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Because we just heard that "God took the dust from the earth" and "created man". From these words I understood that man is both nothing and something great. If you look only at his nature, then he is nothing and deserves nothing; and if you pay attention to the honor that he was awarded, then a person is something great. What is this honor?

"God said: Let there be light, and there was light."

Compare the origin of man and the origin of light. Then He said: "Let there be firmament". And now the huge sky, created according to the word of God, stretched out over us.

The stars, the sun, the moon - everything that we see with our own eyes and that we perceive in an unattainable height - all this came into being according to the word of God. The sea, and the land, and all that adorns them, various kinds of animals, different kinds plants - all this was born by the word.

And what about the human? It is not said, "Let there be a man," as it was said: "Let there be firmament". But in a person you see something more. The creation of man rises above everything: above the light, above the sky, above the stars, "The Lord God took". He deigned to fashion our body with his own hand. He did not give an order to the angel about this, and it was not by itself that the earth spewed us out like grasshoppers, and God did not order the forces serving him to do this or that. But he took the land with his own - skillful - hand. If you look at what was taken, what will a person be? If you think about Tom. Whoever created, how great man appears! So, on the one hand, he is insignificant as matter, on the other hand, he is great in the honor given to him.

And God took. But how is it? We have read before: "And God Created Man", and now again we are talking about the creation of man! History, as if we know nothing about man, says: "And God took the dust from the earth, and God fashioned the man". Some said the word "sculpted"(επλασεν) refers to the body, and the word "created"(εποιησεν) - to the soul. Perhaps this interpretation is not without truth. Indeed, when it says: "And God created man, in the image of God created he him", then the word is used "created". When we are told about the bodily essence (υποστασεως), then the word is used "sculpted". This distinction between creation and molding is pointed out by the Psalmist when he says: “Your hands have created me and fashioned me”. Created the inner man, fashioned the outer. After all, modeling deals with clay, and creation deals with what is in the likeness. Therefore, the flesh is molded, and the soul is created.

And now, speaking differently about the essence (υποστασεως) of the soul, Scripture now tells us about the formation of the body. Take this as your first clue.

What is the other argument? First, it is said in general, and then it is conveyed how it happened. Above it was said what God created, but here it is said how He created it. After all, if it were simply said that God created, you would think that He created man in the same way as cattle, like wild animals, like plants, like grass. And so that you do not classify yourself as a wild animal, the Divine word informs special art that God manifested when creating you: "God took the dust from the earth". It says what God created, here it says how He created it. He took dust from the ground and molded it with his own hands.

"God took the dust from the earth and God fashioned man." The creation of the world was not finished. The narrative is not interrupted by an interpolation of a story that concerns us, but it is said: "God created man and rested from all his works". And when He surrendered to rest, (Scripture) makes us aware of exactly how God created: "God took the dust from the earth".

When you hear the word "dust" learn fearlessness. Don't judge a person by their appearance. What are you so proud of? When thoughts like a wormhole visit you and confuse your heart, be imbued with memories of creation, of how you were created: "God took the dust from the earth and fashioned the man of God". When can you forget about yourself? Then you forget about yourself when you break away from the earth, and if you never separate from the earth, but grow together with the earth, then you walk on the earth, rest on the earth, and judge on the earth. Whatever you do on earth, great or small, you are always reminded of your insignificance.

"God fashioned man, dust from the earth." A beautiful belittling, and the remembrance of it is in accordance with nature. If (Scripture) said: “God fashioned man by taking (something) from heaven,” when would we look at him (heaven) to remember (our) nature? The reminder of our nothingness is under our hands and feet. Lean down to the earth and understand that you are created from what is related to the earth and what is low in you. What in the world is more miserable than us? What can humiliate us more than ourselves?

And God fashioned man. Expression "sculpted" does not at all reveal to us the process of God's action in relation to man. "Forged by God". Did He not fashion it as one molds out of clay, or as one casts out of copper? But the molding of the statue and the casting of plaster reproduce only the outer side. You probably noticed that every statue expresses characteristic features. The statue of a warrior expresses courage; the bronze figure, which is given the form of a woman, conveys femininity; or else the statue expresses something else, in so far as art is capable of reproducing, through imitation, the characteristic traits of character.

The modeling done by God is quite different. He molded a man, and His creative power, starting from the inside, arranged all the internal organs in a strict order. If I had enough free time to explain to you the structure of man, you would comprehend by your own example divine wisdom, (manifested) in you, for man is truly a microcosm (small world), and those who called him by this name did the right thing. How many studies are devoted to this issue! The works of physicians in physiology, compiled by gymnastics teachers of the manual, which speaks of the ratio of body parts, their symmetry and the distribution of muscles - all this testifies to the modeling of a person. Where can I find such words with which I could accurately convey how much is contained in a single expression: "He fashioned"? As for the public, you yourself know this, even if I don’t say anything about it.

God created man to stand straight. He gave you a direct position as an advantage over other living beings.

Because He intended to give you an exceptional ability. All other living beings are cattle, their bodily structure corresponds to what they were born for. The cattle was born to graze, therefore his head is tilted down, and his gaze is turned to the stomach and to what is under the stomach, since the limit of happiness for cattle is the filling of the stomach and enjoyment. Man, on the other hand, does not look at his stomach, his head is at the top and set straight in order to look at a height related to man. His eyes are not down to the ground. So do not act contrary to nature. Fix your gaze not on the earthly, but on the heavenly, where Christ is. "If you have risen with Christ, Scripture says, then seek the things above, where Christ is.”. That's how they molded you. This modeling itself teaches you the purpose for which you were born. You were born to look to God, not to crawl on the ground; not enjoy the pleasures of cattle, but prepare yourself for the Kingdom of Heaven. That's why "The wise man has eyes on his head" as the wise Ecclesiastes says. Who doesn't have eyes in their head? "On the head"- this is in order to contemplate the higher. On the contrary, whoever contemplates not the heavenly, but the earthly, his gaze is fixed on the earth.

The eyes are rounded. The head is on the shoulders, but does not hide in them, so as not to be humbled, it rests on a worthy elevation - on the neck. Above - the head, above - and two looking eyes.

Wouldn't one eye be enough for me?

But two eyes can replace each other, so that if one is damaged, the other can come to the rescue. In addition, vision in one eye is poor; on the contrary, the (visual) imprint formed from two sources becomes more distinct. The views directed forward slide along the walls of the nose, and when they go beyond them, they merge together. Like a stream of water, two glances come from two sources (sight), one from one, the other from the other, but soon, merging, they unite. The gaze, which has become one, is naturally stronger.

What is the proof that the gaze becomes one?

Don't you notice that the old people do not see what is near? Since the forked gaze is weak, he does not see what is close. And where the views merge together, there is, as it were, a visual flood, in which the perception of sensible things becomes more distinct.

And how many protectors are around the eyes?

Inside is a shell (χιτων), but it is not enough: after all, it could not be dense. If it were dense, it would interfere with vision. It had to be transparent and light. In any case, one shell is transparent, the other thin; one is crystalline, the other is horn-shaped; outer - thicker, inner - thinner, so as not to interfere with the passage (look). And the third is crystal-like, in order to capture the image and be transparent. The eyelid serves as protection; it is a veil and a veil, a kind of habitation and refuge. A hand can block (eyes). But while waiting for it to rise, the eye may lose sight. The eyelid is located very close to the eye, located above it. As soon as it senses danger, it immediately protects the eye like a veil. That is why, the pupil under the protective cover is always difficult to touch. Of all our organs, only the eye, hidden under the cover of the eyelid, wants to remain inaccessible. It is surrounded by eyelashes. For what?

To make the closing of the upper and lower eyelids more accurate, because the eyelashes, like shoelaces, cross with each other. In addition, they drive away small insects and do not allow dust to settle on the pupil, which different reasons may lose sight. This is a kind of guard placed around us with eyelashes. This protection is pleasing to the eye with external outlines and is beneficial.

The eyebrow hanging over the eye is a kind of elevation for directing the gaze in a straight line.

What is the evidence for this? When you want to look into the distance and, bending your hand, put it to your eyebrows, why are you doing this? In order that the gaze directed upwards does not accidentally scatter, but with the help of the applied hand, it receives the desired direction and rushes forward, and so that the vision corrected in this way is more accurate and sharp. Through the application of the hand, the gaze is directed along the desired path. Eyebrows at the same time direct the gaze, and do not allow the sweat that has come out during hard work to drip (on the eyes) and interfere with vision. This is why the eyebrows serve as a kind of protective wall.

What vinedresser can so well set up his vineyard, with a rampart around it, so that no stranger can get in, and so that this place is inaccessible to the streams of water surrounding it, as the Lord did by building a fence of eyebrows? How carefully He drew their contours for our benefit, distributing them on both sides of the nose, emanating from a single joint, so that the sweat would flow along the edges (of the face) and not cause inconvenience to the farmer, and so that it would not be necessary to take the hand from the vineyard to wipe the sweat; while the sweat flows down its own paths, since the Creator from the very beginning indicated channels for downward flow, the eye can freely fulfill its purpose.

The second conversation is about a person.

Although God created man from the earth, and flaming fire by His servants(Heb. 1:7), but still, people have the ability to comprehend and know their Creator and Creator. For He blown into his face, that is, he put something from His own grace into a person, so that a person would know similar things like that ... Man was created in the image of the Creator, more honored than the sky, more than the sun, more than the heavenly constellations. For what heaven is called “the image of the Most High God”? What image of the Creator do the sun, or the moon, or other stars have in themselves? They are given inanimate and material bodies, albeit transparent ones; they have neither understanding, nor arbitrary movements, nor autocratic freedom; on the contrary, they are slaves of proper necessity, according to which they always revolve around the same thing.

Homilies on Psalms.

St. John Chrysostom

These words are meaningful; they contain much that is amazing and exceeds the human mind. "And created, - it is said, - . As with all visible creatures, I showed that the Creator of all kinds does not do everything the way people do, so that His indescribable power is revealed in this, so now it also appears in the creation of man. Look: He founded the earth on the waters, which the human mind cannot understand without faith; He, we have shown, when he wants, makes all beings do contrary to their properties. The same thing, as divine Scripture now shows us, was also at the creation of man. "Creation, it says, God of man, dust from the earth. What do you say: taking dust from the ground, He created man? That's right, he says. And it’s not just said: he took the “land”, but - "feather", that which, so to speak, is the lightest and most insignificant thing in the earth itself. Does this strike you as unusual and strange? But if you think about who the Creator is, then you will no longer disbelieve the event, but you will marvel and bow before the might of the Creator. If, however, you decide to judge this according to the considerations of your weak mind, then, surely, you will come to such an idea that there can never be a body (human) out of the earth, but there will be either a brick or a tile, but not such a body. You see that if we do not take into account the power of the Creator and do not moderate our own, so weak, conclusions, then we will not be able to comprehend the height of what has been said. These words require the eyes of faith, and are so spoken out of great condescension to our weakness, because the very expression: "God created man and breathed in", unworthy of God, but the divine Scripture speaks of it this way for our sake and our weakness, condescending to us, so that we, having been rewarded with such condescension, could ascend to the height (of the true concept). "And created, - He speaks, - God of man, dust from the earth. From this follows, if we pay attention, an important lesson of humility. When we think about what our body was originally formed from, then no matter how much we frown our eyebrows, we must humble ourselves, humble ourselves; reflecting on our Nature, we learn modesty. That is why God, who cares about our salvation, directed the tongue of the prophet to our admonition. As the divine Scripture said before: "God create man, in the image of God create him, and" gave "to him" all "power" above the visible, so that a person, not knowing the composition of his nature, does not dream high about himself and does not transgress beyond his limits - it, having begun to speak again (about the creation of man), shows both the method of its formation and the beginning of being, - from which i.e., and how the first man was created. If even after this instruction, which showed (to man) that he was originally composed of the same earth from which (came) plants and dumb animals (although the form of creation and the incorporeal essence of the soul gave him, according to the love of God, a great advantage, because as a result this he received rationality and dominion over everything) - so if, having learned this, a man, by the seduction of the serpent, dreamed of equality with God - he, created from the earth - then what madness we would not have reached if the blessed prophet satisfied with the first story, and in the new story did not tell us everything in detail?

Thus, knowledge of what originally we received the composition of our being is a very useful enlightenment. "And make, - said, - God of man, take up dust from the earth, and I will blow into his nostrils the breath of life.”. (Moses) used such a rude way of speech because he spoke to people who could not hear him otherwise, as it is possible for us; and in order to show us that it was pleasing to the love of God to make this, created from the earth, partaker of the rational being of the soul, through which this animal appeared excellent and perfect. "And I will blow, - He speaks, - in his face the breath of life". That is, the breath imparted life force to the creature created from the earth, and thus the essence of the soul was formed. Therefore (Moses) added: "and there was a man in my soul I live"; created from the finger, having received the breath, the breath of life, "I live in my soul". What means: "I live in the soul?" Into the acting soul, which has the members of the body as instruments of its actions, obedient to its will. I don’t know how we have perverted the order and the evil has intensified to the point that we force the soul to follow the desires of the flesh, and we force the one who, as a mistress, should both preside and command, being lowered from the throne, to obey the whims of the flesh, forgetting her nobility and advantage ( before the flesh). In fact, think about the order of creation (man), and consider what he was before the inspiration of the Lord, which became for him the breath of life - “And I live in my soul?” He was just an image, soulless, inactive and good for nothing, so that all the advantage that exalts him so much lies in that breath of God in him. And so that you understand this not from what happened then, but from what is happening every day now, think about how ugly and unpleasant this body is when the soul leaves it. And what do I say: ugly and unpleasant? How terrible, stinking and ugly it is, whereas before, when the soul ruled it, it was bright, pleasant, very handsome, imbued with reason and possessed a great ability to do good deeds.

