Scriptures reveal that man has been created with three basic parts: the body, the soul, and the spirit.

• This trichotomous view of man is apparent even from the moment of man’s creation.

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The Three Part Man

• Genesis 2:7 “Jehovah God formed man with the dust of the ground.”

• With this act, God created man’s body.

• The verse continues, “And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

• “Breath” is derived from the Hebrew word neshamah which, significantly, is translated “spirit” in Proverbs 20:27: “The spirit [neshamah] of man is the lamp of Jehovah.”

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The Three Part Man

• We can thus conclude, that God’s breathing into man the breath of lives produced man’s spirit.

• Zechariah 12:1 corroborates the creation of man’s spirit by telling us that just as Jehovah stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth, He also formed the spirit of man within him.

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The Three Part Man

• Genesis 2:7 concludes “And man became a living soul.”

• The soul (man’s intrinsic person) was the issue of the breath of God entering into the nostrils of the body of dust.

• The biblical record of the three-step creation of man clearly reveals him to be tripartite.

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The Three Part Man• The New Testament continues and expands on this

revelation.

• First Thessalonians 5:23 says, “And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

• Here Paul enumerates man’s three distinct parts: “spirit and soul and body,” the repetition of the conjunction “and” serving to reinforce their distinctness.

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The Three Part Man

• Furthermore, Hebrews 4:12 specifies “The word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow.”

• All three parts are once again mentioned in this verse: the joints and marrow pertain to the body, and the soul is explicitly separate from the spirit.

• These Old and New Testament references exemplify the Bible’s consistent presentation of the tripartite man.

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The Three Part Man

• In Clarence Larkin’s book Dispensational Truth or God’s Plan and Purpose in the Ages, he describes man as a “trinity” made up of body, soul, and spirit.

• He then proceeds to compare the threefold nature of man to the three sections of the tabernacle.

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The Three Part Man

• The “Threefold Nature of Man” may be illustrated by the Tabernacle…The Tabernacle and its Courtyard is a type of the “Threefold Nature of Man.” The “Courtyard” represents his Body, the “Holy Place” his Soul, and the “Most Holy Place” his Spirit…

• After the completion of the Tabernacle it remained empty of the “Presence of God” until the “Spirit of God” descended and took up His abode in the “Most Holy Place.”

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The Three Part Man

• So a man may be complete as to body, soul and spirit, but his spiritual nature will remain unregenerate until the Holy Spirit enters and takes possession of the “spirit” compartment of his nature.

• This happens when the “New Birth” takes place.

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The Three Part Man

• The difference between plant and animal life is, that the plant has not “conscious” life, while the animal has a “living (conscious) soul.”

• The difference between animal life and human life is, that while animals have a “living soul” man has more, he has a “spirit….”

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The Three Part Man• In Earth’s Earliest Ages, G.H. Pember employs

Scripture to refute the erroneous notion that man has only two parts as well as prove that man is tripartite.

• “Thus in the very beginning of Scripture we are warned against the popular phraseology of soul and body, which has long sustained an erroneous belief that man consists of but two parts….

• There are, however, one or two passages in which a reference to the threefold composition of our being could not be obscured.

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The Three Part Man

• Such is the very remarkable verse in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “For the Word of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. iv. 12).

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The Three Part Man

• Here Paul plainly speaks of the immaterial part of man as consisting of two separable elements, soul and spirit; while he describes the material portion as made up of joints and marrow, organs of motion and sensation….

• Another obvious passage is the well-known intercession of Paul for the Thessalonians: “And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. v. 23).

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The Three Part Man• Now the body we may term the sense -

consciousness,

• the soul the self - consciousness,

• and the spirit the God - consciousness.

• For the body gives us the use of the five senses; the soul comprises the intellect which aids us in the present state of existence, and the emotions which proceed from the senses; while the spirit is our noblest part, which came directly from God, and by which alone we are able to apprehend and worship Him.” (End Pember)

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The Three Part Man• In Watchman Nee’s book The Christian Life and

Warfare originally published in 1927, he clearly demonstrates from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that man has three parts.

• “The Word of God does not divide man into two parts, the soul and the body.

• Rather, it divides man into three parts: the spirit, the soul, and the body.

• First Thessalonians 5:23 says, “Sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete.”

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The Three Part Man

• This verse clearly shows a distinction between the spirit and the soul.

• Otherwise, it would not have said, “Your spirit and soul,” but rather, “Your spirit-soul.”

• Since God has said this, we can see that there is a distinction between man’s spirit and his soul.

• From this we can conclude that man is divided into three parts—the spirit, the soul, and the body.

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The Three Part Man

• The first chapter of Watchman Nee’s book The Spiritual Man is entitled “The Spirit, The Soul, and The Body.” Here, Nee further emphasizes and elaborates on the fact that man is composed of three parts.

• First Thessalonians 5:23 says, “The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete.”

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The Three Part Man

• This verse clearly divides a person into three parts: the spirit, the soul, and the body.

• Here the apostle mentioned the believers being sanctified “wholly.”

