The Nature of Man

The Nature of Man

Ok, so I'm having trouble sleeping because I feel like I've got something I have to get out before I forget. I really feel like God has been pushing me in a certain direction over the course of the last week. First, let me give you a little history of the last week and then I'll get on with some the connections I've made.

Firstly, I get a bible verse emailed to me every day. A lot of times I don't take the time to study scripture like I should or I just forget. Having a verse waiting for me every day when I check my email gives me a chance to study the scripture and I feel helps me to start my day off right. Occasionally I'll get a verse that I hadn't really taken note of before and it'll pique my interest. This week I got one such verse. It is from the fourth chapter of Hebrews, verse 12.

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any
double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit,
joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12 (New International Version)

By the way, for those interested you can sign up to receive this email at http:/www.christnotes.org.

What grabbed my attention here was the distinction made between the soul and the spirit. I have grown up in church my whole life but I've never heard this talked about. I mentioned it to my wife, Mary, and she said that it is something she had heard her dad's church talk about before.

The next part to this is something that was being talked about at church this morning. Mary and I visited St. Luke's United Methodist Church here in Lexington this morning for the first time. The pastor had us do an exercise. She had us close our eyes and envision all the people that had been pillars of faith in our life. I did and the list was pretty large. She then had us imagine all the people that we felt we were pillars of faith for (an embarrassingly small list for me). I realized at the time that this formed a triangle. The base is always larger than the top so that it can support the top.

The last piece that fits here is that I've been watching quite a bit of Ghost Hunters on Sci-Fi. I suggest you check it out if you haven't seen it yet. They go and investigate reports of hauntings and try to debunk it. A lot of stuff they never find any evidence for or they find a logical, scientific explanation for it. However, occasionally they gather evidence that can't readily be explained. One of the episodes I was watching today they were invited by a priest to come investigate her house and church. There had been multiple reports of activity in both places. The team commented on how it was nice to find someone from the religious community being open to the paranormal and possibly opening doors that had previously been closed. This got me thinking. I've always been intrigued by the paranormal but I've been reluctant to come to a concrete decision on just what I believe. I know that most Christian denominations teach that ghosts cannot exist. They say that most reports of hauntings are either hoaxes, psychological issues, or the result of an evil entity such as a demon. I think I, and most of you reading this, am unique in that I grew up in eastern Kentucky. The culture and heritage of the area is very rich and extremely superstitious. I think if you were to ask most people from the area if they believed in ghosts most would say yes, most of those would go on to tell you a "true story" they had heard, and even some of those would claim to be eye witnesses. I have had some experiences in my life that could be construed as paranormal experiences but most of those can be explained away by my eyes playing tricks on me.

So, I decided I needed to do some research of my own and try to find out just what the bible had to say about these things. I tried to think just what could ghosts and hauntings be if they weren't all demons and some in fact were related in some way to people that were once among the living. The first thing I thought of was the bible verse that I had received this week in email. The nature of man is not just body and spirit but is in fact body, spirit, and soul. I believe this to be a biblical principal. It can be seen in Hebrews 4:12 and 1 Thess. 5:23. Also, it is said that God created us in His own image. It is commonly accepted amongst a large number of Christian denominations that God is tribunal (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit or Ghost). If you wish to find the biblical support for this then I suggest searching for it in Google or Wikipedia. If we were created in God's image then it would only make sense that He created us as a trinity as well (body, spirit, and soul).

This got me thinking about two different ideas. One being what is the distinction between Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost. Two being that the Holy Trinity does indeed form a triangle like the triangle of pillars of support from the pastor's sermon today.

Distinction between Spirit and Ghost. So I decided to do some research and find out why exactly we have two different terms for the same thing and to see which is the most accurate in the original language. This led me to a verse from Matthew where Jesus tells the disciples to go out to the nations of the earth and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I decided to find out what word is used in the original texts for Holy Spirit. The original Greek seems to be agiou pneumatos, with agiou meaning "Holy" and the root of pneumatos, pneuma, literally meaning "breath." (Please note that I couldn't find any literal translations of agiou and so for now I'm guessing it literally means holy. Also, I found some transliterations of the Greek spelling pneumatos as pneumatov. I am not a student of Greek and therefore do not know what the distinctions, if any, this may make. I'm guessing it is probably gender related.) The Latin translation of this is Spiritus Sancti. It is obvious where we get the English word, spirit. I find it interesting that spirit and breath use the same term in Greek. I started thinking about this and it reminded me of the story of creation. God formed a body for Adam out of the Earth. However, this was just a body and did not come to life until God "breathed" into it (Genesis 2:7). So, it seems that at least biblical it is supported that breath and spirit are related or one and the same. Without breath or spirit, there is no life. This led me to conclude that spirit is the part of us allows us to live and exist. It gives life to our body and allows us to live on without the body. Who we are is our soul. This is our character, our memories, our experiences, our thoughts, etc. The things that make us an individual. Those things alone do not make us alive. The body has allowed us to become who we are, to develop our soul. The spirit is what gives life to our body and allows our soul to live on after the body has perished. I am now starting to move into the next topic so lets just go ahead and start it.

