complete dependence upon the
Lord this evening. I wish to direct your very prayerful
attention to the second chapter of Genesis. And our text this evening is
found in verse 7. Our text is found in verse 7,
Genesis chapter 2. I'll read from verse 6. But there
went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of
the ground. And 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. And 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. In my short life, I believe I've been delivered
of two errors. The first held consciously and
the other unconsciously. The more conscious error was
the pernicious doctrine which is found in dispensational and
brethren circles that man is made of three parts. We can clearly
see here that man is made of two parts. He is made body, and
soul. The other was rather an unconscious
error and that being of the pre-existence of the soul of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We will come on to that later. Here we can see that within our
text before us we have that beautiful account of the creation of the
earth. And then we have the creation
of man. And the Lord sets Adam upon the
earth, male and female. He creates Adam,
the first man, and he creates Eve, maid taken from the man. And later on, of course, we have
the evidence of the rib, which is still a very basic but glorious
truth. And thus we have the Lord's creation
of a human body. A human body. But this body was without life. To consider, it has all the parts,
all the elements that we have here before us. A hands, a face, a mouth and
so on. But no life, until the Lord breathes
life into man and he becomes a living soul. What we can clearly
see is that man is made, and of course woman also, of a material
and an immaterial part. That which is visible is the
body but that which is invisible is the soul. Now, These things
are not light and they are not trifling, are they? To be body
and soul. Here we can see in the account
within the context that the Lord places man within the garden
and there have been many debates as to whether the Garden of Eden
itself can be found upon earth We don't believe really, I don't
think that we can. The descriptions that are given,
the ground that is set before us,
the fertileness, the beautiful scenery as it were, it's been
suggested and speculated that it could be the West Indies,
that it could be parts of the Middle East. We don't know. We
don't know. We don't know. But what we can
say here is that it truly existed. A man was banished upon sin from
the Garden. And we read those very solemn words
at the end of verse 17. Notice the way in which they're
opened up to us. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof..." There's a foreknowledge, isn't there, here? Man will eat. Man will eat. In the day that
thou eatest. It's a foreknowledge here. "...thou
shalt surely die." And what is that death? What is that death? Well, there is the physical death.
which comes upon all men eventually three score years and ten we
are appointed to live upon this earth and if by reason four score
years then in sorrow and so forth but there is the immediate spiritual
death is there not and man is born into this world dead with
the separation we know those things we've considered them
many times but what is it that is dead What is it that died
when man sinned? It was his soul, wasn't it? It was
his soul. And what is it that the Lord
brings into, quickens into life, into living exercise upon the
new birth? It is his soul. We read of being lively stones,
living epistles, and so on and so forth. There's many proof
texts upon the evidence of the soul. It's one of the things that was
very much stressed to me by the godly influences that I had growing
up, that I had a never-dying soul. A man has a never-dying
soul because he's created in the Lord's image. He has an eternal
soul. And thus sin has an eternal consequence. These are very solemn things. This is probably the only place
in this city you will hear these things anywhere. Probably. Probably. Probably. It's very solemn. But nevertheless,
very true. So, you may say to me, well, I believe that the Lord is made
of three parts. body, soul and spirit. Well,
that actually is something that can be very misleading, very
misleading indeed. And of course I think we must
by needs dispel ourselves of this falsehood. by turning to
the popular text that he's pointing to which only anywhere speaks
of this and that is 1 Thessalonians and chapter 5 and I have to say
that this was what ensnared me really when we consider this
point in verse 23 Paul is exhorting the brethren
at Thessalonica and the Lord says, 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. You will notice in other passages
such as in Ecclesiastes that the spirit is spoken of. Paul
also speaks of the spirit. But you see the spirit and the
soul are used interchangeably. And Dr. John Gill quite rightly
points that out in different places. This is the only place
wherein they're set together. I must say, this isn't a typical
19th century dispensational error. There's plenty of those, but
this isn't one of them. The Puritans actually debated
such things. But the orthodox position is
to believe we're body and soul. Well, you might say, well, how
do we explain this text? Well, as is usual, we must consider
the context in which it was written. So, whenever you are next buttonholed
down the street by somebody pushing this view and we find them here
and there, we have to look at this passage as we find it. And
we notice the whole spirit of this is speaking of the church
at Thessalonica. And the oneness of the church. Rejoice evermore as one. Pray
without ceasing. We're here at a prayer meeting
as a gathered body of believers. Prove all things. Don't just
accept them because I say them. Accept them because the Scripture
bears these things to be true. Men have got feet of clay. And
if the things I say are true, they'll be true to life and they'll
be true to the Scriptures before you. Prove all things. Hold fast to
that which is good. And so on. But we're coming to
verse 23. What do we mean by this? Well,
in the original, We have basically two aspects to this exhortation. The spirit is one and the soul
and the body is the other. And how do I best explain this?
