God’s Word for You

Psalm 62:5-8 What is the soul

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, September 27, 2022

NIV-84

5 Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
  my hope comes from him.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation;
  he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
7 My salvation and my honor depend on God;
  he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
8 Trust in him at all times,
  O people; pour out your hearts to him,
  for God is our refuge. Selah

A little more wooden:

5 Rest quietly, O my soul, in God alone;
  my hope comes from him.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation;
  he is my fortress, I will not be moved.
7 My salvation and my honor are upon God;
  he is my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people.
  Pour out your hearts to him,
  for God is our refuge.  Selah

David turns in on himself to give his own soul comfort, saying, “Rest quietly, O my soul, in God alone.” And since many of the things he says in this section of the Psalm are repeated elsewhere for emphasis, we would do well to take time to ask and answer the question: What is the soul?

The soul is the invisible portion of a human being which is his spiritual essence. The soul is immortal (it has a beginning but no end). It is also rational, having the mind, personality, memories, emotions, and especially the faith of the person. Since sin is accounted against both the flesh and the spirit (soul), it appears that the soul and the body share the faculties of reason, thought, faith, personality, emotion, memory, etc. We note in passing that animals have thought, memory, etc., without a soul, and that angels have these things, especially thought, personality, and faith, but without a body. Man has both body and soul, and these faculties are ascribed to both soul and body.

1, We see from David’s inspired words that the soul is at the same time a part of man, and yet not part of man’s flesh. Solomon teaches that when a man’s body dies, the spirit departs and goes to the unseen realms while the flesh is returned to the soil (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

2, Spirit is the same term as soul, or even ghost, although that word is mostly misunderstood today, for the spirit or ghost of a man cannot remain in the world and is never to be seen by anyone, whereas an angel, which is a spirit, can be seen if God so wills it (2 Samuel 24:17; 1 Kings 22:19).

3, The soul is bound to the person and is as much a part of the person as is the mind, the voice, or the heart. If the soul sins, the body is guilty; if the flesh sins, the soul is guilty, for sin can be a mere thought (Matthew 12:25; Ecclesiastes 10:20). They cannot be separated except by God and only for the short span of death until the resurrection.

4, The soul was created for Adam and given to him by God. Adam’s spirit was breathed into him by God (Genesis 2:7).

5, The soul was given to Adam, but not to the animals. For although both man and animals were formed from the soil (Genesis 2:19), only Adam was given his spirit. The animals have life, but not a soul, just as plants have their kind of life, but not a soul.

6, In Adam’s case, his physical existence was created first, and then his spiritual being came second. “The spiritual did not come first, but the natural,” Paul says, “and after that the spiritual” (1 Corinthians 15:46).

7, Eve, the first woman, received her soul from the living part of Adam, the rib, and not directly from God. For in her case, she was made “from the rib God had taken from the man, and God brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:22). She had received her soul by propagation, that is, by breeding from another of her kind.

8, This seems to be the same way all children receive their souls: from their conception by their parents, although we do not have a clear and definitive statement about this in the Word. But this seems to be the case, that the soul of the person is conceived at the same moment that the body, the flesh is conceived. Therefore God does not have a store of unused souls or spirits, a barrel of unused ghosts he keeps in a locker in heaven, that he places into new babies as they are born. But as our Confession states: “The whole nature of every human being born in the natural way from a father and a mother is corrupted and perverted by original sin in body and in soul, in all its powers and from beginning to end, down to the ultimate part involving and affecting the goodness, truth, holiness, and righteousness imparted at creation to our nature in paradise” (Formula of Concord).

9, This is also explained by David, who in another Psalm confesses his sin: “Certainly, I was guilty when I was born. I was sinful when my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5 EHV). The child is conceived in the sinfulness inherited from the parents (Leviticus 5:2) and is born with all the troubles that sin brings with it, “just as surely as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7).

10, We must be careful to remember that the soul and body are both a part of the person, and we must be concerned with them both together as one person and separately as the two parts of that same person, for body and soul will suffer for sin in the torment of hell (Matthew 10:28); both body and soul are concerned with matters here on earth (Psalm 31:9), and both body and soul are involved with faith in Christ, for “the same spirit of faith corresponds to what is written: ‘I believed, therefore I have spoken’” (2 Corinthians 4:13).

11, There is no difference between soul and spirit, except that usually “soul” might be used of the whole person (Matthew 10:28) but the spirit is only used to describe the soul in its proper or narrow sense, the spirit or soul within the individual person. Sometimes these words are interchangeable: “I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 7:11), and Paul has a case of using “spirit” for the whole believing person and “soul and body” standing for his invisible and visible portions (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

12, The soul is immortal, and like the angels, cannot be destroyed. Death has no power or place in heaven, and there “the spirits of righteous men are made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23).

13, The soul contains the personality, memories, desires, sense of humor, and love as the mind and heart does in the flesh. “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). We also see this in the appearance of Moses and Elijah with Christ at the transfiguration, since the Apostles recognized them and the Lord spoke with them. Moses’ body was dead and buried, yet his soul was there and was called “Moses” (Mark 9:4).

14, The soul is also the seat of faith, as the Lord God says: “Guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith” (Malachi 2:16). And the prophet writes: “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord” (Psalm 84:2).

15, Since the soul is the seat of faith, the soul is also capable of sin, just as the angel spirits were capable of sin (2 Peter 2:4). Also, Ezekiel says, “The soul who sins is the one who will die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 18:20).

16, The soul of a living person is dead in its faith on account of original sin, but it is brought to spiritual life through the work of the gospel, either through the sacrament or by preaching. Paul says: “It is written: ‘I believed, therefore I have spoken.’ With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13).

17, The soul, brought to faith by the gospel, believes and trusts in Jesus Christ and has the promise of eternal life along with the body of the person: “The Lord has spoken to me, and he is the one to act… Lord, people live because you give them life, and my spirit lives through this” (Isaiah 38:14,15 EHV). And also Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47).

Seeing all of this, that our souls and bodies are bound together in faith in Christ, it’s easy to see why David comforts his troubled mind by addressing his own soul: “Rest quietly in God alone, you soul of mine.” He is saying: Nothing else matters apart from what God has done for me. All the troubles of life are an assault of the devil, either directly or through angry men and women who are driven by Satan to terrible things. But my help, my salvation, and even such a fleeting thing as my human honor, all depend on God. But since my soul has faith and my flesh is carried along by that faith, I have nothing to worry about. God is a fortress for me. So when I say “I won’t be moved” this time (verse 6) I won’t even say ‘I won’t be moved very much’ like I did before in verse 2, but that I won’t be moved at all, for my faith is like bedrock, a mighty petra on which I stand forever (Matthew 16:18).”

Since our salvation is entirely from God and not up to us at all, we rest, truly rest, in our faith in God. He has us safely in his hands, and his mercy endures forever.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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