Dividing Asunder

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12, Authorized Version)

It’s always interesting for me to ask people questions about things I assume they understand, only to learn that my assumption was misguided.

For example, the New Testament verse referenced above clearly delineates between soul and spirit; the divinely-inspired (I trust) writer assumes such a delineation. And yet when I have asked Christians to explain the difference between soul and spirit, I have received less than satisfying answers, answers ranging from merely incoherent to staggering in the level of blather.

Because I have never received an answer that feels right from either reading or conversation, I have naturally spent quite a bit of time over the years in contemplating this issue. Here is what I have concluded:

Soul and spirit are akin to joints and marrow. The soul is the functional aspect of who I am. It moves, as it were, like my elbow or my knee. It helps me to function, to deal with the day-to-day in the life I’ve been given.

And the spirit is the essence of my life. It sustains my life, just as my bone marrow produces the cells that allow my body to feed on oxygen and nutrients.

My soul can die. My spirit cannot. My soul is subject to the ravages and vagaries of “sin.” My spirit is the eternal essence of who I was and am and will be, and it cannot die nor be destroyed.

My opinions and ideas and perceptions about my soul are fallible, mutable, subject to all manner of external and internal stimuli. My spirit can be affected by the goings-on in my soul, but it cannot be ultimately hampered by these things.

My emotional relationship to my mother was at times sweet, difficult, remote, traumatic, satisfying, mysterious, maddening, peaceful, and tender. But no matter what phase my mother and I were in, I never stopped being her son. Even if she had torn her clothes and cried to the heavens, “I have no son!” this would not have changed the truth: I was her son, no matter what — and we both knew this, as deeply as anything in this life can be known.

Each day now, I watch the interplay between my soul and my spirit. It is a fascinating movement of two different realities. And I am grateful for the ability to witness and discern these things.

~ S.K. Orr