Conversations on the Book of Genesis. Conversation 12.

"And created, - said, - God of man, dust from the earth. See the difference from the very beginning of the speech. Blessed Moses, when he wanted to show us how all other creatures were created, said: “God said, Let there be light, and there was light; let there be firmament"; and: "let the water gather", and: “Let there be lights; let the earth bring forth herbs"; and: ; and: "Let the earth bring forth the living soul". Do you see how everything was created by the word? Let us now see what he says about the creation of man: "and God created man". See how by this adaptability, in the words that he used for our weakness, he shows both the method of creation (man) and the peculiarity, that is, that he, speaking humanly, was, as it were, formed by the hands of God, about which another prophet says: "your hands make me and make me"(Job 10:8). After all, if God simply commanded a man to appear from the earth, tell me, would this command not be fulfilled? But in order to teach us the everlasting lesson in the very image of creation - not to dream of ourselves beyond measure, for this (Moses) tells about everything with such thoroughness, and says: "God created man, dust from the earth".

In this very thing consider the honor (provided to a person). God takes not just the land, but "feather", the thinnest, so to speak, part of the earth, and this very "dust from the ground" turns into a body by his command. Just as He created the very essence of the earth from non-existence, so now, when He willed, "dust from the ground" turned into a body. Here it is appropriate to exclaim in the words of blessed David: "Whoever speaks of the power of the Lord, all His praises are heard"(Ps. 105: 2), because He made such an animal out of dust, elevated (it) to such an honor, and at the very beginning he already does so many good deeds, showing His philanthropy in everything. "And I will blow, - He speaks, - in his face is the breath of life: and there was a man living in my soul". Here some fools, carried away by their own considerations, not thinking about anything decently to God, not paying attention to the adaptability of expressions (Scripture), dare to say that the soul came from the essence of God. Oh fury! Oh madness! How many ways of perdition the devil has opened for those who want to serve him! And to understand this, look at the opposite paths these people are taking. Some of them, seizing on the expression: "Vdunu", they say that souls come from the being of God; others, on the contrary, assert that they turn even into the essence of the lowest wordless ones. What could be worse than such madness? Since their minds were darkened and they did not know the true meaning of Scripture, they rush, like those who have lost their spiritual eye, into opposite abysses, some elevate the soul above what it deserves, while others lower it below what is proper. If because Scripture says: "I will blow it in his face" If they want to ascribe their mouth to God, in that case it will be necessary to give Him their hands as well, because it is said: "make a man". But lest we ourselves, wanting to expose their idle talk, not be compelled to say indecent things ourselves, let us leave their insane and extremely reckless teaching and follow the indication of the divine Scripture, which explains itself, if only we do not attach importance to the rudeness of expressions, but we will have in view of the fact that the cause of such rudeness of words is our weakness. Otherwise, that is, without such an adaptation of words, it would be impossible for human hearing to receive them. Therefore, reflecting both on our infirmity and on the fact that the words (Scriptures) refer to God, let us accept these last words as it is proper to speak of God, not attributing to the Divinity a bodily form and an aggregate of members, but thinking about everything in a Godly way. The divinity is simple, uncomplicated, has no form, therefore, if we intend, judging by ourselves, to ascribe to God the totality of the members, then we will imperceptibly fall into Hellenic wickedness. So when you hear Scripture say: "God make man", understand these words in the same sense as the expression: "Yes there will be" also when you hear that God “I will blow into his face the breath of life” Understand that, just as He created incorporeal forces, He was so pleased that the body of man, created from dust, should have a rational soul, which could use bodily members. This body, having been created by the command of the Lord, lay like an instrument that needed a mover, or rather, like a lyre that needed someone who, with the help of his art and mind, could use his limbs like strings, lift up a good song to the Lord. "Vdunu, - He speaks, - in his face is the breath of life. And be a man in my soul I live ". What means: "I will breathe in the breath of life?" That He willed and commanded that this created body should have the vitality that this animal has "be ... I live in the soul", that is, active and able to show its art through the movement of members.

See also in this the difference between the creation of this wonderful rational animal and the creation of the dumb ones. About them God says: "Let the waters bring forth the living souls"- and immediately animated animals came out of the waters. And with respect to the earth again in the same way: "Let the earth bring forth a living soul". It was not so with a man, but first a body is created from dust, and then a life force is given to it, which constitutes the essence of the soul. This is why Moses also said about the dumb, "his blood is his soul"(Lev.17:11) . And in man there is an incorporeal and immortal essence, which has a great advantage over the body, and just such as it is fitting (to have) for the incorporeal over the body. But, perhaps, someone will say: why, if the soul is higher than the body, the lower is created first, and then the higher and most important? Do you not see, beloved, that it was the same with the (other) creature? The heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, and all the rest, as well as the foolish animals, were already created, and after all of them, man, who was to rule over all these creatures. In the same way, at the creation of man himself, the body first appears, and then, what is more precious (his), the soul. Just as the dumb ones, destined both for his benefit and for his service, are created before a person, so that the one who was supposed to use them has a ready service, so the body is created before the soul, so that when, according to the inexpressible wisdom of God, the soul is created, you can she had to show her activity by moving her body.

Conversations on the Book of Genesis. Conversation 13.

St. Gregory the Theologian

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.

The soul is the breath of God, and being heavenly,

it undergoes a mixture with dusty.

It's a light in a cave

yet divine and inextinguishable.

For it is not fitting for the image of the great God to be destroyed ingloriously,

how reptiles and foolish animals are destroyed,

though sin tried to make him mortal...

The Word, taking a part of the newly created earth,

immortal hands made up my image

and gave him life, because she sent a spirit into him,

which is the stream of the invisible Deity.

Theological Poems (On the Soul).

St. Gregory of Nyssa

And God created man, a finger [lifted] from the earth, and I breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and there was a man living in the soul

God took the dust from the earth and molded man. In this word I find two affirmations: that man is nothing and that man is great. If we consider one nature, then he is nothing and deserves nothing; but if you look at the honor that is given to him, the man is great.

…God created the inner man, shaped the outer man. Design is applicable to clay, creation - to the image. So He formed the flesh, but He created the soul.

…Earlier it is simply said that God created; here it is said how He created. If (Scripture) simply said that God created [man], you might think that He did it in the same way that animals, beasts, grass, plants were created. To avoid such inclusion of man in the class of animals, the word of God reveals the art used for you: God took the dust from the earth.

About the creation of man.

One of those who lived before us, namely, those who studied the principles, decided to assert the following: that souls, like some kind of society, exist by themselves; and as if for them there are examples of vice and virtue; and as if the soul, abiding in goodness, remains unconnected with the body; and as if, if it deviates from communion with goodness and acquires a striving for earthly life, then in this case it is connected with the body. Others, keeping to the order described by Moses in the dispensation of man, say that the soul is second in time after the body. Because first God, taking dust from the earth, framed the man (Gen. 2:7), and then animated him by inhalation, then on this basis they prove that the flesh is preferable to the soul that has entered the previously created flesh. …The teaching of both is equally unacceptable.

But our doctrine, I think, should go to the truth by the middle way between these assumptions, and it consists in this. It should not be assumed that the souls, as the pagans deceive themselves, first rotated in the universe, and then, burdened with some kind of vice, were unable to move along with the speed of the pole and fell to the earth. It should also not be said that man was first created like a statue of clay and that a soul was created for this statue. For in such a case intelligent nature would be less worthwhile than a creature of clay.

Since man, consisting of soul and body, is one, we assume one common principle of his composition, so that he is neither older nor younger than himself, and in him not first the bodily, and then the other. On the contrary, we affirm that the foreknowledge of God's power, in accordance with the teachings outlined somewhat above, brought into being the entire fullness of human nature ... In the creation of each part, we do not oppose one to the other - the soul to the body and vice versa - so that a person, separated by a difference in time, was not put at odds with ourselves.

About the constitution of man.

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Art. 7:16-17 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 commanded the man, saying, You shall eat of every tree in the garden, but you shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day that you eat of it you will die by death.

About Adam

And after the beautification of everything that happened was also approved by the Artist Himself, the time finally came for the creation of that for the sake of which everything was brought into being, I mean man: for it really should have been that the Creator of all things, being good by nature, or, better, being goodness itself, as it is, was known to us. It was necessary that the earth be full of those who would be able to glorify Him, and that from the beauty of creatures the glory of the Creator of everything should be seen, as it is written (cf.: Rom. 1, 20); for, as the prophet Isaiah says, You did not do it in vain, that is, the earth but for living(Isaiah 45:18). So, it was necessary to form a rational animal on it, after all that served to amuse him and seemed well-made appeared beforehand. Therefore, having shown in advance the earth and the sky, and all that is in them, in a proper adornment, God proceeds to create man, whose existence He had in thought before that. And every other creature He created at once by His command and brought into being by His word as God. Inasmuch as man is a truly good-looking and god-like animal, then, lest it seem that he, a semblance of the highest glory, is created in the same way as that which is not the same as him, God honors him with the creation of a preliminary council and personal participation. Having formed the figure of his body from the earth, He makes him a rational animal and, so that he stands out from all the rationality of his nature, he immediately designated him an incorruptible and life-giving spirit, for it is written: and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Then he honored him with paradise of sweetness and granted him power over everything that is on earth, made him the head of the floating and flying ones, subdued herds of wild animals to him, even subjugated the breeds of poisonous animals, along with others, to him. And in order for a person to have fear, He commanded him to obey natural laws. So, man was a reflection of the highest glory and an image of godly power on earth. But since he who has attained such glory and sweetness, in any case, should have known that he has God as his Primate, King and Lord: then, lest from an excess of prosperity he very easily fall into the thought of liberation from the power and predominance of the One who has power, He he immediately gave him the law and, as the immediate consequence of his crimes, he placed a punishing threat. As long as there was one and only one person, there was still no way to sin on earth. And so that he would be under the law, a certain kind of keeping the commandment was also invented for him: saying: from every tree in the garden you will eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil do not eat from it, for on the day that you eat from him, you will die the death (Gen. 2:16-17).

Glafira, or explanations of selected passages from the Pentateuch of Moses.

St. Ambrose of Milan

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.

So, the soul is not blood, for the blood is bodily; the soul is not harmony, for even such harmony is bodily; and not air, for it is one thing - a blowing spirit, and another - the soul; neither fire nor entelechy. The soul is a living soul, for Adam became a living soul because the soul gives life to the insensible and lifeless body and rules over it.

About Isaac, or the soul.

St. Ignaty Brianchaninov

The action of the Creator during the creation of a man-husband is depicted in the Holy Scripture as follows: God created man, I took dust from the earth, and I breathed into his face the breath of life: and there was a man, I live in the soul (Gen. 2, 7). This image of the creation of man shows in him the most excellent and closest creation to God. Man is not produced by a single action, as other creatures were produced, but is formed and created gradually. The Creator of the world for the creation of the earth, sky, huge luminaries, countless plants and animals used His single word; The Creator of man appears first as speaking in Himself, then acting; first forming the body, then breathing the breath of life into the person's face. By creation itself, the dignity of the human body is incomparably higher than all other bodies, and the soul is incomparably higher than all the souls of animals, the souls that the earth produced from itself at the command of the Creator (Gen. 1, 24). But the first beginning of man - dust. The thought of this beginning should serve as an inexhaustible source of humility for us! The soul from the first visible action, testifying to its presence in man, is called the breath of life; its very inspiration is related to the face of a person, as to that part of the body, which alone primarily serves as a mirror of the soul, expressing the nature of its movements and sensations. The whole person is named living soul, because, upon the union of the soul with the body, he became a single being, consisting of soul and body, but a being in which the soul has complete predominance [The thoughts of this article are borrowed from the Notes on the book of Genesis by His Grace Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow]. The body is the home of the soul, its garment, its instrument. This is what the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers call it. The two supreme Apostles called him theirs hut(2 Pet. 1, 13, 14; 2 Cor. 5, 1-4 according to the Russian translation). The body is clothing and at the same time the instrument of the soul. “The soul is surrounded and clothed by the members of the body,” said St. Macarius the Great. “The soul,” says St. John of Damascus, “acts through the organic body, gives it life, growth, feeling and the power of birth.” "She uses the body as a tool." Such a conception of the relationship of the soul to the body is natural: it flows from the constant experiences of life, from our very sensation.

