There is a period while you're dying that you know you're dying. When your thought processes absorb the information which your body is sending is when the "agonal phase" of dying sets in. The dying person becomes highly anxious, disoriented, extreme uncomfortableness, labored breathing and the death rattle (lung congestion). I tell many people that I'm not afraid of being dead, but I'm petrified of crossing over! I dread the agony of dying! Agony in this case is not only possibly intense physical pain, but mental as well. Some doctors prescribe a fast-acting sub-lingual sedative to ease the mental pain of death. Just think how hopeless a dying person is when their heart stops, but their brain lives on for many seconds!
Jesus suffered the same agony as all men have and as we all will. He had to! He had to experience what man experiences because he died in our place! Jesus uttered these words in his agony Mark 15:34 "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
In his agony Jesus was quoting what God foretold hundreds of years before when the psalmist wrote Psalm 22:1 "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?" The entire Twenty-first Psalm is a prophecy of the agony of Jesus! It's worth reading this Psalm to understand that Jesus was not just crying out to his Father, but reminding mankind that this agony was real and for the salvation of all mankind. The Psalm says 1) I am despised of men, 2) There is no one who can help me, 3) water pours from me, 4) my bones are disjointed (not broken, but pulled out of location), 5) I have a weakened heart, 6) my strength is gone, 7) my tongue is swollen to the jaws, 8) My hands and feet are pierced, 9) I'm dying!, but at the end of the Psalm God is praised even in His own death! Yes, Jesus with one line from a psalm told the story of His own agony!
There is a bond between mind and soul. The mind is basically man's ability to think and reason. It's man's central processing unit (CPU) which controls the Local Area Network (LAN) which consists of all the body's systems and the human soul or spirit. As does all LAN's, ours has the ability to communicate with the Internet Service Provider (ISP) which is metaphorically equivalent to the Lord God. We communicate with God through hypertext transfer protocol (http) which is by Scripture, prayer and meditation. In the case of Christians that would be "secure" https since only Christians can commune with God!
There is much controversy about the relationship between the mind and spirit. Calvinists would have you believe that you are "predestined" by God for your soul to spend eternity in heaven and hell and there's nothing you can do about it, because it's by God's grace, and it is irresistible grace. This is "determinism" and induces feelings of hopelessness if the person falsely believes that he has no recourse.
The other thought is one of "free will". Will implies that thought exercises the mental process of making a decision. "Free Will" is man's liberty to make a choice independent of divine dictates. Given free will, man is free to love God or despise him. Man is an automatron under predestination, but independent under free will. Hence, the relationship, most believe, between mind and body is our ability to process the prevenient grace of God and make a decision to accept or reject Jesus as our savior. Calvinism just doesn't have that relationship between mind and spirit that free will does.
I've discussed the relationship between mind and spirit, but only allued to the third factor: the body. The mind is the CPU which interfaces with the mechanical and chemical systems that makes up biological man. The mind controls the movement of all the systems, many by intentional thought, but many others by involuntary control. Involuntary control requires no consious thought processes. It would be horrible if we had to think "Food. Now digest!" It just happens in a side-bar to our thought processes. Sometimes we tell our limbs what to do and at other times those same limbs move because they're trained to move. Some movements are imbedded in our sub-consious. Aren't we blessed?
The mind is the protector of the body. The mind wants the body to live on, not suffer, have pleasure and be. The network (nerves) in our body protects the body from self-destruction. That network may transfer a pain signal so the mind can implement process B to avoid short-circuiting or destruction. If we get too hot our cooling system (perspiration) is turned on to keep the system safe, just as an air-conditioner would a CPU!
The mind through thought protects the soul. God provided his Spirit to commune with mankind. The mind reasons with God, considers his majesty, weighs his promises (hope) and processes all the information to make one decision: Shall I love and obey God by accepting Jesus and live eternally or do I self-destruct and suffer by rebelling? Any rational man would choose the former, but there is a virus in the Global Network System. That virus is a deadly disease called Satan. You see Satan is allowed temporarily to own the room (the world) containing the processor and that virus is to trick man into thinking only of the moment. If all processes are "go" and all seems well, the CPU is fooled and attempts to process on an on, but eventually that hidden virus will do so much damage to the CPU that the processor fails to turn on the protection system (full armor of God) and gradually the right program (Scripture) is not even recognized as valid. The entire system then overheats and is destroyed by the deceiving virus (eternal death in hell).
Of course the computer model is just a metaphor for mind-body-soul, but it's an accurate one! To keep the CPU processing through the narrow gate, all we have to do is use anti-virus software and that software must be 100% fool-proof. That anti-virus software is Holy Scripture. Read and believe your copy today, tomorrow and as standardized work to keep your system secure. If you do this rest assured that machine life is prolonged, in the case of your mind-body-soul, it is prolonged eternally!
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