Well, we are exhorted in the scriptures to worship the Lord
in spirit and in truth. This is not speaking of two separate
aspects of man. but the relationship in which
we have to worshipping our God. We must come together to worship
in spirit and in truth. So the spirit here is speaking
of the intention, the eagerness, the living union which we have. If we're willing to worship the
Lord tonight, made willing in the day of his power, then we
must do so body and soul, in the right spirit. I don't think
anything could be plainer than that. If we come in the wrong
spirit, our bodies might be here, but our souls are far distant
from Him. And that's the truth. Now, no doubt some will cry against
this, but we have to remember the principle of exegesis, the
principle in which we understand the Scriptures and interpret
them. We interpret Scripture by Scripture. I could give you
a whole host of others if you like, but I'll spare you them.
Now we have at the time in which the Lord speaks of spirit
and soul interchangeably in that way. We think of the spirit of
the beast going back to the ground, but the spirit of the Lord returning
unto him that gave it. There is a common misnomer that
an animal, they say, does not have a soul. Well, an animal
does have a soul, but it simply dies when the animal dies. When the beast dies, the soul
dies with it. Otherwise, it wouldn't speak
of the spirit of the beast, would it? Nevertheless, we can see
here that this is the key text and I think it's one that we
must have to set before people in respect of body, soul and
spirit. Man is made of two parts. He
is made of body and soul. Body and soul. When the Lord
breathed into Adam, He brought him through and made him a living
soul. And thus that man was made to
be alive. He was made to be alive. He was alive unto God. He kept
the law. It was interesting that even
here we have within our short reading the two ordinances that
are set for man. There are two ordinances for
the whole of mankind and there are two ordinances for the church.
The two ordinances for the church are, of course, believers' baptism
and the ordinance of the Lord's table. But the two ordinances
for the whole of mankind is the ordinance of, and not the sacrament,
I might add, the ordinance of marriage male and female he created
them, we would take note. We know that. Anything other
than that is quite repulsive. And we also see here the ordinance
of the Sabbath day. creation ordinances for the good
of mankind. And when these are trampled underfoot,
we inevitably end up in a mess. Every society has done so throughout
history. And that's why we're in such
a muddle today in the 21st century. We ignore and we despise the
Lord's ways and we despise his precepts at our peril. So here we have this man to be
made alive, but his soul died, spiritually speaking, because
of sin. And this was a willful transgression.
Had it pointed out to me, and very ignorantly, I've never considered
this before, but of course Eve was deceived by the serpent,
wasn't she? But man, knowing this willingly,
very willingly, openly, and that's what the original means, willingly
took of the forbidden fruit. Willingly sinned. And if we consider the solemnity
of that, that man then, his body may be
alive for a time but his soul is dead then needs something outside
himself to undertake for him I won't dwell on this but you
wouldn't go up to a corpse and kick it and tell it to get up
and rise and make it alive Thus is the spirit of the Fullerite
and the spirit of the Arminian in every generation. Dead sinners are dead sinners. It must take the Lord not only
that creates but recreates to undertake and make alive. The
mercy is, He does so. That's His operation. That's
His will. to take some of lost mankind. We read and sang of the potter
and the clay. To take some of lost mankind
and to make them alive unto himself. Unto himself. So, in considering those things, what do we have? as the only
means, the only evidence, the only way unto life. We have to consider 1 Corinthians
15 speaks greatly, speaks tremendously of man's state. There's some
very succinct statements Paul makes about man and his condition. In verse 21 he says, "...for
since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of
the dead. It had to be that way. It had
to be that. No other way could man be redeemed. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own
order, Christ the firstfruits, after would they that are Christ's
at His coming." So, in considering that, we need
an advocate, and we need an advocate that is just as we are, in the
likeness of sinful flesh. And here we come to verse 44
in 1 Corinthians 15. When it speaks of the body, as
it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body, there
is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. And so it is
written, the first Adam was made a living soul as we find in our
text. The last Adam was made a quickening
spirit. Is that not itself the evidence
of the new birth? that it is the Lord Jesus Christ
that the Holy Spirit illuminates, sets forth in our souls, enlivens
us. It is an appreciation for the
Lord Jesus Christ and His work. And there we have to disagree