The pagans believed that the human soul is a particle of the Divine. The thought is false and very dangerous, as containing blasphemy! We considered it necessary to dwell on it in order to protect our brethren from it: because many members of modern society, having learned from the Book of Genesis that God breathed the breath of life into the face of man, recklessly conclude from this about the divinity of the human soul by its very creation, therefore, by her nature. Holy Scripture directly testifies that man is completely God's creation (Genesis 1:27; Matt. 19:4). Thy hands create me, and make me(Ps. 118, 73), - prayerfully cries out this intelligent creature to its Creator, at the suggestion of the Holy Spirit, the only one who can reveal to man his beginning and the image of this beginning. Of course, this cry of prayer - the cry of the soul interceding for itself and for its body - is by no means the cry of one body. The Orthodox Eastern Church has always recognized man as a being created according to soul and body, but capable both in soul and body of being a partaker of the Divine Nature, of being God by grace. The Monk Macarius the Great says: “O God’s inexpressible goodness, as if Samago gives Himself to believers, so that in a short time they would receive God as their inheritance and God would dwell in the human body and make it a good dwelling for Himself! As God created heaven and earth for man to live on them, so he created the human body and soul in His dwelling, in order to live and rest in the body, as if in His house, with a beautiful bride, that is, with a beloved soul, in the image of His creation . hoop you(2 Cor. 11, 2), - says the Apostle, - To the only Husband present a pure virgin to Christ. And packs: His house is Esma(Heb. 3:6). It is as if a man in his house with all diligence treasures all good things: so the Lord in His house, that is, in soul and body, collects and deposits heavenly spiritual wealth. Below wisdom with their wisdom, below understanding with their reason, they could understand the subtlety of the soul, or say how it exists, except for those to whom, through the Holy Spirit, comprehension and accurate knowledge of the soul is revealed. But you think here, judge and listen, and hear that it is. That one is God, but she is not God; That is the Lord, and she is a slave; He is the Creator, and this creature; That Creator, and she is a creature: there is no similarity between the nature of That and the sow. But God, by His boundless, inexpressible, incomprehensible love and kindness, was pleased to choose this very intelligent creature [in], precious and fair, to choose for Himself a dwelling, as the Scripture says: In a hedgehog to be for us a firstfruits by His creation(James 1, 18), to speak wisdom, and His message, to His own dwelling place, and to a pure bride. St. John of Damascus, writer of the 8th century, in his book "Accurate Orthodox faith”collected the opinions of the most famous Holy Fathers who preceded him on the subjects of Christian Theology, why, citing here his teaching on the soul, we cite together the teaching of St. Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Maximus the Confessor and other greatest Doctors of the Church. “God,” says St. John, “created nature contemplated by the mind, that is, the angels and all the heavenly orders, whose nature, without a doubt, is reasonable and incorporeal, that is, incorporeal in comparison with gross matter. For the Deity alone is in the proper sense immaterial and incorporeal. God also created sensible nature, that is, heaven, earth, and everything in between. And He created the first nature close to Himself, for rational nature, which is comprehended by one mind, is close to God; and the other, as subject to the senses, he created in all respects very far from Himself. But it was necessary to appear a being mixed from these two natures, which would show the great wisdom and generosity of the Creator to one and the other, and, as the God-speaking Gregory says, was, as it were, a kind of union of nature visible with invisible. Here, by the word should, I mean the will of the Builder: for it is for God the charter and the most appropriate law ... Thus, from the visible and invisible nature, God created man with His own hands in His image and likeness; from the earth He formed a body, and a soul, gifted with reason and mind, informed man by His inspiration... The body and soul were created together... God created man blameless, right, loving goodness, alien to sorrows and worries, shining with all perfections, overflowing with all blessings, as if some second world - in the great small, like another angel worshiping God; He created mixed from two natures, a contemplative of the visible creature, a mystery of the creature, comprehended by the mind, the king of everything on earth, subordinate to the Supreme King, earthly and heavenly, temporal and immortal, visible and comprehensible to one mind, as something in between great and low; - He created the spirit and together the flesh, the spirit to receive grace, the flesh as a warning of pride, - the spirit so that he stood firm and glorified his Benefactor, - the flesh so that he was subjected to suffering, and, suffering, did not forget himself and was enlightened, if he thought of exalting himself by his greatness; created by the animals placed here, that is, in real life, and relocated to another place, that is, to the future eternal life, and - which is the top of the mystery - a being adored for its adherence to God, and adored by the communion of Divine illumination, and not being transformed into God's Essence.

The repetition of the breath of the incarnated God during the re-creation of man explains the breath of God during the creation of the human soul. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, having accomplished our redemption and preparing [according to the explanation of the blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria] humanity to receive the Holy Spirit, stood in the midst of His disciples after His Resurrection, breathed and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit(John 20, 22), who soon descended on them with a noise from heaven, as if from a rushing mighty breath of the wind(Acts 2, 2). This second breath explains and indicates that at the first breath there was a descent of the Holy Spirit. Divine Grace poured out abundantly on the soul of the primordial at its very creation; the soul of the primordial was predominantly alive, as moved, enlightened and controlled by the Holy Spirit. This is convincingly proved by the very events that followed the creation of the first man. St. Macarius the Great says: “Just as the Spirit acted in the Prophets and taught them, and was inside them, and appeared outside of them: so it is in the reasoning of Adam [This is the name of the first person. However, in the Hebrew language to which this word belongs, it is a common noun, and “Adam” means “Man” in general], whenever he wanted, he was with him and taught him ... All of him was the Word, and as long as he remained, keep the commandment, he was a friend God."

A word about a person.

St. Filaret (Drozdov)

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.

The image of the creation of man shows in him the most excellent and closest creation to God. It is produced not by a single action, but by a gradual formation, just as light is first created and then the luminaries are formed. The Creator of the world accomplishes everything with a single word; The Creator of man appears first as speaking in Himself, then acting, and finally bringing His breath into man. The thought of some, that the one acting in this case was the Son of God in the form of a man, is a conjecture that does not contribute either to clarity or to the authenticity of the legend of Moses. The Council of God (Gen. 1:26) assigns the creation of man to the Holy Trinity, and does not leave this operation to Her single person. With special features, the narrator describes the creation of the body and soul. For the external part of man, matter is taken from the earth, which he must possess, so that he has direct knowledge of the properties of things subject to him and the closest relation to the area of ​​\u200b\u200bhis dominion. And as this substance, formed by the Creator's own, so to speak, hands, was without a doubt the purest, most perfect and, consequently, the strongest, the power by which primitive man could act in visible world, should have been as great as the infirmity that holds a damaged person under the influence of the nearest and most distant beings of this world is now great. But the first degree from which the formation of such a powerful being begins is dust, and its Creator in everyday life is represented in the form skudelnik. This, according to the explanation made by Jeremiah to the Prophet (Jer. 18:2-6), marks the power of the Creator and the insignificance of the creature, no matter how great it may seem. The thought of origin from dust should be for a person an inexhaustible source of humility on earth and in heaven. God inhales in a man the soul is not so that for this reason it can be properly called with the pagans divinae particulam aurae, a particle of God's breath because the human living soul far from God life-giving spirit(1 Cor. 15:45) . This inspiration shows only the beginning of her being and the way of being, different from those souls that were previously created by the Word of God. Creative inspiration refers primarily to face man, as the seat of the instruments of feeling and the mirror of the soul. The soul from the first visible action, witnessing its presence, is called breath and, according to the exact translation of the Hebrew expression, the breath of life; for man really aggregates in himself the life of plants, animals, and angels, temporal and eternal life, life in the image of the world and in the image of God. For all that man became a living soul, that is, after the copulation of the soul with the body, he became a single being, according to the external life belonging to the circle of animals.

… In the history of the creation of the first man, one can find some transformations about Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul paves the way for this when he calls Adam image of the future(Rom. 5:14) but Jesus Christ, as opposed to first person, names the last Adam and the second man(1 Cor. 15:45,). So, the first Adam is the image of the second Adam. In the meaning of his name - the first scarlet according to the original substance of his body. Second clothed in a garment of flesh stained with blood suffering (Rev. 19:13) . In his origin and dignity of his being, the first Adam had no father but God, just like the second. The purest dust from all earthly nature, formed in the previous days of creation; likewise, the purest seed was extracted into the flesh of the Second Adam, in the person of the Virgin Mary wives from the whole of human nature, gradually purified to the extent possible in the previous preparatory times of the new creation. The creation of the first Adam was accomplished by a breath into the composition of the virgin earth breath of life from God; The incarnation of the Son of God was accomplished by the invasion of the Holy Spirit and the overshadowing of the power of the Most High (Luke 1:35), through which in the Virgin Mary the consubstantial Word of God was introduced into the virginal seed of the woman. In this way, the first man Adam became a living soul, The last Adam - life-giving Spirit. The first - in the image and likeness God, the last - the radiance of the Father's glory and most hypostasis image Him (Heb. 1:3).

Interpretation of the Book of Genesis.

Rev. Ephraim Sirin

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.

Rev. John of Damascus

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.

From the earth He formed the body of man, but gave him a rational and thinking soul by His inspiration. This is what we call the image of God... The soul was created together with the body, and not in the way Origen used to say, as if the soul was created first, and then the body.

Statement of Faith.

Rev. Seraphim of Sarov

For example, many people interpret that when the Bible says: God will blow the breath of life in the face of Adam, the primordial and created by Him from the dust of the earth, - as if it meant that in Adam before that there was no human soul and spirit, but there was only one flesh, created from the dust of the earth. This interpretation is incorrect, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the earth in the composition, as Father the Holy Apostle Paul states: May your spirit, soul and flesh be perfect at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And all these three parts of our nature were created from the dust of the earth, and Adam was not created dead, but an active animal being, like other living on earth, animate God's creatures.

But here is the power, that if the Lord God had not then breathed into his face this breath of life, that is, the grace of the Lord God the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son and sent into the world for the sake of the Son, then Adam, no matter how he was he was absolutely excellently created above other God's creatures, as the crown of creation on earth, nevertheless he would have remained without the Holy Spirit inside himself, elevating him to God-like dignity, and would be like all other creatures, although they have flesh and soul and spirit belonging to to each according to his kind, but those who do not have the Holy Spirit within themselves.

When the Lord breathed into Adam's face the breath of life, then, according to Moses' expression, Adam I live in my soul, that is, completely like God in everything and such as He is, forever and ever immortal. Adam was created so far beyond the action of any of the elements created by God that neither water could drown him, nor fire could burn him, nor the earth could devour him in his abysses, nor the air could harm him by any of his actions. Everything was submitted to him, as the beloved of God, as the king and possessor of the creature. And everyone admired him as the all-perfect crown of God's creations. From this breath of life, breathed into the face of Adam from the All-Creative Mouth of the All-Creator and Almighty God, Adam became so wise that there has never been from the ages, no, and there will hardly ever be a person on earth wiser and more knowledgeable than him.

When the Lord commanded him to call the names of every creature, then he gave each creature such names in the language that completely signify all the qualities, all the strength and all the properties of the creature that it has by the gift of God given to it at its creation. It was by this gift, higher than the natural grace of God, sent down to him from the breath of life, that Adam could see and understand the Lord going to Paradise, and comprehend His words, and the conversations of the holy angels, and the language of all creatures and birds, and reptiles living on earth, and all that is now hidden from us, as fallen and sinners, and that was so clear to Adam before his fall.

The same wisdom, and strength, and omnipotence, and all other good and holy qualities, the Lord God gave to Eve, creating her not from the dust of the earth, but from Adam's rib in Eden of sweetness, into paradise, planted by Him in the middle of the earth. So that they could conveniently and always maintain in themselves the immortal, God-given and all-perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted in the middle of paradise the tree of life, in the fruits of which He enclosed the entire essence and fullness of the gifts of this Divine breath of His.

If they had not sinned, then Adam and Eve themselves and all their offspring could always, using the fruit of the tree of life, maintain in themselves the eternally life-giving power of the grace of God and the immortal, eternally youthful fullness of the forces of the flesh, soul and spirit and the unceasing agelessness of the infinitely immortal of his all-blissful state, even to our imagination at the present time incomprehensible.

When, by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - prematurely and contrary to the commandment of God - they learned the difference between good and evil and were subjected to all the disasters that followed the transgression of the commandment of God, they lost it. priceless gift the grace of the Spirit of God, so that until the very coming into the world of the God-Man Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God not too bad in the world , as Jesus is no longer glorified.

Conversation with Motovilov about the purpose of the Christian life.

Rev. Nile of Sinai

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.

Your letter is stated in this form: “If the seed sown in the ground did not rot, then there would be hope for the resurrection of the human body. But if a grain of wheat, as well as every seed thrown into the ground, rots and the human body turns into dust and ashes, then from what can I see that there will be a resurrection of human bodies? And I tell you this: read the beginning of the book of Genesis. And took "God came to dust from the earth, and created man" (Gen. 2:7). Wherefore, how is dust and earth different from dust and ashes? Just as at the beginning a body was prepared from the dust of the earth, and God animated it, and a man stood on his feet, so again, at the end of the present age, by the command and power of God, human bodies will rise from dust and ashes, having taken their souls, and will stand on their own feet. their own, to the glory and praise of the miraculously acting Creator of all kinds.

Letters to different topics. Samaritan Affonius.

Bliss. Augustine

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.

Before turning to the fact that God created man from dust, one usually asks: what kind of dust and what matter is denoted by the name dust? For the enemies of the Old Testament, who understand everything in a carnal way and therefore always get into trouble, manage to find fault with the fact that God created man from dust. They ask why God created man from the ashes? Did He not have the best, heavenly matter, that He created a fragile mortal creature from earthly dirt? To those who do not understand, first of all, let it be said in response that earth and water in Scripture have many meanings, and dust is a mixture of water and earth.

We say that the human body assumed a corruptible, fragile and mortal existence after the fall; they are only horrified by the mortality of our body, which we deserve in punishment. But what is surprising in the fact that God (even if He created man from this dust of the earth) created his body in such a way that it would not be subject to corruption if a person kept the commandment of God and did not sin? And even if we call the image of this sky created from nothing or from formless matter, because we consider the Creator omnipotent, is it any wonder that the body created from some dust could be created by the omnipotent Creator so that no illness, no infirmity tormented a person before the fall, and no corruption destroyed it?

... We must understand this place in this way: from what was said about what God breathed into man living soul, and man became a living soul, one should not conclude that some part of the Divine nature has turned into the soul of man; and let us beware of saying that the divine nature is subject to change. In this error, the truth oppresses the Manichaeans most of all.

But since pride is the mother of all heretics, they dare to assert that the soul is the Divine nature. We will answer this way: therefore, the nature of God errs, suffers, is defiled by vices and sins, or, according to your words, is stained with the impurity of the opposite nature? And other things of the same kind, which it is impious to suppose concerning the Divine nature. And in another place of Scripture it is directly stated that the soul was created by the almighty God and therefore is not part of God or the Divine nature. Thus, the prophet says that He who created the soul for everything, He also created everything; and elsewhere: "Who created the soul of man in him".

