Body, Soul, and Spirit

Man is a triune creation, composed of a spirit, a mind, and a body.   Below we have six ways that these can be arranged, and the probable characteristics of each. 


THE FIRST: body, mind, spirit.
The body controls the mind, and the mind controls the spirit.
    This is the most dangerous of the six stages, or conditions of man.  These believe that “anything goes”; self is god, sensuality dominates their life.  Self is always first and foremost in their walk; this is self worship at it’s worst, humanism at its best.
    It is representative of agnosticism, atheism, reprobates, etc.  man in his worst state.  This is the state of most men and women today.


THE SECOND: mind, body, spirit.
The mind rules the body, which in turn rules the spirit.
    This state is a little better, but still is not in proper order because the spirit is last.  This person may be a “man of the world” wise in it’s ways, and little interest in spiritual things whatsoever.  He may be successful, aggressive in business, responsible and “respectable” in society, a “good citizen”.  He pays his debts, has a good standing in the community, but he is lost!   


THE THIRD:     mind, spirit, body.
The mind rules the spirit, which rules the body.
    This one sounds good, but it falls short of what we should be.   This is the “Pharisee” in us; “religious”, but probably unsaved, (the spirit is controlling the body though, and that is good).  This person will not accept many of the biblical principles by faith, but needs to figure it out first; his attitude is “prove it, and I’ll believe it”.   This type has a false god, not made with hands, but made in his mind.  He has a distorted view of God and godliness.  
    This category will include liberals, cultists, heretics even, leagalists, and all sorts of perversions.  They invade the “theological seminaries (or cemeteries!), deceiving young people by the hoards.  They are more concerned with figuring God out than serving Him.


THE FOURTH: body, spirit, mind.
This individual has the body first, then the spirit, and then the mind.
    Here is a  “believer” the spirit controls his mind, but unfortunately his body controls his spirit.  He is probably saved, but his “religion” is based on feeling instead of faith.  He will usually be drawn to the charismatic movement.  His music will be contemporary, sensual, (rock) with perhaps Christian words; she will wear excessive make-up, drawing attention to her face, and he will let his hair grow out.  Their clothes will no doubt be revealing, since the body is first in their structure.  He, or she may be sincere, but the flesh has much too much control; “fads” and popularity are big on their agenda, and will dictate their standards.


THE FIFTH: Spirit; body; mind.
The spirit is first, so this person in undoubtedly saved, but the body controls the mind, which makes their system helter-skelter. 
    That is the sad part; this Christian is sincere, but unproductive because he or she has not disciplined the body.  They may be lazy, fearful, or sick in the faith, but the spirit does not rule the body.  He/she may get good grades in school, will probably be in deep debt because they have no schedule or budgeting.  These are usually dominated by laziness, procrastination, and those are probably their worst problems, but their life is not in the proper order of godliness. 


THE SIXTH; spirit, mind, and body.
This last one is the very best of all; the only true way, the way of righteousness.
    This is a Christian that has the victory over the temptations of the mind and the lusts of the flesh.  The spirit rules; it is dominate in their make up, and they walk with their God.  This puts their priorities in order, with Christ first, and the mind under His control, and the body subject to both spirit and mind. 
    This man or woman will no doubt be concerned for the lost, a “soul winner” and possibly a “prayer warrior”.  They may be “apt to teach”, putting others first, and their own needs behind them.  He or she will read their Bible regularly, and study the blessed Word and stand against the unruly evil of the world and the tongue.  They will take a stand against sin in any form or “color”.  The are the true “fundamentalists” of our day, and most likely they will be Baptist!

Ecumenicalism

We used to hear a lot of good preaching about ecumenicalism, but as of late, I have not heard any--at least not in this area. What happened to the Baptist doctrine of separation? Today it seems that the popular thing to do is to unite in "brotherly love" and put away our "foolish" doctrines for the sake of getting along. Does anyone stand on his/her conviction any more? We need to get back to the traditional ("fundamental") Baptist doctrines.

Keep in mind that some man came up with the 5 or 6 "fundamentals of the faith" and that has been part of the problem. Anything basic to our Baptist heritage is a fundamental of the Baptist doctrine. We don't see anything else as all that important now because we have accepted a mans teaching that there are only a few "fundamentals" of the faith.

Another "wooden nickel" we have accepted is that "convictions are only those things you would die for". Who said so? I have some convictions that you might call preference, even though they are scripturally based; and most likely you have some that I would call personal preference too! If our convictions (beliefs) are important, and scripturally based, they are convictions! This teaching, that we only have a very few convictions, and the rest are preferences, is destroying our Baptist heritage as well, making everything else trivial and subjecting it to being cast aside as non-essential in our Christian walk. What damage we have done to the faith.

Again I ask, what happened to ecclesiastical separation? Where has marital separation gone? What about social separation? Are we not losing these doctrines that made men great in the past? Sometimes our separation needs to be among our own ranks, sadly. Let's get back to the Bible--to "Baptist", back to separation.

Haircuts for men; long pants on women; the KJB, etc. are dying doctrines nowadays, where have they gone?   Why do we want to mimic the world in action, dress, and thought?  This world has nothing for us, it is based on fleshly ideas and humanistic doctrines.  Our Bible says “Come out from among them, and be ye separate” (2 Cor. 6:17)