• This means that the whole being of the believers is to be sanctified.

• What did he mean when he said that a person is to be sanctified wholly?

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The Three Part Man

• He meant that a person’s spirit, soul, and body are to be preserved complete. This is very clear; a complete person has a spirit, a soul, and a body.” (end Nee)

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The Three Part Man

• In order to accurately and adequately define the spirit, soul, and body we must first identify the sphere in which each part functions.

• First and most crucial is the spirit, the faculty that enables man to communicate with God.

• With his human spirit, man can worship God, serve God, and know God intuitively.

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The Three Part Man

• Second, the soul is that part which forms the personality of man and enables him to contact and function within the psychological realm.

• Finally, the physical body with its five senses enables man to relate to and communicate with the physical world.

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The Heart of Man

• Man’s heart, as revealed throughout Scripture, is to be a composition of all the parts of the soul as well as of the spirit, namely the conscience.

• It may sound odd to hear that the heart as a separate and distinct component of man, is a summation of several other parts.

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The Heart of Man

• Genesis 6:5: “And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Furthermore, as Matthew 9:4 reports, “Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Why are you thinking evil things in your hearts?”

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The Heart of Man• To identify the will as pertaining to the heart, we

must consult Acts 11:23: “Who, when he arrived and saw the grace of God, rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain with the Lord with purpose of heart.”

• In addition, the second half of Hebrews 4:12 speaks of the Word’s ability to discern, “the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

• Both “purpose” and “intentions” are functions of the will, indicating that the will, likewise, is part of the heart.

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The Heart of Man

• The Bible clearly indicates that all three components of the soul–the mind, will, and emotion (from the body)–also affect the heart, together with the spirit–the conscience and the ability to worship and commune with God.

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The Heart of Man

• Several other portions of the Word prove that the emotion originating in the body also affects the heart.

• In John 16:6, the Lord tells His disciples, “But because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.”

• Later in that same chapter, the Lord continues, “Therefore you also now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy away from you.”

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The Heart of Man

• Since sorrow and rejoicing, human emotions, are so evidently linked here to the heart, we can say that man’s emotional faculty plays a part in the function of the heart.

• Finally, the Word makes it clear that the leading part of the spirit (the conscience) is also integrally related to the heart.

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The Heart of Man

• Hebrews 10:22 strongly links these two: “Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.”

• Additionally, 1 John 3:20 warns, “Because if our heart blames us, it is because God is greater than our heart and knows all things.”

• Blame and condemnation are the primary functions of the conscience, further proof that our conscience affects our heart.

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The Heart of Man

• So, what is the Heart of Man?

• It is the “Doing and Being” part of man.

• Man’s decisions and actions.

• It is where Man’s decisions become part of him:

• “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”

• After a person has ruminated the contents of his mind (thinking), the emotional contribution from his physical body, and made a determination as to his choice, his volition passes it into his heart.

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The Heart of Man

• Of course, the Spiritual Function of man, his connection to God, should have influenced the decision-making process, but as we shall see, Spiritual Death has eliminated this from man’s decision making process, and therefore his heart.

• Genesis 6:5: “And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

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The Three Part Man

• Next, we will quickly review from our last 2 lessons, information about the 7 Deaths in the Bible, and some pertinent passages related to Spiritual Death (SD).

• Then we will introduce more pertinent passages and add them to our knowledge base, before we enter into a study of the Mechanics of Spiritual Death.

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The Doctrine of Death

• The 7 Deaths of Scripture: (Thanatos)• Physical Death• Spiritual Death• The Second Death• Positional Death• Sexual Death• Operational Death• Temporal Death

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The Doctrine of Deaths

• Spiritual Death: Ephesians 2: 1; Romans 5:12; 1st Cor. 15:22; Prov. 14:12

The Spiritual Relationship with God is absent.

The Soul and God are separated.

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Spiritual Death• Death is separation. • A physical death is the separation of the soul from

the body. • Spiritual death, which is of greater significance, is

the separation of the soul from God.• In Genesis 2:17, God tells Adam that in the day he

eats of the forbidden fruit he will “surely die.” • Adam does fall, but his physical death does not

occur immediately; God must have had another type of death in mind—spiritual death.

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Spiritual Death

• This separation from God is exactly what we see in Genesis 3:8.

• When Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord, they “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God.”

• The fellowship had been broken. • They were spiritually dead.• When Jesus was hanging on the cross, He paid the

price for us by dying on our behalf.

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Spiritual Death• A person without Christ is spiritually dead. • Paul describes it as “being alienated from the life of

God” in Ephesians 4:18. (To be separated from life is the same as being dead.)

• The natural man, like Adam hiding in the garden, is isolated from God.

• When we are born again, the spiritual death is reversed.

• Before salvation, we are dead (spiritually), but Jesus gives us life. “And you hath he quickened [made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

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Spiritual Death

• Ephesians 2:1-3:• "And you were dead in your trespasses and

sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest."

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Spiritual Death

• (Eccl 12:7 KJV)  Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.