…Written: And he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. If until then he was only a body, now, one must understand, the soul has united with the body. Either the soul was already created earlier, but dwelt in the mouth of God, that is, in His truth and wisdom. However, it cannot be said that when God breathed it in, it separated from him in place: for God is not contained in any place, but is everywhere. Either the soul was created only when God breathed into His creation a living soul, so that this breath means the very action of God, by which He created the soul in man by the spirit of His power.

About the Book of Genesis against the Manichaeans.

After His resurrection, when Jesus appeared to His disciples, He said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit(John 20:22) . It was said that the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. He, saying this, he blew. Thus, He showed that He Who, with His breath, revived the first man, and created him from dust, and with His breath revived his members, it was He who breathed in the face of the disciples so that they would rise from filth and renounce filthy deeds.

Treatise on the Gospel of John.

Bliss. Theodoret of Kirsky

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.

I think about the hands of God - not as parts of the body, but as His creative power. Indeed, according to the madness of [the Syrian heretic] Avdey, the incorporeal and indescribable being [of man] is not polysyllabic, but simply, formless, devoid of an image and contains everything in itself. But we know the story told by Moses that God took dust from the earth and made a man. I, examining the meaning of Scripture, believe that the Lord of all things has a different plan for the dispensation of human nature. This is evidenced by great prophet[Moses]. He says that the Lord of all things created man with a word, created with his hands. And I see in this not a forced creation, but a [certain] design and will. Here the act of the hands is not the creation of [human] flesh, but a more important consideration about the creation.

Just as, for example, one who now desires can create a fetus for himself in the [womb] of his mother, so human nature follows the rules that are originally established through this same nature. Thus, a person who wants to [create a fruit] will first call to his aid a human body [emerged] from the earth, and then the clay will become flesh and blood, skin, fat, tendons, veins, arteries, brain and bone marrow, the support of bones (skeleton) …

Collection of heretical fables.

Tertullian

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.

To begin with... let's declare that the soul is created from the breath of God, and not from matter. We rely on the undeniable evidence of divine revelation: And [the Lord] breathed into his [man's] face the breath of life, and man became a living soul that is, alive from the breath of God. And don't go back to it.

... You read that the voice of God also came to Jeremiah: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you(Jer. 1:5) . If God forms us in the womb, then initially He put a form in us: And the Lord God created man... and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Gen 2:7). God, knowing a person in the womb, knows him completely, and sanctifies you even before you come into the light.

About the soul.

Lopukhin A.P.

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 order to more clearly establish the connection of this verse with the previous ones, one should put the word “then” at the beginning of it, after which this entire period will take on a completely finished and definite form in the following form: “at the time when heaven and earth were already created, but did not yet appear no field plants and cereals, since there was no rain, there was no man yet, but a thick fog hung over the whole earth - then the Lord God created man.

God

Here, as in many subsequent sections of the Bible (Gen 3.1, Gen 3.9, etc.), both controversial (of course, only from the point of view of rationalists) magnification of God Jehovah and Elohim (from Hebrew) are connected together, which eliminates any thought about their fundamental difference, as the enemies of the Bible (i.e., representatives of negative, rationalist criticism) are trying to prove.

And the Lord God created man from the dust of the ground

The fact of the creation of man has already been mentioned earlier (Gen. 1.27) in the history of the creation of the world, but it was only mentioned in this general history of the universe, as an integral part of it; here it is conveyed in detail in the form of a special, independent subject of narration. “Having mentioned at the beginning of Chapter II. about what has already been said, Moses extensively expounds what was not said, ”says St. Ephraim the Syrian in his interpretation of this place.

(Gen 1.24).

On the other hand, in the sign of the materiality of the physical nature of man, the idea of ​​its destructibility or mortality is given. All this, according to John Chrysostom, teaches a wonderful moral lesson of humility: “in order to teach us the constant lesson in the very image of our creation not to dream of ourselves beyond measure, for this Moses tells about everything with such thoroughness and says: “ The Lord God created man from the dust of the ground"(Conversation on the book of Genesis XIII, St. Petersburg, 1898, 103 p.).

and breathed into his face the breath of life

Or, "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." Both the previous formation of the human body from the earth, and the present spiritualization of it by God cannot be understood in a crudely sensual sense: in the form that at first God allegedly fashioned a human figure from clay, and then took it in his hands and breathed on it. All such passages, on the advice of blessed Theodoret, should be interpreted “beautifully with God” (θεοπρεπως), that is, in accordance with the majesty, holiness and spirituality of God. In particular, the present place must also be explained in such a way that the outward appearance of man arose from the earth according to the creative verb of the Almighty. The idea underlying the entire biblical story about the creation of man is the intention to expose man as a connection between two worlds - the visible, physical and invisible, spiritual world, and to present him as the king of nature and the image of God himself on earth, and to affirm the truth of the immortality of the human soul ; the language in which such an abstractly sublime idea is expressed is the language of images and pictures, in which ancient mankind thought only in such cases. The very idea that a person is involved in divine life finds parallels in other places of Holy Scripture (Job 33.4; Ecclesiastes 12.7; Acts 17.25, etc.).

and man became a living soul

The combination of the higher divine principle (God's breath) with the lower material (dust from the earth) resulted in a person as a living soul, that is, as a conscious person, endowed with reason and free will. But at the same time, this person, this " alive soul» infinitely different from the God who is "life-giving spirit"(1 Corinthians 15:45) and refers to it as a pale copy to its incomparable original.

Hello, dear readers and viewers of the portal "". We continue with you a cycle of conversations on the Book of Genesis of the Holy Scriptures.

At the last meeting, we analyzed the 1st chapter of the Book of Genesis, which speaks of the creation of this world. Today we will look at how man was created, as discussed in chapter 2. But first let us deal with the first verses of chapter 2 and the important question about the Sabbath day connected with them.

What day of the week to honor?

In Genesis 2 it says:

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished His works which He did, and rested on the seventh day from all His works which He did. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, for in it he rested from all his works, which God created and created” (Genesis 2:1-3).

As you can see, the seventh day in the Holy Scriptures is highlighted in a special way. Why? The very context of the Book of Genesis explains this: it was the day of the completion of the creation of the world. And the seventh day was in the Old Testament just a monument to creation. And only in the law of Moses, in the 4th commandment, it says: “Remember the Sabbath day, in order to keep it holy ... Do not do any work on that day, neither you, nor your servant, nor your maidservant ... nor a stranger in your house” (Ex. 20:8;10).

But the Lord concludes the New Testament in His Blood, giving the Eucharistic Cup. And in the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians we read: “Whoever is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), he is a new creation. The old is gone, now everything is new.

Why am I paying attention to this? There is such a neo-Protestant group as the 7th-day Adventists, who, referring to the texts of Holy Scripture, but deeply mistaken, say that New Testament Christians should observe the Sabbath day - and completely deny the celebration of Sunday.

We honor celebrating

notice, that Orthodox Church never abolished the veneration of the Sabbath day. We honor Sabbath day, and the Resurrection of Christ celebrating- this must be remembered.

The Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Scriptures, in the Gospel of John, warns us: "Search the scriptures, for you think through them you have eternal life, and they testify of Me" (John 5:39). As you can see, brothers and sisters, the study of Scripture is not an idle business, it is not just a question of reasoning and philosophy. Our eternal fate, according to the word of Christ the Savior Himself, depends on how carefully and attentively we study it. I repeat them again: "Search the scriptures, for you think through them you have eternal life, and they testify of Me."

And what scriptures does the Lord speak to His disciples here? about the writings of the Old Testament. And as the Apostle Paul says, “all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for instruction, and for correction in righteousness” (cf.: 2 Tim. 3:16).

Soul and... blood

Let's go back to the text of Genesis:

“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” (Genesis 2:7).

We see that God creates man in a special way, not like the world. Earlier He commanded when He said to the earth, "Let it grow," when He said to the water, "Let it bring forth," when He said to the earth, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures, reptiles and animals." God creates man in a special way. We touched on this briefly when we read chapter 1, which says in verse 26, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Here, in Chapter 2, we will learn the details about the creation of man himself and his soul: “and the Lord God created man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,” and, as a sectologist, I pay special attention to these words.

Jehovah's Witnesses are deeply mistaken in believing that during transfusion blood is coming"transfusion of the soul"

Why? Because there is a sect "", which incorrectly answers the question of where the human soul is. They, referring to the 9th chapter of the Book of Genesis (which we, if the Lord permits, will consider later), say that supposedly the soul of a person is in the blood, therefore they forbid blood transfusion. I will digress and tell you a story. At the Center for the Rehabilitation of People Affected by Sects (it is located at the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in Stary Belyaev; in this center I hold a reception every Tuesday from 15 to 19 o'clock), one day a father came, whose daughter died. He was a Jehovah's Witness. Their family was driving a car and had an accident. The daughter with severe injuries was taken to the hospital, to the intensive care unit. The victim lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion. But an elder of Jehovah's Witnesses came to the hospital, sat near the door of the operating room and forbade the girl to transfuse blood, saying: “In no case should someone else's blood be infused. Trust in Jehovah, Jehovah will help you.” The girl died.

"Jehovah's Witnesses" are deeply mistaken, believing that when blood is transfused, there is a "transfusion of the soul." They accuse us that we are almost engaged in some kind of reincarnation - we “transfer souls” back and forth. This is complete nonsense! The soul is not in the blood! We see that the Bible says something completely different about the soul. By the way, shortly after that tragic incident, Jehovah's Witnesses, who have such a concept as "progressive revelation," changed their doctrine and began to teach that plasma, that is, a blood substitute, can be transfused.

Where is the source of this delusion of Jehovah's Witnesses, which leads to the fact that many people, without going through their life path and not coming to repentance, they perish for this life and for eternal life?

Only about animals in the 9th chapter of the Book of Genesis it is said that their soul is contained in their blood.

The fact is that in Hebrew there are three words with the meaning of "soul": "Nefesh", "Neshama" and "Ruach". The word "nefesh" is used in the Bible when describing how the Lord breathed into man the breath of life; and never in Scripture is it used in reference to animals. And only about animals in the 9th chapter of the Book of Genesis it is said that the soul of animals is contained in their blood.

"Flesh from flesh, bone from bone"

“And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).

God created for man all the conditions for well-being, he did not have any lack of anything. This, one might say, is what our modern world is striving for - obtaining all possible benefits. And to the first family, Adam and Eve, God said at the same time: you cannot eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You shall eat from every tree in the garden, but you shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:16-17).

Why such a ban? Because it was not useful for people to practically know what evil is. Theoretically, they knew what evil was, but in practice they should not have known. As it is today, unfortunately, in order for a person, for example, to know that it is impossible to kill, one must definitely kill in order to find out how bad it is.

“The Lord God formed from the earth all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air, and brought them to man to see what he would call them, and that whatever the man called every living soul, that was its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to all the beasts of the field; but for man there was not found a helper like him” (Gen. 2:19-20).

One of the Greek philosophers said: the wisest man on earth was the one who gave names and names to everything. Indeed, how perfect one had to be to name everything so wisely!

But man needed a helper to cultivate and maintain paradise, but among the animals there was none.

“And God said, It is not good for the man to be alone; Let us make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18).

God creates Eve from a rib because the rib is closer to the heart

The Lord God formed all the animals of the field and birds from the earth, and created Adam's wife from his rib. Why from a rib? There is such a folklore "explanation": they say, because the rib is the only part of the skeleton in which there is no brain. Of course, this is idle speculation. God creates Eve from a rib because it is the closest part to a man's heart. If, for example, the Lord created Eve from a cranial bone, then a woman could become proud and say: “I am your head.” If the Lord had created, for example, from the heel, then the husband would have said: “You are generally my heel.” But the Lord creates from the rib - the closest part to the human heart.

And when Adam saw the woman whom God had made for him from his rib, we read:

“And the man said, Behold, this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2:23).

"Flesh from flesh", "bone from bone" - what a poetic image! Yes, this is indeed a form of poetry. Therefore, when spring comes, one should not be surprised that men and young people read poetry and sing songs to women.

All people descended from Adam and Eve, and this is a fact of that single nature that unites all people.

So, as we see, God creates this world very well, He creates it in six days, in a special way He creates man, whose creation differs from the creation of animals and plants. And we see that nowhere in it does it say that the soul of man was somewhere before the creation of the world. This is an answer to those people who are also mistaken, the so-called neo-platonists and neo-hinduists, followers of the Roerichs, Blavatsky, who say that the soul was supposedly somewhere, and then it somehow inhabits a person. This, I repeat, is misleading. The soul of man arises at the moment of creation of man. Just like the soul of a child arises at the moment of conception of a child.

Brothers and sisters, how important it is to study the Holy Scriptures! And the Lord Jesus Christ instructs - I repeat these words again: "Search the scriptures, for through them you think you have eternal life, and they testify of Me." Any error in reading the Holy Scriptures leads a person to death, so let's be careful. And let us do what the apostle Paul calls for: “Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may know what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2). We see that in order to accept and perceive Holy Scripture in its inherent light, in the Holy Spirit, it is necessary to delve into the knowledge of the Fathers of the Church and into the text of Holy Scripture itself, so as not to fall on the path of error and fall away from the path of salvation.

