I remember when I first realized we were not bodies that happened to have spirits, but we are instead spirits that happen to have bodies. Or, for those who want to separate soul and spirit, we have a material, physical body through which we interact with the world around us, but we also have an “inner person,” the “real me,” the immaterial, spiritual part of me that is both soul and spirit, whether fully united or separate – unseen, but very real and very much alive – the driving influence impacting every choice we make as we interact with the world around us. To be a body that happens to have a spirit, puts the body in charge, a rather ludicrous thought, but a thought I hadn’t been challenged in until........ To have a change in thinking in a relatively short period of time, puts a “Wow!” on the human spirit that also has the capacity for a God connection. With that “Wow!,” I was suddenly looking at people very differently, sensing a strongly energizing force that impacts all that the human body does. Now, before you think I am being very radical or even heretical, let me remind you that the immaterial part of us is given to us by God; it is the part of us that is made in His image – we bear a semblance to God, although not a complete one. The immaterial part of us is eternal, and apart from God’s redemptive work, it is scarred by sin. The redeemed spirit knows God and lives in relationship with God. When the body dies, the spirit separates from the body because the spirit, or soul, is eternal, and for the believer, the spirit that separates from the body is immediately in the literal presence of the God of redemption.
Jesus came to earth as the God-man, fully God and fully man. He walked through childhood and teenage years, young adult years, and ministry years as the God-man. As God, He showed us the Father and revealed to us the heart and intent of the Father. As man, He represented us – all of humanity – every man, woman, and child since Adam and including Adam. But, He represented us without sin. He was the perfect man. His spirit was spotless unlike ours, and unlike ours, His spirit was the express image of His Father, the perfect representation, the exact likeness, the exact copy, because He was equal to the Father – He was fully God. As the perfect man, the man who was the God-man, He satisfied the holiness of God and became the perfect sacrifice for our sin. Both the prelude to the cross and the cross itself brought an intensity of suffering and humiliation both physically and spiritually that we will never have to know because His death became our redemption. And on the cross, He came to that climax at which He said, “It is finished,” and He released His spirit and entrusted His spirit to His Father. Physical death, weighted by the sins of millenniums of human beings, became the sacrifice that pleased the Father.
I have contemplated what happened at the cross, and although we celebrate the resurrection of Christ’s physical body days after the cross, His spirit separated from His body at the moment of death, and just as is promised to the believer, His spirit awakened in the light and the presence of His Father – immediately. My God is not dead. He never was, and never will be. He is immortal. He conquered death and His physical body was buried and resurrected. But, my God never died. He is alive! He is alive! And He will be alive through the endless ages of eternity.
– Bev
(Related Bible reading: Luke 23:44-49; John 19:28-30)