Triangle of the Holy Trinity. Its not a far jump to see that the Trinity forms a triangle. A triangle can be formed out of any three points. Therefore, it should not surprise us to see that the triangle is very fundamental to existence. I started envisioning the Trinity as a triangle in my mind. This led me to think about how we also form a triangle. This led me to think about how we relate to God and what the two triangles together would look like. I'm betting that you've already guessed where I'm going with this.

That's right, the Star of David. I was pretty excited when my wanderings led me to this. It seemed to be some sort of vindication. However, I should note that wanderings are not always completely fruitful and could even lead to some negative things. I will get to that in a minute. For now, we have the Star of David as a symbol of the relationship between man and God. The trinity of each being represented. So, now lets try to label the points and see how if this leads us to any insights. Let's label the top point as Father, the left point as Son, and the right point as Holy Spirit. Now, we need to label the inverted triangle with the three parts of man. If you look at the image you will notice that one point is always half way between two others. I believe this is because, while we are made in God's image, we are obviously not exactly the same as God. I think the easiest place to start labeling here is with body. What two parts of the Trinity does the body align with most. Obviously, Son is one of those as He was God manifesting Himself into the body. So, that means we will be labeling either the left point or the bottom point as body. I believe the correct choice here is the top left point. I believe this because the Father is also our Father, our creator. Ok, so what about the spirit? Well, our spirit is the life that God breathed into us. It is also directly related to the Holy Spirit in both name and function. The Holy Spirit is the life force of the Church. It is what grants us our gifts and keeps us in tune with God. That puts spirit as the top right point. That leaves soul being the bottom point. However, don't think that we are sticking soul here just because it is the only place left. The soul is situated between the Son and the Holy Spirit. Our soul is what defines us as an individual. Jesus is by far the greatest example of an individual in the history of the world and therefore stands as a model for what we should want to be as individuals. He is closer to God than us and this places who we are as being the furthest from God the Father. I believe many holistic teachings would call this part of us the ego. Many religions teach that we must destroy the ego in order to achieve enlightenment or become one with God. I'm not sure that I agree with this though. I don't believe that it is in our nature to be able to destroy our ego and so, God did what He must to bridge the gap between us and Himself through incarnation of Jesus and the arrival and the Holy Spirit. Our soul is also close to the Holy Spirit. This, too, is no coincidence. The Holy Spirit, or Holy Breath, is God's messenger here on Earth. It is what stays in constant contact with us. It is that voice that tells you right from wrong. It is the goose bumps that raise up on your arms when you feel particularly close to God. God bridged the gap between Himself and us through Jesus Christ and retains that connection to us through the Holy Spirit.

I mentioned earlier that my wanderings are not always productive and I promised to give an example. I questioned whether or not to even include this but I think it may help if some of you reading this happen to come across the same thoughts. I started thinking about numbers and the number of points and the number of triangles formed and the number of sides. So, we have six points. Six smaller triangles are formed. Also, we have a hexagon in the center, which has six sides. This bothered me. I really thought I was on to something here but I couldn't get past why something that worked out so well would end up with something like that attached to it. Then, I realized I was missing six other points. The hexagon has six points which it's six sides connect to. That makes four sixes and not three or two sixes and one 12. I still think their may be something I'm missing here. Not something anti-semitic or evil in nature but I think that the six individual triangles may have some importance. The Jewish people believe the star of David to be holy not because of it's relation to the number six but it's relation to the number 7. In Judaism, 7 is considered a holy number. The six points plus the central hexagon make seven.

I did some research on the Star of David (not intensive mind you) and found that no one is really sure of it's origin. There are multiple theories but none that really tie the Star of David directly to God in such a divine way as this. If my thoughts are true then does this mean that the Jews may have forgotten the true meaning behind the Star of David? That it is so important and holy not because it represents David, or his shield, but because it is a representation of the true relationship between man and God.

Now for the disclaimer. This is the result of about 5 hours worth of thought. Most of it is speculation and I have supported what I can with scripture. The things I have spoken about here are pretty deep theological topics and are by no means necessary to be a Christian or for salvation. They are not the spoken word of God (except where cited) and I don't want this to be a hindrance in anyone's spiritual walk. If this doesn't interest you then I say forget you ever read it and don't let it trouble you. These things have interested me and if they do you too then I would love some feedback. Perhaps you have some more supporting scripture or you have some conflicting scriptures. Perhaps you think I messed up labeling the Star of David. I would love to hear anything you have to say. There are some more things that I didn't go into yet like the relationship of Jesus being the Word of God and the relationship of the word and the breath and the verse above stating that the word can separate the soul and the spirit. We know the soul and spirit can exist outside the body but what would happen if they too were separated? How does all this tie back in with my original questions of ghosts and hauntings? I'll probably edit this document in the future to expand upon some of those ideas.

Josh Potter
11/2/08