In order to understand the very "mechanism" of salvation by which God in Christ saved man, we must first of all clearly know the structure of man itself. Only the word of God tells us true about the constitution of man.
A living person is tripartite, for he has: spirit, soul and body: "And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you in all its fullness, and may your SPIRIT and SOUL and BODY be preserved without blemish at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. .5:23).
Here it is extremely clearly stated that every living person has a spirit, soul and body, and the Apostle's heartfelt desire is expressed that the spirit, soul and body of believers be preserved in their entirety without blemish on the day of the appearance of our Lord.

So we see that man himself is tripartite, having spirit, soul and body, which make up his entire being, making man like the Triune God, because man was created by God in His own image and likeness: “And the Almighty [God] said: let us create man in Our image, as Our likeness..” (Gen. 1:26) (Hebrew).
A person is made tripartite by his main and FUNDAMENTAL PARTS, of which TWO are his spirit and his physical body. The main and most important part of a person is the human spirit - which contains the personality of a person.
The second fundamental part of a person is his body.
Of these two main, fundamental parts - the spirit and the body, the soul of a person consists of a part of the living body and a part eternal spirit- person's personality. It is in this way that the two main parts of a person, having entered into interaction - with each other (with a living body), already form the soul of a person.
Man has only two independent and fundamental parts - this is the spirit and the physical body, while the soul, composed of a part of the spirit of a person and a part of his body, is only an expression of the spirit-personality of a person already through his material body, while his body is alive.

To understand all this clearly, we will consider the very process of the creation of man: “And Yahweh-God created man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives (the spirit of lives), and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2: 7) (Hebrew ).
It says here that the Lord, like a potter, created man from the dust of the earth, that is, at first man was created by God, but the man himself was dead. Then the Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and only after that the man became a living soul.
Having breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life - the spirit of life, God thus revived the physical body of man. The revived human body entered into interaction with his spirit-personality. As a result of this partial fusion of the spirit and body of man, his soul was formed: "And man became a living soul."

BREATH OF LIVES
It must be said that the very word "spirit" in Hebrew is the word "ruach", which can be translated as follows: "spirit, wind, breath, air, breath." Reading the Old Testament in the original, one can only understand by the meaning of the context what is at stake: whether it is about the Spirit of God, or about the spirit of man, or about the wind, about the breath, about the breath, or about the air. After all, in Hebrew this word is not distinguished in any way even when it comes to the Spirit of God. Therefore, the word "ruach" - "spirit" can mean not only the Spirit of God, but also the spirit of man, as well as wind, breath, air, breath, or the spirit of any living being.
About the spirit of life (or the breath of life) it is said that God breathed it into the nostrils of man: “And Yahweh God created man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils - his BREATH OF LIFE (spirit of lives), and man became a living soul” (Gen. .2:7) (Hebrew). In the original in this text, the breath of life is conveyed in the plural - the word "chaim", the meaning of which is respectively: "breath of lives", "spirit of lives". For in Hebrew the word "chaim" is the plural of the word "life." Thus, God breathed the SPIRIT OF LIFE (plural) into Adam's nostrils, and not the spirit of life (singular), as it is translated in the Synodal Bible!
What does this Biblical fact tell us?
That the very SPIRIT OF LIFE, which the Lord breathed into Adam's nostrils, is the BREATH OF LIFE or the SPIRIT OF LIFE, thanks to which the life of the physical bodies of absolutely all the beings created by God that are currently in physical, material bodies is maintained.

And here is the word of Scripture pointing us to the same fact: “Because the fate of the sons of men and the fate of animals is the same fate: as they die, so these die, AND ALL HAVE ONE BREATH, and man has no advantage over cattle, because everything is vanity!” (Eccl. 3:19). Also, this text can be translated as follows: "AND ONE SPIRIT FOR ALL."
Solomon says: "And ONE BREATH FOR ALL (or one spirit for all), and man has no advantage over cattle." Man has no advantage over cattle precisely in the "breath of lives" that gives life to his physical body. It is in this that man has no advantage over cattle. After all, everyone has one breath of life, both in man and in cattle!
However, the very spirit-personality of a person has a serious advantage over cattle. After all, the spirit-personality is no longer the breath of life that God breathed into the nostrils of a person to revive his body, but it is already the spirit-personality of a person, which is FORMATED by God inside human being, according to Zech. 12:1, this will be discussed a little later.
It is precisely because man has the advantage of his human spirit-personality over the spirit of animals that man is placed to rule over the entire animal world: “And God blessed them (Adam and Eve), and God said to them: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and DOMINATE over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).
That is, thanks to his spirit-personality, which surpasses all the animals created by God, man is placed by God as the ruler over the entire animal world, which indicates to us that in Eccl. which contains the person's personality. Let me remind you that in Ecclesiastes 3:1 it is said: “THE ONE BREATH FOR EVERYONE, and a man has no advantage over cattle”.
We see that the advantage of man over cattle lies precisely in his human intellect, which today is two steps higher than the intellect of animals. Therefore, Eccl. 3:1 speaks of the breath of life that gives life to the physical body of man, in which man has no advantage over animals, for this breath of life is the same for everyone, both in man and in animals.

The “breath of life” that gives life to the physical body of any living being is one, unified breath of the LIFE of God for all creatures created by God that have a physical body. That is why this breath is called in Genesis 2:7 the breath of lives (plural). For it is this breath of lives, coming from God, that supports the bodily life of absolutely all beings created by God, who now inhabit physical bodies.
Thus, the very word of Scripture separates the spirit of lives, which gives life to the human body, from the spirit of man, which contains the very personality of man - his ego.

SPIRIT - HUMAN PERSONALITY
So, a living person is called in the Word of God a living soul, which implies the fact that only being alive in a physical body, a person has a soul, which consists of a part of the spirit and a part of the living body. Therefore, the soul of a person is located in order of seniority as follows: “and your (1) spirit and (2) soul, and (3) body” (1 Thess.5:23), that is, between the spirit and the body of a person.
But we should not confuse the spirit that God breathed into man's nostrils to revive his body with the spirit-personality of man, which is formed within man himself.
The prophet Zechariah writes: “The prophetic word of the Lord concerning Israel. The Lord, who spread out the sky, founded the earth and FORMED THE SPIRIT OF MAN WITHIN IT, says...” (Zech. 12:1). Here it has already been said about the spirit-personality of a person formed precisely inside a person, but not about the spirit - the breath of lives that the Lord breathed into the nostrils of a person - to revive the physical body of a person, which is indicated by the word “formed”: “THE FORMATED the spirit of a person inside him” .
About the same spirit of man it is said in another place of Scripture: “The lamp of the Lord is the spirit of man, testing all the depths of the heart” (Prov. 20:27).
Also, the Apostle Paul clearly says that the consciousness of a person belongs precisely to his human spirit, that is, the spirit-personality: “For who among people knows what is in a person? Only the HUMAN SPIRIT that is in him. So no one has known God, only the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11) (Greek). The apostle points out that knowledge itself belongs precisely to the spirit of a person, which is in him, which is inside a person, that is, inside the physical body of a person.
Thus, the very word of Scripture clearly separates the spirit-personality of a person from the spirit of lives, which God breathed into the nostrils of a person to revive his body. For at the moment of a person's death, it is the spirit of lives that gives life to the body of a person that returns to God, Who gave it: “And the dust will return to the earth, as it was; but the spirit returned to God who gave him” (Eccl. 12:7).

After the spirit of lives leaves the body of a person and his body becomes dead, then this is followed by the separation of the spirit-personality of a person from his already dead body. Separated from the dead body, the spirit-personality of a person descends underground - into the realm of the dead.
Our Lord Jesus followed the same path after His death on the cross.
On the cross, the Lord Jesus delivered into the hands of His Heavenly Father precisely the SPIRIT OF LIFE (the breath of lives), by which His Human body was alive and by which every physical body lives: “Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said: Father! INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT. And having said this, he gave up his spirit” (Luke 23:46). (Details in the article "Two real stories", in the section "Paradise of the underworld").
Having given on the cross into the hands of the Heavenly Father the SPIRIT OF LIFE, which, having left the body of Jesus, made His body dead, the Lord Himself came to life like this - by His Human spirit and descended into the underworld. That is, after His death on the Cross, having already become a spirit, like every person after his death, the Lord descended into the underworld with His Human spirit-personality.
The Apostle Peter speaks of this as follows: “For Christ also, in order to bring us to God, once suffered for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, having been put to death according to the flesh, BUT REALIZING BY THE SPIRIT, by which He descended and announced to the spirits in prison. ..” (1 Peter 3:18,19) (Greek).
The Apostle Peter says that after His death on the cross, the Lord descended into the underworld by His HUMAN SPIRIT and there proclaimed His victory over Satan. The Lord announced in the underworld His victory over all those who rose to the power of God, that is, the Lord announced His victory to the fallen angels and demons, some of whom are already in the underworld - in prison. Then Jesus ascended to the Paradise of the underworld and stayed there with the saved spirits of the righteous until the day of His resurrection, in His own physical body.

Being already resurrected in His physical human body The Lord appeared to His disciples, who were confused and frightened, for they thought that they saw a spirit: "They, being confused and frightened, thought they saw a spirit" (Luke 24:37).
The fear of the disciples of Christ was natural, because they all knew that Jesus had died, and therefore, when they saw the living Jesus, the disciples were afraid, because the disciples thought that they were seeing a spirit. It was only because of the accomplished fact of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross that the disciples mistook the resurrected Lord for a spirit. Please note that the disciples perceived the resurrected Christ not as a soul, but as a spirit, for they quite well understood the very structure of man - in contrast to modern Christians.
“But He (Jesus) said to them: Why are you troubled, and why do such thoughts enter your hearts? Look at my hands and at my feet; it is I myself; touch me and see; for the SPIRIT HAS NO FLESH AND BONES, as you see I have. And having said this, he showed them his hands and feet” (Luke 24:38-40).
Appearing to His disciples after His physical resurrection, the Lord Jesus clearly told them that His disciples were not seeing a spirit. As proof of all this, the Lord invites the disciples to feel Him and consider: "Touch Me and consider." Further, the Lord argues for the fact that it is He - Jesus - who is in His physical body before the disciples, with the following words: "For the spirit of flesh and bones does not have, as you see with Me."
The words of Christ: "The spirit has no flesh and bones" clearly show us that only the spirit of a being can be incorporeal, but not the human soul.
So, already from the words of Christ, we can know that only the spirit of a person can be incorporeal, but not his human soul. We can also know that the self-consciousness of a person, that is, his personality, is located precisely in the spirit of a person.

So, in the composition of a person there are two main parts - this is the spirit formed inside a person and his physical body. The physical body of a person is an earthen vessel, which is a container for our spirit-personality: “O man, in fact, who are you who argue with God? Will the stucco molding say to the blinder: "Why did you make me like this?" Or does the potter have no power over the clay, and from the same mass make one vessel for honorable use, and another for low? (Rom. 9:20,21) (Greek).
While the human body is alive, thanks to the breath of life from God, which gives life to the human body, then interacting with the human spirit, the living body forms a soul, where part of the spirit and part of the body are united into a single whole. Therefore, the human soul exists only as long as its physical body lives, but if the body dies, then the human soul itself dies and disappears. Details indicating that the soul does not exist without a living body, we will consider later.
When in the word of Scripture we are called to save our soul, then this salvation of the soul implies exactly the complete salvation of man - the salvation of the entire tripartite being of man - his spirit, soul and body (1 Thess. 5:23).

The Apostle Paul clearly told us about the fact that at its core a person has exactly two fundamental parts, in the following words: “The spiritual body is sown, the spiritual body rises. THERE IS A SPIRITUAL BODY, THERE IS A SPIRITUAL BODY” (1 Corinthians 15:44).
So the Apostle Paul clearly states that a person has two fundamental parts - TWO BODIES - a soul body and a spiritual body. From these two fundamental parts of man, his soul is composed - from their parts.

The spiritual invisible body of a person in Scripture is called the human spirit, in which his personality is located. The body of the soul is the physical, visible body of a person. After all, it is said: “And Yahweh-God created man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils - his breath of lives (spirit of lives), and man became a living soul” (Gen.2:7) (Hebrew). In this Biblical text, we are presented with the creation of man in two stages. For it is said that God first created man from the dust of the ground. That is, man had already been created, but he was dead, and in this dead state he was called by God only a man.
Then God breathed into the man's nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to life. And only when a person has already come to life - by the breath of life from God, due to the revival of his dead body, a person is already called in the word of God a living soul. That is, it was the revival of the dead human body that made a person a living soul!
The same fact is also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:44, where the Apostle Paul says that through our faith it is sown by us - into the death of Christ, namely our SOUL BODY: "A spiritual body is sown, a spiritual body rises." Saying: “The body of the soul is sown,” Paul thus points us precisely to the physical body of a person, for these are our physical, carnal bodies that were crucified, destroyed - in Christ on the cross. That is, it is our physical body that is sown in the death of Christ. If, however, we voluntarily sow our spiritual bodies into the death of Christ, thus rejecting our soul to the end, then in this way we already become Christ’s: “But those who are Christ’s have CRUCIFIED THE FLESH with passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24).
To crucify the flesh with passions and lusts means to be conformed to Christ in the likeness of His death: “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were immersed in His death? So we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, we too might begin to walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall certainly be united in the likeness of the resurrection” (Rom. 6:3-5) (Greek).
Only by being conformed to Christ in the likeness of His bodily death can we receive the fullness of the New Testament grace of God. In other words, only through faith, SOWING ourselves into the death of Christ - with our physical body and soul, we thus gain the SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE of entering the Kingdom of Heaven, while still on Earth.
Having sowed into the death of Christ - by the deeds of faith, our spiritual, natural life - brought up by the flesh and vigilant unceasingly in faith, we already become spiritual people living not by the flesh, but by our reborn spirit. That is, having sowed our natural life according to the flesh into the death of Christ, we acquire Church grace - by the Holy Spirit.
For, by the will of God the Father, we now unceasingly hold in the death of Christ our carnal life, the life of our “old” man. Our carnal life is in complete contradiction with the will of God, as the word of God testifies to us: “For those who live according to the flesh think about carnal things, but those who live according to the Spirit about spiritual things. Carnal thoughts are death, but spiritual thoughts are life and peace, because carnal thoughts are enmity against God; for they do not obey the law of God, YES AND THEY CANNOT. Therefore those who live according to the flesh CANNOT please God” (Rom. 8:5-8).