with the primitive Baptists. Of course, they have this controversy
of what we call conditional time salvation. This idea that a man
can be born in the Sahara Desert and live his life as a Mohammedan
all his days and go to heaven. No, no. Regeneration must be
a conscious thing. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God. And what does the Word of God
set forth? It sets forth a precious Christ. Christ must be made known to
make our souls living. Living. And thus, you may wish
to read it in your own time at home. But when the Lord Jesus
Himself died, we had an absolutely perfect, very God, very man,
penal substitution. One who takes the place, body
and soul. Article 5 of the Gospel Standard
Article sets these things forth quite clearly. We read in verse
10, of Isaiah 53, you know it very well, "...yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper his hand." When thou shalt make his soul an offering
for sin, that's a real human soul. And here we must pause
and take note. Because there are those upon
the fringes of our denomination that attack this doctrine. They
might in many ways be seen to be orthodox. They might be seen
to be very strict, for the want of a better term. But they're
in gross error. And it concerns me that people
holding such errors and engaging in chapels that hold
such errors are not dealt with. They're not dealt with. They
wouldn't accept what I'm saying to you tonight. That the Lord
Jesus Christ had a real human body and a real human soul He
was not altogether spiritual. He was very God and very man. And thus we must hold this truth
dear and we must preach this doctrinal distinctive where we
find it in the Holy Scriptures. You see, are not the doctrines
of the Bible, every bit as discriminating and every bit as separating as
the experimental truths on occasions, such as we have it here. The
Lord Jesus, a real human body and a real human soul. And here
we have it. And that been the case. That
been the case. We must ascertain, we must set
forth, we must make clear that this soul was not a pre-existent
soul. You and I didn't have pre-existent
souls. The Lord did not have a pre-existent
soul either. Otherwise, he could not suffer
as our substitute. If he took upon him, in every
respect, our human nature. In every respect. Then, we can't have every respect
but one. Or every respect but something
slightly different. Very God and very man. Now you might say, these things
are hard. They are hard, but we receive
them by faith. We receive them by faith. There
are many things we can't necessarily reconcile by logic. But the scripture
does not speak of reconciling these things by logic. We reconcile
these things by faith. That's why I don't really have
much time for apologetics. Because it's by faith we understand
that the seas and the stars were made. No need for creation meetings
or anything like that. It's by faith we understand these
things. We hold to them. We love them.
Otherwise the Lord wouldn't be Lord. He wouldn't be God. A real
human body and a real human soul. the first man Adam and the second
man the Lord Jesus himself to have the breath of life set
forth into our hearts set forth into our souls is that not what
we so much need to be brought into life to be brought into life. And
his creation is a miracle. It's a miracle. There's nothing
short of a miracle. To create something out of nothing. Man
cannot create something out of nothing. He can play around with
what he's got. He can do quite well in respect to the materials
that he's been given. But they've only been given to
him. But he can't create something out of nothing. The Lord's work
is a miraculous work in creation and in re-creation. Re-creation. Is that not the
biggest wonder of all? To reconcile that which has offended
Him. To reconcile that which is by
nature far off from Him. To form man of the dust of the
ground. He is the potter, we are the
clay. So then we've got no right to
say, I can choose for Christ. We've got no right to say, I
can believe at will. We've got no right to say, as
man naturally says, that I will worship my own will and my own
ways. No. No. What we do have here
is a sovereign God who breathes life into man. He breathes life into him, body
and soul. Body and soul. Now, we considered that proof
text in 1 Thessalonians and chapter 5 and bearing those things in
mind as we come to our prayer meeting how do we come tonight? How do we come on the Lord's
day? How will we come? How will we come? Will we come
in one spirit? Desirous body and soul to meet
with the Lord Or do we come because this is
Thursday and this is what we do? To be given a hat to worship
the Lord was said once, I remember in the pulpit at Leeds years
ago, I never forgot it. If we love the Lord any less
today than we have, it's a solemn thought, then we've already fallen
into a backsliding state. To grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord himself. How do these things come about?
How do these things come about? Through the breathing of life
into our souls. And oh may we come tonight, body
and soul in one spirit. unto Him that first made us and
keeps us alive. And 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. Amen.