The Soul And Its Needs

by J. Miller | Category: General | May 1958

The importance of man's knowledge of himself comes next to his knowledge of God, even as the commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," follows the great and first commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" (Matthew 22.34-39).

The apostle Paul makes plain to us that man is a composite being, of spirit and soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5.28); he is, as has been described, of spirit, soul and body subsisting. Whilst man has learned a good deal concerning himself, as to his body, by the study of Biology, which is the science of life in its various forms, that is of bodily existence, there is no means whatever in this study of arriving at the origin of life. (Biology is derived from the Greek, Bios, life, i.e. the present state of existence or of manifested life, and Logos, word, reason, science). Biology cannot go beyond the physical side of human life; it cannot penetrate into the deep recesses of human existence which touch upon the eternal. Man is not a mere unreasonable beast whose life is to be taken up only with eating and drinking, working and resting, waking and sleeping. Man has a consciousness of a Divine Being, though that consciousness is often warped by evil teaching. God has set the world (Heb. Olam, eternity) in the heart of man, who, deep down in his being, does not believe that this life sees the end of his existence (See Ecclesiastes 3. 11.) Though this is so, man of himself cannot find out the work that God has done from the beginning even unto the end.

Anatomy may lay open the human body, may discover its structure, the situation and economy of its parts, but it cannot find the soul, the being that is housed in the body, nor can it discover the human spirit. To the anatomist there may be little difference between the flesh of man and the flesh of a dog or of a frog. The physical structures of each are built up of cells, and the organs and their functions may bear a greater or lesser resemblance to each other.

It is quite impossible for man to come to a knowledge of himself, beyond the mere physical side of his being, from either Biology or Anatomy. As to Philosophy, it is hopeless to turn to this science, with its vagaries on the origin and existence of man, for a solution of human life on this earth. It is barren of any substantial knowledge whatever. Paul put philosophy in bad company, in Colossians 2.8, when he associated it with "vain deceit." And as to the pagan systems of the east, these offer no help at all on man, his being and his needs.

If we are to derive any knowledge about ourselves, it must come by revelation, and that revelation is contained in the book called the Bible. We state this without fear of contradiction. Here is laid open the story of human origin, and the history of the course of human life in this world; it tells of birth and the cause of death. It does not reveal how conception and birth take place. It does not describe the circulatory system of the blood, the processes of digestion and assimilation; the knowledge of such things are not necessary to life. Blood circulated in our arteries and veins before we knew that we had any, and digestion went on before we knew that we had a stomach and digestive organs.

Much has been discovered by medical science as to the human body and how it works, but medical science in many things has as great a job in dealing with disease as ever it had, and it has to stand back helpless beside the deathbed of its patient. Why? The cause for this is just what the Bible reveals, which no other book on earth does. Whether men love the Bible and the God of the Bible or not, the plain and undeniable fact is, that it is the only book that deals authoritatively and truthfully with such matters.

Let men be honest and acknowledge their own limitations and the limitation of accumulated human knowledge. Let them stop this chicanery and deceit of foisting upon the minds of the young the evil and lying theory of evolution, that human life, and animal life, as we know it, began by some dynamic force within itself; in a word, let them cease teaching that creation had no Creator, that design, which is seen in every form of life, every substance, every atom, every snowflake, had no Designer. A modicum of wisdom would teach man this, if he did not naturally hate God so much.

Evolution is a moth-eaten garment which should be changed at once for the garment of truth. It is a strange and melancholy thing that this theory, which is discarded by many men of profound knowledge and wisdom, is still being retailed by smaller men who cannot prove as truth what they teach. I say, Have pity on the child and do not administer to it mental poison in its youth. Teach what is truth, and when the child has reached years of discretion, then it can, as a responsible human being, choose for itself what it will believe. It is deceitful to teach the evil theory of evolution to young people. Is it any wonder that young people, who have been taught by evolutionists that man is only an educated beast, are becoming more and more bestial in their behaviour?

The Bible teaches whence man came and how he came to be, and it also teaches whither he is going. The facts are simple and clear: "The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2.7).

Soul is not so much what man has, as what man is: he is a living soul. Man came into being by the breath of God. He was created in the image of his Creator, made in His likeness (Genesis 1.26, 27).

From Deuteronomy 8.3, which the Lord quoted to the devil in His temptation (Matthew 4.4), we have a most important insight into the soul of man and its needs. It is said,

"He (God) humbled thee (Israel), and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing (word) that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live."

Clearly from this we learn that the soul of man has two sides and two needs. Man is fed by bread, the most widely accepted fact, and man is fed, in the case of those who have ears to hear God, by the words that proceed from the mouth of God. Man has a material and a spiritual need, for man is not simply material. His stomach must be fed, and so must also his mind. His soul has two sides, a Godward and manward, heavenward and earthward, spiritual and natural Man is a spiritual being housed in a house of clay and water.