It should also be said that by calling the physical body of a person the body of the soul, Paul so emphasized the very connection of the living physical body with the soul of man. For only the life of the human soul depends on the life of the physical body of a person, because according to the word of Scripture, the soul of a person can exist only if there is a living physical body of a person.
That is why, speaking of God's salvation of the entire tripartite being of man, the Apostle Paul mentions the soul of man between the spirit of man and his body: at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23) (Greek).

SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY
So what does the human spiritual body look like?
The spiritual body looks exactly the same as the physical body of a person, because it was the spiritual body that served as the standard according to which our physical body was “blinded” by God. For spiritual body(for the spirit of man) his physical body is a perfect garment: “He clothed me with skin and flesh, he bound me with bones and sinews” (Job 10:11).
Therefore, without a physical body (in a spiritual body), the sinner is naked and anyone who sees him in the underworld (in the Kingdom of the Dead) will know everything about him, that is, he will know everything about his sins. For the physical body covers and hides (like clothes) the very inner essence of the human spirit. That is why it is said: “I advise you to buy from me gold purified by fire, that you may become rich, and white clothes to put on and not to see the SHAME OF YOUR NAKEDNESS, and anoint your eyes with eye salve so that you can see” (Rev. 3:18).
Here it is said about the spiritual nakedness of man, because God simply cannot call the nakedness of the physical body of man shameful, for God Himself created man naked: “And they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). Therefore, God calls shame the nakedness of the spiritual body of a person, which reveals a lot of sins of his flesh, which imprinted into the spiritual body of a person through the evil angelic nature of “sin”, thus defiling the soul and spirit of a person. From all of the above, we can conclude that the spiritual body of a person, in spiritual reality, looks the same as the physical body of a person.

So, a person has two fundamental parts: the spirit and the body, which, with the living body of a person, come into contact with each other and thus form the soul.
For example, if you take two glasses of the same size: one yellow (spirit) and the other blue (body) and combine them partially, overlapping each other, then at the place of their connection these glasses form a green color (soul). So having only two glasses we get three colors: yellow, green and blue - spirit, soul and body are similar.
If we separate the two original glasses: yellow and blue, then the green color will disappear and we will have only two glasses: yellow and blue. This example clearly shows us that the soul (green color) is not a separate, independent part of a person, which are his spirit and body. For the existence of the soul requires both the spirit of man and the living body of man.
If the body dies, then the soul also disappears, because the very connection between the spirit and the body is broken, and this connection is the soul, because only in this connection can the human soul exist.
That is why, calling us to save the soul, the Lord calls us in this way to acquire a new (sinless) body: “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mat. 10:28).
At first glance, it may seem that the Lord says that the soul has a separate existence from the body, but this is not so, because here the Lord connects the soul with the body, in the last part of this text, saying: “And be more afraid of Him Who can and soul and body to be destroyed in hell.” Speaking in this way, the Lord connects the soul with the body of a person, for the soul of a person cannot exist separately from his body, because the soul itself consists of a part of the spirit and a part of the living body. That is, in the Biblical understanding, the salvation of a person implies the salvation of his entire tripartite being, by replacing his corrupted body (with its nature “sin”) with a new sinless body - already at the first resurrection of the dead.

So, the self-consciousness of a person, that is, his personality, is in the spirit of a person.
When the spirit and the human body merge, a soul appears, which is also inherent in self-consciousness, but only because it includes a part of the spirit, which contains the very personality of a person - his "ego". That is, the soul, in fact, is the spirit of a person, which found its expression in the material world already through the physical body of a person, and therefore the spirit acquired the “color-hue” of the physical body itself, through the same expression.
This is similar to how a diver puts on a heavy suit, which significantly limits the movement of this person. However, it is the man himself who moves in the diver's spacesuit, but due to the restriction of him by the spacesuit, all his movements differ from the freedom of movement of a person who is without a spacesuit. In the same way, our human spirit-personality is expressed precisely through our body, which, unlike a spacesuit, a product of human hands, is completely in its structure and gives us a certain freedom of action.
Only now, through the physical body of a person, his own spirit-personality is expressed, just as the actions of the physical body of a person in this spacesuit are expressed through the movements of a person in a diving suit. That is why the very expression of the spirit-personality of a person, already through his physical body, is called in the word of Scripture the living soul, and the living physical body of a person is already called the soul body.

Again, let's return to the example with yellow and blue glasses. Let it be two round and flat glasses of the same size. If on the yellow glass (spirit) we superimpose blue glass (body) so that it completely covers the yellow glass (spirit), then the view from above, on this connection, will show only a single green color. That is, the very composition of such a green color will include yellow and Blue colour these two glasses, which in this merger became one single green color, thus losing their individual color.
In the same way, when a person's spirit and his living physical body merge, these two fundamental parts of a person merge into one single whole - INTO THE HUMAN SOUL. For although I say that the physical body of a person is, as it were, clothing for the spirit-personality of a person - for his spiritual body, but in fact the spiritual body of a person is the spirit of a person, which has all the same dimensions as the physical body of a person. Having a spiritual nature, the spirit of a person - his spiritual body, permeates his physical body, merging with it into a single whole and forming, in this merger, a new form - the soul of a person.
The human soul itself (green color) is actually the human spirit (yellow glass), only the human spirit has found such an expression (green color) through the human living physical body (blue glass). That is why the human spirit (yellow glass) in unity with the physical body of a person (blue glass) shows us a mixed, green color.
It is in this green color that the very unity of the human spirit with its physical body is expressed, because this unity already reveals the soul of a person, that is, it manifests the spirit of a person, the spirit already expressed through his physical body. For the human soul contains a part of the spirit and a part of the physical body, which is already manifested in green, which is the result of the merging of the human spirit (yellow glass) and his living body (blue glass).
So the human spirit (yellow glass), being expressed already through the living physical body of a person (which is blue glass), acquires with this expression a different color-hue - from the living body, so the “yellow” will already turn into a “green” color.

From all of the above, it becomes clear that the very soul of a person is only an expression of the spirit-personality of a person - which has already found expression through the living physical body of a person. The very “I” of our soul actually belongs to our spirit-personality, in which our “ego” is contained. Our feeling of our soul as the center of our whole being is in fact our feeling of our spirit-personality already “dressed” in a unique and perfect “suit” of the physical human body. This is how our spirit-personality became one with our physical body.
We have an experienced feeling of our being as a “living soul” from our birth, because due to our sinfulness we do not have the experience of feeling our spirit, because our spirit is dead for contact with the spiritual world, due to the nature of “sin” in our body.
However, even living in sinful flesh, which isolates us from spiritual reality, we can clearly know about the existence of our spirit - through the voice of our conscience and through intuition, which belong only to our human spirit.

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and penetrates BEFORE THE DIVISION OF SOUL AND SPIRIT, joints and marrow, and is able to discern the considerations and thoughts of the heart. And there is no creature hidden before Him, but everything is naked and open before His eyes: Let us give an account to Him” (Heb. 4:12,13) ​​(Greek).
It is said here that the word of God penetrates to the division of soul and spirit. That is, the word of God is able to separate our spirit from our soul. In other words, the word of God is able to separate our spiritual body - the spirit, from that part of the spirit that has become part of our soul, through merging with our physical body, and then there is a clarification of how all this happens.
The Word of God penetrates through the joints and the bone marrow, where the very formation of the soul of a person takes place - from a part of his spirit and a part of his physical body. Penetrating the essence of man, the word of God separates his spiritual body - the spirit-personality of man ( yellow), from his own soul (green color). Thus, we can understand that the word of God separates the spirit of man from that part of him that is part of the human soul.
Our soul, from our birth, is in bondage to the sinful flesh, which gained power over us through the angelic, fallen nature “sin”, which once entered the human body with the fruits of the forbidden tree, due to disobedience to God Adam and Eve. This evil nature “sin” mortified the function of the human spirit, and the human body gained power over the spirit-personality of a person, through the nature “sin”, which settled in the human body and became an indivisible whole with the human body.
After all, initially the spirit of a person led his entire being, but only until the time when the nature “sin” entered the body of a person, so the function of the human spirit was mortified and completely suppressed by the nature “sin”. After all, the nature “sin”, having entered the human body with forbidden fruits, killed the very ability of our spirit-personality to contact spiritual reality, and also gained the upper hand - over the entire three-part human being, through his own body, in which this nature “sin” settled. ".
Now the living word of God, penetrating into the heart of a person, separates his spirit and soul, through the impact on his conscience - on his spirit, prompting a person to realize his true position before God and condemn all his evil, natural deeds and intentions, prompting him to act only according to one's conscience - according to the knowledge of the spirit.

A living person is called in the Word of God a living soul, which implies the fact that only being alive in a physical body does a person have a soul, which consists of a part of his spirit and a part of his living body.
Being brought up under the influence of sinful flesh, our soul received a perverted development coming from sinful flesh, that is, it acquired a different upbringing - not from our spirit, which a person lived before his fall into sin. Therefore, in order to now save the entire tripartite being of man, with the salvation of God, a person must completely reject his soul, which has developed perversely, which is used to living under the rule of sinful flesh, being a slave of our sinful nature.
It is necessary for a person to reject the soul precisely in order to save his own soul, that is, to save his entire tripartite being: “He who begins to save his soul will destroy it; but whoever destroys her will revive her” (Luke 17:33). After all, having acquired a new sinless physical body - in the first resurrection of the dead, we will not acquire new soul, which would not know the natural connection with the sinful body. After all, our soul is our spirit-personality, expressed only through our physical body. That is why the renewal of our “old” soul is necessary, that is, the renewal of our spirit is necessary, since our spirit is part of our soul.
That is why, in order for us to acquire a new body, we must first learn to completely and constantly reject our sinful soul, keeping it so constantly in death. All those who have learned to constantly reject their "old" soul, holding it so steadily in the death of Christ, have also found the renewal of their mind - by the power of the resurrection life flowing in them by the Spirit of Christ, through their resurrected spirit - into their soul, as about This is what the Apostle Paul says: “Put off the old way of life of the old man, corrupted in deceitful lusts, AND RENEW THE SPIRIT OF YOUR MIND, and put on the new man, created according to God, in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:22-24).

Thus, the soul of a person is an expression of his own spirit-personality, this expression occurs through his living physical body. In this expression, the personality of a person always takes on the “color” of the very physical body of a person. That is why the nature “sin”, having got into our bodies and taking our spirit-personality into slavery, had such a deep and comprehensive influence on the very formation of our entire personality, thus “coloring” our spirit-personality in the “colors” of our sinful body - with all his sinful deeds, which, being committed, defiled our soul and our spirit.

So, a person consists of two fundamental parts: the spirit and the body. That is why only being alive, a person also has a soul, which is an expression of the very fusion - into a single whole, of the whole being of a person, his spirit and a living body of a person.
As soon as a person’s body dies, his soul also disappears, but the spirit of a person (containing the very personality of a person) remains forever, because the spirit of a person has an eternal nature, because the spirit of a person was created by an exact copy of the eternal Spirit of God the Father.
After physical death, each person becomes a spirit that no longer has a physical body. Each deceased is moved by God to the underworld, where he is already - in spirit (after his physical death), waiting in the kingdom of the dead for God's retribution - for the deeds of his life, lived by him in his human body.

A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE RESURRECTION
Here is another passage of Scripture clearly confirming all of the above. The prophet Ezekiel writes: “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and the Lord brought me out in spirit and set me in the middle of a field, and it was full of bones, and circled me around them, and behold, there were a lot of them on the surface of the field, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me: Son of man! Will these bones live?
I said: Lord God! You know it. And he said to me: Prophesy on these bones and say to them: "Dry bones! Hear the word of the Lord!" Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, (1) I will put the Spirit into you, and you shall live. (2) (A) And I will surround you with veins, (B) and grow flesh on you, and cover you with skin, (3) and I will put the Spirit into you, and you will live, and you will know that I am the Lord ”(Ezek.37:1 -6).
I specially divided this passage of Scripture into parts by numbering them.
The Lord said, "Thus says the Lord God unto these bones: Behold, (1) I will put the Spirit into you, and you shall live." That is, the Lord here speaks precisely about the spirit of a person formed by God inside a person. The Lord first of all speaks about the spirit of a person, in which his personality is located, so God connects the spirit of a person with his bone, but not only in this place.
In the Proverbs of Solomon it is said: “A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a despondent spirit dries up the bones” (Prov. 17:22). The words of Solomon: "A despondent spirit dries up the bones" clearly indicate to us the very connection of the spirit of a person with his own bones, for it is said here that sad state the spirit of a person negatively affects his bones. So we see the connection between the spirit and the bones of man.
Therefore, it is the spirit of a person, in which his personality is contained, that will revive the dead bones of a person - entering the dead bones, according to the word of the Lord: "I will put the spirit into you, and you will come to life." That is, into the dead bones, God will introduce the spirit-personality of each person to whom all these bones belong, in order to revive all those bones. After all, it is to DEAD AND DRY BONES that the Lord says: “The bones are dry! Hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will put the Spirit into you, and you shall live” (Ezek. 37:4,5).

