I Thessalonians 5:23

Back to The Bible's Difficult Scriptures Explained!

“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.”

Again, the question arises: Do people, and therefore Christians, possess an immortal soul?

First read the Matthew 10:28 explanation of how the soul and body are different. The Greek word for “spirit” is pneuma. It means “spirit, breath, current, breeze.” Pneumonia comes from it, literally meaning a disease of breathing. Here, it refers to the spirit in man, which all human beings possess.

This spirit in man is not a soul. See Job 32:8, Luke 23:46, I Corinthians 6:20, Numbers 27:16 and Ecclesiastes 12:7. I Corinthians 2:11 explains the function of the human spirit and how it is works differently than God’s Holy Spirit.

Before explaining the meaning of “soul,” realize that, by this scripture alone, it must be different from the spirit in man or else Paul was being redundant! Psuche is the Greek word for “soul,” and can be translated “drive, energy, breath, life, vitality.” It is best translated here as life.

Soma, the Greek word for “body,” means “body or carcass.” This word is accurately translated.

The soul refers to the eternal life residing within the Christian, because his life is “hid with Christ” (Col. 3:3) or “preserved blameless.”