How is the Nature of Man a Trinity

Understanding the Triune nature of man is the key to understanding teachings of the Bible that deal with the flesh and the spirit. It is also the key to understanding yourself as a believer in Christ as well as the external influences, chiefly from the devil. I believe that we are a Triune due to the fact that we are created in God’s own image (Gen 1:26). Someone rightly said that we are designed by God a spirit housed in a body, which has a soul. The Bible does not directly give this definition but a look at various parts of scriptures can help you understand this. “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it” (I Thessalonians 5:23). This was Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians which shows that he understood the trinity of man pretty well. So what are they; the body, soul, and spirit.

When speaking to a person, what you see is the body (Wommack, 1997-2012). The body is what gives us the physical identity as human beings. It is what you see when you look at the mirror it is the part that falls ill, gets nourished by the food we eat, gets malnourished when we hunger, and helps us to physically operate in this world. That is why, when an evil spirit seeks to influence the aspects of the physical nature, it possess a person so as to gain use of his physical self. That is why the demons that had possessed a mad man requested that Jesus allows them to enter the swine. Matthew 12:43 says, “ When an impure spirit comes out of a person; it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.” It is through the body that we touch physical nature by the five senses of smell, sight, taste, hearing and touch (Strauss, 1995 - 2012).

The soul can be defined in so many ways. It is variously defined as the personality, the will, the emotions, the conscience, as well as the imagination. The Bible on many occasions calls it the mind. The gates of our souls are Memory , Conscience , Imagination , Affections and Reason . It is the soul that helps makes us say someone is rude, loving, understanding or even kind. It through the soul that we fall in love and value those close to us. The soul helps us decide good and bad, right from wrong, and differentiate good from evil. It is the soul that defines someone as bright and brilliant as it contains the faculties of memory. I know someone will ask, how about the brain and the heart. Note that the Bible uses the words heart and mind interchangeably in several occasions to mean the soul. The brain, on the other hand, is the physical part of our mental capacity. However, when the soul lives the body, we are pronounced dead and thus the brain cannot work.

The spirit is what I love to call the mind of the soul. It is not an official definition but it is somewhat an elaborate definition for me. When a person goes to school, it is the person’s mind that gets nourished or enlightened. In the same way, when a person gets spiritual knowledge through the word, it is the spirit that becomes sharp, enlightened, opened up, and made alive. It is through the soul that we touch the spirit. The gates to the spirit are Reverence, Hope, Faith, Worship and Prayer. It is the sphere of man that is God conscience, and which is regenerated when we receive Christ. The presence or absence of sin defines the state of the spirit. When Adam fell in Aden, it is the window to the spirit of man that got closed and that chamber became void and empty. It is only through salvation and holiness that we can be able to keep the spirit alive. When a person who has served Christ allows sin to reign in them, they experience a darkening or sadness inside them that sort of alienates them from anything Godly. That is why David prayed to God, and asked him to renew the joy of salvation within him, after he sinned; “Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 51:12).