Man, as originally made by God, lived in two ways: (1) by eating of the fruit of the earth, and (2) by hearing the voice of the LORD God. God spoke to him and his life depended on his hearing and obeying God's word. If he disobeyed, then the day he disobeyed he would die. Alas, he disobeyed God's commandment, which was:

"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2.10, 17).

Genesis 3 gives the story of man's disobedience, his sin and fall. A great and fundamental change took place in the soul of man. He had sinned and died. He no longer wished to have fellowship with God. He had no desire to hear living words from the mouth of God, words which came by the breath of God, by which breath he himself was brought into being. He turned his back on God and fled from His presence to hide himself from God among the trees of the garden.

The facts of that fatal day are simply told, but oh, the depth of human tragedy and misery they contain! No book but the book of God contains the long weary story which ensued upon the act of that day. But long years after, out of midday darkness came the cry, the echo of the tragedy, when the sinless, suffering Son of Man cried, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He was paying the price in His substitutionary death for man's sin.

The words of Deuteronomy 8.8 are of great importance in the study of the soul of man and its needs. The human soul reaches down to material things through the five senses of the body, through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. If all these avenues by which the soul gains information were blocked and closed, the soul would be in a body, which would be, in a sense, little better than a coffin, the soul would have no means of communication with the world outside. The human soul, on the material side as to bodily needs, is maintained by what comes from the earth, of which the human body is made. Such scriptures as the following point to the material needs of the soul

"The full soul loatheth an honeycomb:

But to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet" (Proverbs 27.7).

"Men do not despise a thief, if he steal

To satisfy his soul when he is hungry" (Proverbs 6.80).

"Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them." Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat;

"And they draw near unto the gates of death" (Psalm 107.5, 18).

"So that his life abborreth bread,

And his soul dainty meat" (Job 33.20).

"I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry" (Luke 12.19).

The soul, which is the man, needs bread, but does not live by bread only, but by every word (Rema, "the spoken word" or "saying") which proceeds from the mouth of God. In such a word or saying of God we have the answer to man's highest and most important need. Until man hears God's voice in the mysterious depths of the soul, the soul, in its Godward side, is dead. This is what happened to Adam when he sinned; his soul died toward God. Paul deals with this in Ephesians 2.1-10. He says,

"And you did He quicken, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, 'wherein aforetime ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience ... Even when we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us up with Him, and made us to sit 'with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus."

This is the same thing of which, from another angle, the Lord spoke to Nicodemus, in John 3, when He said, "Ye must be born anew" (verse 7). With this birth there is a divine quickening by the word and Spirit of God, as is contained in that further statement, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life" (verses 14, 15). Isaiah, the gospel preacher of old, said, "Incline your ear, and come unto Me; hear, and your soul

shall live" (55.8). We might quote scriptures in extenso to prove the fact of the quickening of the soul which takes place through the hearing of the gospel, in faith. At that same time the human spirit is freed from the dark prison in which, through sin, it has been. Sin ever results in the binding of the human spirit. David, after he grievously sinned, in his confession to God, in Psalm 51, said,

"Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation:

And uphold me with a free (or willing) spirit."

Through man's spirit God reaches down to commune with those whose souls are quickened. We are told by Solomon that

"The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord,

Searching all the innermost parts of the belly" (Proverbs 20.27).

Man's spirit is the means by which God operates in the depths of man's inner being. Where no man can see into, in the inner being of another man, the Lord can see, and every man is open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4.18; 1 Corinthians 2. fl). The Spirit of God witnesseth with our spirit, that we are children of God (Romans 8.16). By his spirit the redeemed and quickened man reaches up to the Divine Being to have fellowship with Him. Thus, on the one hand, the human soul reaches down to earthly, material things through the senses of the body, and by this means man adjusts himself as to his material needs. On the other hand, man, with a new life, his soul having been made alive to God, is able through his spirit to enjoy fellowship with God, to hear His living word fresh from His mouth, and to speak to Him. This is living in its truest and highest sense. "The just shall live by faith" is a statement which contains the essence of the matter. All others are dead who have not had the experience of this divine quickening.

In Mary's song, at the time of the miraculous conception, we see the holy joy of the Spirit in her soul. She said,

"My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour" (Luke 1.46, 47).

Here was a saved and quickened soul stretching up to God with words of exultation, with a soul alive and a spirit free she praises Him who had done such great things to her.

The evolutionist, who has no Saviour, and thinks that he does not need one, sees man on the upward move; to him man is just a beast, the descendant of a beast; man cannot even be called a creature, for that postulates a Creator, and in evolution of this sort there is no Creator, no first Cause. Is this barren theorising and speculating satisfying to the human soul? It cannot be. Man seeks security and in evolution there is none. The evolutionist comes to the end of his days, perhaps thinking that there is neither heaven nor hell beyond this life, and as a dying infidel once said, "Now for a leap in the dark." Could Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, have deceived men worse? (Revelation 12. 9.) How glorious is the Christian's hope, to depart and to be with Christ is very far better! (Philippians 1.28).

J. Miller | May 1958
General