(2) After these dry dead bones already come to life, that is, after the very spirit-personality of a person enters into these bones to revive them: (A) the Lord will overlay them with sinews, (B) and grow flesh and skin on them.
And only after that, when all the physical bodies belonging to the same bones have already been restored in this way, the Lord again speaks of the spirit; but not about the spirit-personality of a person, but about the SPIRIT OF LIVES, that is, about the BREATH OF LIVES: “Then He said to me: Prophecy to the Spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the Spirit: thus says the Lord God: come from the four winds, Spirit, and breathe on these slain, and they will come to life” (Ezek. 37:9).
Thus, we can understand that by saying to the dead bones: (3) "I will bring the spirit into you, and you will come to life" - the Lord did not say this about the breath of lives, which the Lord once breathed into Adam's nostrils to revive his physical body - at his creation. For here we are talking about the human spirit, about the spirit-personality of the person himself, which God formed precisely inside the person (Zech. 12: 1). This spirit-personality will revive dry bones by entering them.

We read further: “I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I was prophesying, (1.) There was a noise, and behold a movement, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. (2) (A) And I saw: and behold, the veins were on them, (B) and the flesh grew, and the skin covered them from above, but the spirit was not in them (that is, there was no breath in them - the breath of lives).
Then He said to me: Prophecy to the Spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the Spirit: thus says the Lord God: from the four winds, come the Spirit (from the four directions) and breathe on these slain, and they will live. And I spoke a prophecy, as He commanded me, (3) and the spirit entered into them, and they came to life, and stood on their feet - a very, very great host ”(Eze. 37: 7-10).

So, in this act of God, in which the prophet Ezekiel himself participated, we are presented with the PROCESS OF THE RESURRECTION of a person, as indicated by the words: “bones began to come together, BONE TO ITS BONE.” That is, the bones belonging to certain people began to approach and unite, which is clearly indicated to us by the words: “a bone with its bone.” All this movement and connection of previously dead bones occurred only after the spirit of people (spirit-personality) entered these bones, to whom these bones belonged - even during their earthly life.
As the Lord said, it happened, but notice how it all happened.
To revive the bones, the Lord did not resort to the help of the Spirit - from the four corners of the world, for God the Father Himself is the Father of spirits (Heb. 12: 9), which again indicates to us that the bones are connected with the spirit-personality of man - with the spirit, which God formed within man (Zech. 12:1). For the spirit-personality of man belongs to the spiritual realm of God the Father.
In order to revive the dead bones, God introduced into them the spirit-personality of each person, to revive these bones. After all, it was God who said to the bones: “I will bring the spirit into you, and you will come to life.” It was this introduction of human spirits into their dead bones that produced the effect that collected these bones.
The bodies of those people to whom these bones once belonged were formed from these bones. That is, having entered its dead bones, the spirit-personality revived the bones belonging to each person personally and collected them like this: “There was a noise, and behold, a movement, and the bones began to approach, BONE TO ITS BONE” (Ezek. 37: 7).

But for the revival of all these restored physical bodies, already covered with flesh and skin, but still dead, it took already BREATH
LIVES of the Holy Spirit - from the four winds or from the four directions, which points us to the four cardinal directions, that is, points to the material sphere of the Holy Spirit. For the physical body of man belongs to the material realm of the Holy Spirit.
Pay attention to the fact that here we are talking about the BREATH OF LIFE emanating from the Holy Spirit, which the Lord breathed into the nostrils of Adam, that is, the spirit of lives (plural) that gives life to all physical bodies of all living beings created by God.
That is why the Lord says: “Prophesy to the Spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the Spirit: thus says the Lord God: from the four winds (from the four directions) come the Spirit and breathe on these slain, and they will live.” And only after the prophet uttered the prophecy "the spirit (breath of lives) entered into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet."
Thus we see that the very resurrection of man takes place in two stages. These two stages may follow each other or take place almost simultaneously. For first of all, his spirit-personality returns to the body of a person, and only then his body is enlivened by the breath of lives, that is, the spirit of lives emanating already from the Holy Spirit. All this can happen almost simultaneously, depending on the will of God Himself.

We also see that the sphere of God the Father belongs to a bone in the human body, depicting the spirit-personality of a person. Thus, we can understand that the bones of the human body are the highest part of his body, followed by blood in seniority, and only then the flesh of the body. We also see that it is in the bones of a person that the very contact of the spirit-personality of a person with his living body takes place, thus forming the soul of a person.
We also see that the spirit of a person belongs to God the Father and the spirit of a person does not disappear anywhere, but after the death of a person it is separated from the dead human body and descends into the underworld, under the earth, where it remains. The spirit of a person can be claimed by God the Father and returned to his physical body.
The fact that all already dead people, deprived of their physical bodies, are currently alive, being in their human spirit in underworld the dead, it is clear from the words of the Lord Jesus: “And that the dead will be raised, and Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But God is not the [God] of the dead, but of the living, for with Him all are alive” (Luke 20:37,38). That is, the Lord says that, in the spiritual reality, controlled by God the Father, all those who have already died physically are still alive now - in their spirit.

All dead people are currently disembodied spirits that are gathered in the underworld, underground, the righteous in its upper part - in Paradise, and the sinners in its lower part - in a place of torment. The holy righteous, tested in the Old Testament and the wise virgins of the past centuries, will leave the underworld on the day of the first resurrection, on the day of the manifest appearance of Christ.
All the same, the saved people, like the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43), according to the sane righteousness from the Law, will remain in the Paradise of the underworld for another thousand years, until the second resurrection of the dead. Also, all sinners will remain in the underworld in punishment for another thousand years - until the judgment of God the Father, that is, also until the second resurrection.
We also found out that the breath of lives (the spirit of lives), to revitalize the human body, belongs to the Holy Spirit - His material sphere, and the very spirit-personality of a person belongs to the spiritual sphere of God the Father. It is these truths that are the keys or important concepts - complementing and revealing so many of the mysteries of God.

APPEARING CONTRADICTIONS
It must be said that there are texts in Scripture that seem to contradict the fact that the human soul is mortal and, as it were, contradict the fact that the soul does not have its own existence apart from the human body. For example, the well-known 15th Psalm: “For You will not leave my soul in hell and you will not let Your holy one see corruption” (Ps. 15:10). Here it is said that it is the soul of Christ that will not be left by God in hell and that His body will not see corruption.
The Apostle Peter quoted this passage of Scripture, applying it to Christ and supplementing it with his own testimony: “He (David) said before about the resurrection of Christ that His soul was not left in hell, and His flesh did not see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:31,32).
Quoting this Psalm, the Apostle Peter connected the fact that the soul of Christ was not left in hell, that is, in the underworld, with the fact that God raised this Jesus in His own Human body, to which they all are witnesses. Thus speaking, the Apostle Peter connected the life of Christ in His Human body with His soul, for the Scripture says that the soul and life of a person in his physical body are one and the same.
That is, to be a living soul means to live in a physical body: “And his soul draws near to perdition, and his life to those who kill” (Job. 33:22) (Hebrew). Here it is said that “the soul of a person is approaching DEATH”, and then a clarification follows - what exactly is this approach of the soul to its death: “his life has approached - to those who kill it.” That is, the very physical life of the one we are talking about here has already come to an end. Therefore, approaching the death of the soul - this is the approach to the end of the very life of a person in his physical body.
Therefore, saying that the soul of Christ was not left in hell, the Apostle Peter speaks specifically about the life of Christ in His Human body, which was not left by God in hell, but very soon was returned to the Human body of Jesus after His death. After all, in full agreement with the word of this prophecy about Christ, which David spoke about Him, Jesus resurrected in His Human body after a very short period of time, about 40 hours later. So that even the Human flesh of Christ did not have time to undergo corruption, for all that short period of time in which the Lord Jesus remained His HUMAN SPIRIT in the underworld.

The soul-life itself, both of man and of animals, and indeed of every living being, is most closely connected in Scripture with blood: “FOR THE SOUL OF EVERY BODY IS ITS BLOOD, IT IS ITS SOUL; therefore I said to the children of Israel: do not eat the blood of any body, for the soul of every body is its blood: whoever eats it will be cut off” (Lev. 17:14).
The Lord says, "Because the soul of every body is its blood." Notice here the soul is presented to us as the blood of the body. We know that if all the blood leaves the human body, the person will die. Therefore, saying that the soul of any body is its blood, the Lord calls the soul literally: the LIFE of the physical body of a person, for without blood a person is simply unable to live physically.
According to the same word of the Lord, it is blood that is the soul of any body, that is, blood is the very life of the human body. Thus we see that the soul is closely connected with the very life of the human body, for the very life of the human body is signified by the soul.
For the same reason, it was precisely the sacrificial blood, which depicted the substitutionary life-soul of Christ, that a person was cleansed of his sins: » (Lev.17:11). That is, the purification of the soul took place precisely through the replacement of the soul-life of the sinner with the soul-life of a pure sacrifice, put to death for the sin of the sinner.

The Lord Jesus shed His Blood on the Cross to cleanse us from our sins, but the Lord died on the Cross not from the loss of His Blood, because the Lord Himself gave the spirit of life, which gave life to His body, to His Heavenly Father: “Jesus, having cried out with a loud voice, said: Father ! into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he gave up his spirit” (Luke 23:46). It says here: “having said this, (Jesus) gave up the spirit,” that is, the Lord gave up exactly the breath of lives, or in other words, He gave up the spirit of lives.
So, the Lord Jesus died on the cross not from the loss of His Blood, but by Himself giving the spirit of life to God the Father. After all, even earlier the Lord had said to the people: “Because the Father loves Me, I give My life in order to receive it again. No one takes it from Me, but I myself give it. I have power to give it, and I have power to receive it again. This commandment I received from my Father” (John 10:17,18).
This is how we understand that the Lord Jesus did not die on the cross from the loss of His Blood. However, everywhere it is said that the Lord redeemed us with His own blood. And that's right! Since the blood is the soul of the body, which the Lord laid down for us: "We know love in this, that He laid down His SOUL for us: and we must lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16). That is, the Lord laid down His life for us, for the soul is the very life of the human body, and the very life of the human body is inextricably linked with the blood of the body, since the blood of the body, the life of the body and the life of the soul are Biblical synonyms. That is why we can say that the Lord Jesus laid down His SOUL for us, or we can say that He shed His BLOOD for us.
Thus, our very redemption through the sacrifice of Christ in 1 John 3:16 is presented to us by the fact that the Lord Jesus laid down precisely His soul-life for us and thus redeemed us with His blood. After all, it is in the blood that the soul-life of a person is: “But Christ, the High Priest of future blessings, having come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands, that is, not of such a dispensation, and not with the blood of goats and calves, but with HIS BLOOD, once entered the sanctuary and I have obtained ETERNAL REDemption” (Heb. 9:11,12).
Therefore, it is said: “HE (Christ) will look at the exploit of his soul with contentment; through the knowledge of Him, He, the Righteous, My Servant, will justify many and bear their sins upon Himself” (Is.53:11). It was by giving His Soul-life that the Lord redeemed us thus from eternal death.

So, the soul of a person is closely connected with the life of his own body, which is why the soul will be destroyed along with the body if the human body itself is destroyed. From this it follows that the soul of a person is mortal, like his body: “Eat unleavened bread for seven days; From the very first day, destroy leaven in your houses, for whoever eats leaven from the first day until the seventh day, THAT SOUL WILL BE EXTERMINATED from the midst of Israel” (Ex. 12:15). That is, such a violator of the commands of God will be put to death by the Lord Himself.
Here are other places from Scripture, where it is said that for certain violations of the commands of God: “that soul will be cut off from his people” (Numbers 9:13, Numbers 15:30, Lev.22:3, Lev.19:8 , Lev.23:30). All this clearly testifies to us that the human soul is mortal, just as the human body itself is mortal, for the soul-life is connected with the very life of the human body.

CONFUSED TRUTH?
The question may arise: “Why is everything so confused in the word of Scripture?”
Here is the answer to this question itself: “Many will be cleansed, whitened, and refined [in temptation]; but the wicked will do wickedly, AND NONE OF THE WICKED WILL UNDERSTAND THIS, BUT THE WISE WILL UNDERSTAND” (Dan. 12:10). It speaks of wise men who are wise not by their own human wisdom, but by the wisdom of the Spirit of God. For the word of Scripture contains precisely spiritual wisdom, because it is written by the Spirit of God - through people moved by God (2 Pet. 1:21).
That is why, in order for a believing person to comprehend already spiritual - Divine wisdom, he needs to have both the baptism with the Holy Spirit and be awake in his saving faith.
Spiritual warfare is being waged on this earth. The supernatural God is also opposed supernatural beings- evil angels - the fallen sons of God. And as in any war, there is a certain military secret strategy that must be hidden from the enemy, otherwise the enemy will be fully prepared for the upcoming attack. And in spiritual warfare, a similar thing happens when all the actions of God are hidden from the opponents of God, all this in order to keep the opponents of God in complete ignorance.
After all, each descendant of Adam is a bearer of the nature of “sin”, in his physical body and by his very nature he is an enemy of God, and only by fully standing on the side of God are the mysteries of God torn off by the Holy Spirit.

Spiritual warfare is waged only through people and, as it were, on a chessboard, where behind the pieces themselves are all those who control them. Therefore, by hiding the truth from people who have not fully consecrated themselves to God, the Lord makes them ignorant of the very word of Scripture. This spiritual darkness that reigns today in visible Christianity is already revealed even by ordinary, unbelieving people of this world.
For the very knowledge of Scripture is most closely connected with the EXPERIENCE of spiritual life - according to the word of Scripture. Hence, anyone who does not live according to the word of Scripture is simply unable to understand the word of God, since he does not have spiritual experience, which alone makes the word of Scripture quite clear and understandable for him. All this is connected with the unwillingness of believers to fully consecrate themselves to God in order to follow His holy will to the end.

