Children soon discover the flesh and ways to please it. I remember discovering the lust of the flesh at about seven years old. However, discovering the soul took much longer! I discovered my own soul at about fourteen, and once my soul was found, life since that time has been mostly about the preservation of it!
The first mention of “soul” in the Bible is in the beginning
when Adam was made “a living soul.” [i]
The next mention is two-thousand years later when Abraham recognized the “souls”
of others [ii]
and his own “soul;” to wit: “My soul shall live because of thee.” [iii]
The human (humane) soul is invisible and is of another
realm. What do souls look like? The body of the person, albeit they are incorporeal.
That is “having no material body or form” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The “Spirit”
of God entered Jesus when he was baptized “in bodily form” with the motion of a
dove. [iv] The
Spirit that entered the body of Jesus resembled Jesus but was immaterial.
Once the Holy Spirit entered Jesus, that portion of God’s
Spirit, not only resembled Jesus, but is the incorporeal Jesus. Jesus IS the
Holy Ghost who remains in the world to comfort. At the crucifixion, Jesus gave
up the Ghost. [v]
The centurion, Longinus, identified the Holy Ghost of Jesus when he remarked, “Truly
this Man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).
Longinus had not recognized Jesus as God when He was alive,
but he recognized the Ghost of Jesus as God. Had he seen the Man, or had he
recognized that the Ghost of Jesus IS God?
Jesus asked, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me” (Mat 26:39). The “cup” is figuratively speaking. The Greek word
is “poterian,” meaning a drinking vessel. Jesus referred to the “Living
Water” [vi] that
would be drunk because of His death.
Living Water is the blood and water that flowed from Him
when Longinus pierced His side. The soldier saw the Holy Ghost of Jesus in the Water
flowing from the side of Jesus. He knew that Water was Jesus, apparently
because it was the bodily form of Jesus that was poured out. Why is that
a good hypothesis? Because those who saw the Spirit enter Jesus recognized that
God entered Him, and at the crucifixion God departed from Him, at least until
the work of the Holy Ghost was accomplished while the Body of Jesus “slept.”
The drinking vessel of Jesus IS His Soul. As such, the
material Body of God, was the visible vessel and inside, with the exact shape,
was the incorporeal vessel. The incorporeal vessel in Jesus was emptied that
day in a reversal of its filling. Why was Jesus baptized? Was it for repentance
for the remission of sins as with all the others? No!
God had told John, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit
descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with
the Holy Ghost” (John 1:33). All the others had been immersed but only Jesus was
filled with the Spirit of God. That is important for two reasons: (1) The Holy
Ghost was recognized as the Spirit of God, and (2) It is the Ghost of Jesus
that is saving.
The purpose of the Holy Ghost of Jesus is twofold: (1) to
baptize believers with Living Water, not running water, and (2) so that Jesus
may be sensed when the Holy Ghost indwells in Christians.
The Living Water would wash away the spirit of the Wicked
One, and the blood provide the DNA of Jesus, so that those washed clean by the
Water from Jesus would become Sons of God in the image of Jesus.
“DNA” is not a biblical term, but it is inferred. Only by
the blood of Jesus can anyone be saved.[vii]
Cain had the DNA of the Wicked One because Eve drank of the “cup” of Lucifer,
and then Cain had the DNA of the Wicked One in Him.
That DNA must be washed out by Living Water for cleansing,
then the blood of Jesus transfused into the repentant. Only baptism of the Holy
Ghost can wash clean, and real water is strictly a ceremonial cleansing of the
outward flesh. John’s baptism, if not done in conjunction with baptism of the
Holy Ghost, is merely bathing in water to cleanse the flesh.
There is “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephes 4:5)! And
that is not water baptism but baptism with the Holy Ghost of THE LORD. The baptizer
is nothing more than a washer of the outside of the vessel. The Living Water from the belly of
Jesus washes the inner vessel from within; when it is imbued with the Holy Ghost.
Now back to Abraham: Whereas, Noah found grace, and was most
certainly washed from the inside out, and not from the water; Abram found grace,
then continued to worry about his soul. Abraham was the first to identify the
soul in the bodies of others and his own body as well: “Say, I pray thee, thou
art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall
live because of thee” (Gen 12:13).
Abraham was depending, not on the Lord God for safety in
sinful Egypt in the Presence of an evil Pharaoh, but his sister-wife.
Abraham was savvy. He was not worried about his temporal
flesh but his immortal incorporeal soul.
He saw things that no other person had before him. Genesis chapter twelve
is the first written awareness about the immortal soul.
Even blind Bartimaeus saw Jesus. He saw Jesus as the “Tree
of Life” when Jesus approached him. He said so — “I see men; as trees walking”
(Mark 8:24). He saw the Ghost of Jesus before he saw Jesus!
As such, I believe that the Garden of Eden was a Garden of
Living Souls that Adam was assigned to “dress and keep.” [viii] God’s Garden was surely one of beautiful souls
because, “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love” (Ephes 1:4).
Adam’s role was to keep living souls holy and without blame (dress and
keep), but Jesus had to do that since Adam failed their Father.
Jesus knew everyone before anyone was sent out into the
world. Out of nowhere, Jesus said to Philip about Nathaniel: “Nathanael saith
unto him, ‘Whence knowest thou me?’ Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Before
that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.’” (John
1:48).
Jesus recognized Nathaniel. No mention had been made of any tree,
let alone a specific “fig tree.” Jesus, as the Tree of Life, saw the bodily
shape of the incorporeal, Nathaniel, standing under the fig tree with Adam and
Eve back in the beginning. He saw his soul standing under the wrong tree, and
now since all have sinned, Nathaniel would stand with the Tree of Life, Jesus.
Jesus, as the Tree of Life, had looked over and saw Nathaniel in original sin.
Nathaniel was one of the “tares” of the Wicked One. [ix]
Nathaniel had not even been a tree in the Garden. He was merely
a tare under the Tree of Knowledge but now he would be made good seed and would
stand with Jesus. Jesus then saw Nathaniel in person standing under the “Olive Tree”
(Himself) so to speak. What had Nathaniel’s soul looked like? Just like
Nathaniel! What had Abraham’s soul looked like? Just like Abraham.
The soul of Abraham came down on Sarai’s barren womb and Isaac
was borne (transported) there by God. Abraham had great faith, but he too
was a sinner. It is truthful that Sarai was his half-sister, so he did not lie
with Satan. But the issue was that Sarai would be the one to save his soul from
the Devil in Pharaoh. As soon as Abram found grace, he took it vainly, and trusted
the woman rather than God… just as Adam had done long before.
Abram knew God would take care of his flesh, but he was more
concerned with his soul, and rightfully so! Jesus related that many years
later: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:
but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mat
10:28). Abraham feared Pharaoh more than God, but he thought that Pharaoh could
kill his soul!
Yes, even Father Abraham was deceived, but he then obeyed
God. He would be willing to destroy the flesh of his own son, knowing that God
would save his soul.
The philosophical question is, Why me? You are your
soul. Freud even recognized that you are your psyche. The psyche cannot be seen
but it has a nature and motives. Inside the psyche there wages a war between good
and evil…between the ego and Super-Ego — to whom the soul belongs; to you or
God? “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in
you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own” (1 Cor 6:19).
Why would God be so concerned with your body? Because He wants
that the vessel inside never perish. [x]
The human soul is an invisible vessel within the body that resembles the body. Abraham
detected his soul because he had found grace; not in lifeless idols, but in the
Living God; thus, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the True God.
(picture credit: Learn Religions: "The Transfiguration")
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