The Soul and Spirit: Are they One, or Two?

THE opinion prevails quite extensively among those who believe in the immortality of man, that the soul and spirit are in reality one and the same. If they find in the Bible any expression which seems to them to affirm that the soul does not die with the body, they immediately conclude that man has within him an immortal principle. If anything is said in it that seems to them to prove that the spirit is conscious, and survives the dissolution of the physical structure, they draw the same conclusion. If this reasoning is just, it must follow that the soul and spirit are one and the same, or that man has two separate and distinct spiritual essences or entities which are conscious after physical death. But none of them ever believe this last conclusion; hence they must believe that the soul and spirit are one and the same. What did the apostle Paul believe on this point?—"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thess. 5:23. Here we see the soul and spirit are as distinct as the soul and body, or the body and spirit. Again, "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow," etc. Heb. 4:12. We know the joints and marrow are two, not one, separate and distinct, and not the same. The soul and spirit, therefore, are not one and the same. Those who believe there is an immortal principle in man, which survives the death of the body, must decide whether we shall call it the soul or spirit. It certainly is not both, unless man has two distinct spiritual, immortal entities.