At the moment, in this spiritual warfare, only the Holy Spirit practically operates (in the name of all the Three Persons of the Godhead and through believers - saints and faithful to God), who is also the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1:11). Christ Himself is a 100% expression of God the Father (John 14:9). That is why it is said: “.. This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, expressing: not with an army and not with power, but ONLY by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zech.4:6) (Hebrew).
Consequently, spiritual warfare is waged ONLY by the Spirit of God and only through people who are completely consecrated to God, who allow the Spirit of God to be released in this way already, so to speak, on the “chessboard” itself - through themselves - through “chess pieces”. Thus, using a person who completely belongs to Him, the Spirit of God makes very “strange moves”, followed by a complete defeat of the enemy.
That is why all people who are not consecrated to God - acting by nature (not consciously), can only help Satan, because acting according to the carnal mind, they act at the level of the natural human mind, which belongs to the nature of Satan. It was this evil nature of Satan that man accepted through forbidden fruit- from the tree of knowledge.
After all, every person is not fully consecrated to God, whether he wants it or not, but he lives according to the flesh in sin, and in this state he simply cannot be used by God in His spiritual warfare, because the very thinking of a natural person is at enmity with God. For while living according to the flesh, we think according to the flesh, and such thoughts are hostile to God and everything spiritual.
That is why it is said: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, on the things of the spirit. Carnal thoughts are death, but spiritual thoughts are life and peace, because carnal thoughts are enmity against GOD; for they do not obey the law of God, nor can they. Therefore, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:5-8).
This passage of Scripture already explains this text: “But a sincere person DOES NOT ACCEPT that which is from the Spirit of God, for it is MADNESS FOR HIM; and he cannot know it, because it requires spiritual judgment” (1 Corinthians 2:14) (Greek).
And here is the practical situation in which the aforementioned truth was realized. When Paul defended himself, setting out his story of salvation before the governor Porcius Festus, king Agrippa and Verenice, this is what happened: “When he (Paul) defended himself in this way, Festus said in a loud voice: You are crazy, Paul! Great learning drives you to madness” (Acts 26:24). The ruler Festus, being a natural, sincere person, considered what the Apostle Paul says as madness, for spiritual truths were simply inaccessible to him (a natural person).

That is why, in order to participate in spiritual warfare - on the side of God, it is necessary to completely reject your soul in order to arm yourself with spiritual weapons: “For walking in the flesh, we do not fight according to the flesh. After all, the weapons of our warriors are not carnal, but strong by God to the destruction of fortifications: we destroy thoughts and every lofty thing that rises up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought - into obedience to Christ ”(2 Corinthians 10: 3-5) (Greek).

SPIRIT OR SOUL?
Now we'll look at two more Scriptures: "And as her SOUL WENT OUT OF HER, for she was dying, she called his name: Benoni..." (Gen. 35:18). And again: “And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and THE SOUL OF THIS GUY RETURNED INTO HIM, and he revived” (1 Kings 17:22).
In the two above-mentioned texts of Scripture it is said that in one case the soul went out, and in the other the soul returned, and therefore it can be assumed that the soul has its separate existence from the body: after all, the soul either goes out or returns.
A similar story of resurrection, when the soul of the deceased returned, is recorded in the Gospel of Luke: “While He (Jesus) was still speaking this, someone comes from the house of the head of the synagogue (Jairus) and says to him: Your daughter has died; don't bother the teacher.
But Jesus, hearing this, said to him: Do not be afraid, only believe, and she will be saved. And when he came into the house, he did not allow anyone to enter, except Peter, John and James, and the father of the maiden, and the mother. Everyone wept and wept for her. But He said: Weep not; she is not dead, but asleep. And they laughed at Him, knowing that she was dead. He, sending everyone out, and taking her by the hand, exclaimed: Maiden! Get up. And HER SPIRIT returned; she immediately got up, and He ordered to give her something to eat” (Luke 8:49-55).
In this case, it is already said: “And her spirit returned; she immediately got up," while it is said about the boy: "And the soul of this boy returned into him, and he revived" (1 Kings 17:22).
So the spirit or soul returned?
First of all, the spirit-personality of the daughter of Jairus returned to her body, into which only then the spirit of life for the body returned - from the Spirit of God, giving life to the body. It is possible that in this case all this happened almost simultaneously. As a result of the revival of the girl's body by the SPIRIT OF LIVES, her soul also came to life. Exactly the same process of resurrection went through the lad, about whom it is said that "the soul of this lad returned into him, and he came to life."
For, in both cases, we are presented with the natural process of the resurrection of a dead person, because the Apostle Paul says about this resurrection of a youth (a similar thing happened with the prophet Elisha 2 Kings 4:16-37): “Women received their dead resurrected” ( Heb. 11:35) (Greek).

So, in all such cases, when the soul returned or the spirit of a person returned, it is said about the return of the spirit-personality of a person to his already dead body and about the revival of this already dead person by the spirit of lives.
In some cases, such a resurrection of the dead, our attention is focused on their soul, that is, only ON the revival of the deceased, VISIBLE TO EVERYONE. Therefore, when it is said “her soul came out of her”, then it is said that at that moment the very body of a person was leaving exactly the SPIRIT OF LIFE, which had previously life-giving his physical body. Also, when it is said: “the soul of this child returned to him,” the Lord indicated to us that this was the FULL restoration of the life of a tripartite being who had died before that person.
In other cases, we are already shown the INTERNAL "mechanism" of the resurrection of a dead person with a detailed mention of all the spiritual processes that occur during the resurrection of a person. All this we could observe in the prophet Ezekiel.

All the above cases of the resurrection of the dead, recorded in Holy Scripture, are Biblical facts about the resurrection of the dead. The resurrection of a dead person will always take place in the same perfect Way of God. We have already examined this Path in detail above - in the prophet Ezekiel, where the resurrection of a whole horde of dead people was presented to us and the very sequence of God's actions in this process was shown in this way. That is, this is how we are shown the very sequence of step-by-step steps of God's perfect Path, following which God resurrects dead people (Ezek. 37: 7-10).
Therefore, when the word of Scripture speaks of the return of the soul to the body of a dead person, then we are told about the COMPLETE restoration of the entire tripartite being of man: his spirit, soul and body, by a certain Path of God - the Path of resurrection.
I repeat that when a person is resurrected, his spirit-personality returns, then his physical body is enlivened - by the BREATH OF LIFE of God. Animated in this way, the human body enters into living contact with the human spirit. It is in this way that the human soul is fully restored and revived. Also, this process of resurrection of a person can almost simultaneously return both the spirit of a person and the breath of life, to revitalize his body.

SOULS UNDER THE ALTAR
There is another passage of Scripture that we will also consider: “And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the SOULS OF THEM that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they had. And they cried out with a loud voice, saying: How long, O Lord, Holy and True, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who live on earth? And white robes were given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest for a little while longer, until both their co-workers and their brothers, who would be killed like them, would complete the number” (Rev. 6:9-11).
To understand what is said in this passage of Scripture, we first need to understand that the book of Revelation is a prophetic book, the prophecies of which are written in a special language - spiritual symbols. Therefore, here the altar is the Earth on which the Lord offered Himself as a sacrifice. Therefore, the souls under the altar are the holy righteous, who are currently underground - in the Paradise of the underworld.
Here, these righteous people are presented to us as “souls”, precisely because there are now a great many people-spirits under the earth, both righteous and sinners, who, having become spirits after their physical death, now reside in the underworld. After the judgment of God the Father, all sinners will be thrown into the lake of fire, where they will remain as spirits for all eternity, for their physical body will burn.
In the underworld there is Paradise and there are lower places for the punishment of sinners, where they already suffer, both believing people who have not found the full salvation of God, and sinners who have become unclean spirits for all eternity because of their sins. Therefore, calling the people who were killed for the word of God souls, which are at the moment spirits, the Spirit of God thus, through the Apostle John, indicated to us that we are talking here about the saved holy righteous who are waiting for the first resurrection of the dead, in which they will all acquire a new body, and with it the restoration of their souls.
That is why they are given white robes: “And white robes were given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest for a little while longer, until both their employees and their brothers, who would be killed, like them, would supplement the number” ( Rev. 6:11).
White robes are given only to those who are holy and faithful to God, who have become so through faith, thus gaining the complete salvation of their entire tripartite being - the salvation of their souls. After all, the white clothes given precisely in ADVANCE to the souls of the slain, anticipate their resurrection in a physical body, which, having gained, they will again find their soul.
That is, having called these righteous souls, which at the moment are spirits, the Spirit of God so singled out certain people to us, from all that mass of people-spirits of the righteous and sinners who are now in the underworld. Thus, we are only indicated to the saved righteous of the Old and New Testaments (New Testament wise virgins) who are now in the Paradise of the underworld, who will all rise precisely at the first resurrection of the dead, having acquired new bodies, and with them the restoration of their souls.
That is why calling for the full salvation of all believers living in recent times, on the eve of the second, obvious coming of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord speaks to all Christians of spiritual Laodicea as follows: “I advise you to buy from me gold, refined by fire, so that you will be enriched, and WHITE CLOTHING to put on and so that the shame of your nakedness is not visible, and the eye anoint your eyes with ointment, that you may see” (Rev. 3:18).

Everything about what is said above is necessary for us to know in order to understand the very process of God's salvation of man. After all, the Lord Himself pointed out that only the one who listens and certainly understands the word of God that he hears can be fruitful for God. For the very teaching of Christ has a point application to the old manifestations of the natural soul. That is why it is necessary to understand both the structure of man and the teaching of Christ in order to apply the teaching of the Lord effectively - for its intended purpose. That is, only those who UNDERSTAND the word of the teaching of Christ so acquire complete salvation, and thus become the one who does all the will of God.
Here is the testimony of Christ Himself about this: “He who was sown on a good land, THIS IS THE WORD HEARING AND UNDERSTANDING, WHO THEREFORE BEARS FRUIT and creates one hundred, another sixty, another thirty” (Mat. 13:23) (Greek). Amen.

ADDITIONS

CONSEQUENCES OF TRANSFORMATION IN THE DIVINE
Some more things need to be clarified. The transformation (transformation) that once took place in the Divine indicates to us internal organization person and explains the device itself. The Beginningless Deity now exists in Three Forms, Two of which are new. But this does not mean that the Deity acquired Two new Personalities.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, and from eternity He was inseparable from God the Father and He is the Spirit of Christ: “If anyone does not have the SPIRIT OF CHRIST, he [and] is not His” (Rom. 8:9). Also, the Son of God dwelt inseparably in God the Father: “No one has ever seen God; The only begotten Son, who exists in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed” (John 1:18). In these passages of Scripture, the complete unity of the Godhead existing in Three Persons is indicated.
Here is the testimony of the Lord Himself on this matter: “Jesus said to him: How long have I been with you, and you do not know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, show us the Father?” (John 14:9).

The Son of God was always one with the Spirit of God: “To this salvation belonged the searches and investigations of the prophets, who foretold of the grace that was appointed for you, investigating to what and at what time the SPIRIT OF CHRIST, which was in them, pointed out when He foretold the sufferings of Christ and the glory that follows them.
It was revealed to them that not to themselves, but to us, what was now preached to you by those who proclaimed the gospel by the HOLY SPIRIT sent from heaven, into which the angels desire to penetrate” (1 Peter 1:11,12). Here Peter ascribes the actions of the New Testament Spirit of Christ to Old Testament, but the actions of the Old Testament Holy Spirit to the New Testament, indicating to us that this is the same Spirit of God.

Having passed the transformation (transformation), the Deity acquired Two new Forms, which have a beginning. Pay attention: not Two new Persons of the Deity, but Two new Forms. Only the Form of God the Father remained without beginning. This is how the Divine Family was formed, where God the Father is the Father of this Family, where God the Holy Spirit is the Mother of this Divine Family, and God's Son is the Son of the same Family.
God acquired new Forms only in order to start creating His own kind. (Details in the article: "The Trinity of God - the nature of the Divine").
Each of the Three Persons of the Godhead owns a certain area in the creation of God. Everything spiritual belongs to the sphere of the Father, and He is the Father of spirits: “Besides, [if] we, being punished by our carnal parents, were afraid of them, then shouldn’t we be much more subject to the FATHER OF SPIRITS in order to live?” (Heb. 12:9).
Everything of the soul belongs to the sphere of the Son of God. Everything corporeal, everything material belongs to the mother sphere of the Holy Spirit.
That is why the Son of God combines in Himself both the power of God the Father and the creative power of the Holy Spirit, being thus the Creator of everything. God's creation. For He has in Himself the fullness of the power of God the Father, and He also has in Himself the very creative power of the Holy Spirit - ruling in the material world, combining both the Father and the Holy Spirit in Himself, and thus being the Creator of all things.

All Three Persons of Deity are One in Their Divine nature and in Their desires and purposes. And therefore the Trinity of the Divine will always be reflected and expressed in each Their Form and in each sphere belonging to Them - spirit, soul and body. For example, if we consider the human physical body itself, then it also consists of three main parts: bones (spirit), blood (soul) and flesh (body). And this also reflects the tripartiteness of the Godhead.
Even in the human body, which belongs to the material sphere of the Holy Spirit, the bone will always represent the sphere belonging to God the Father - that is, the spirit (the main part of man), the blood - the sphere of the Son, that is, the soul. Due to the fact that the soul sphere belongs to the Son of God, He shed His precious Blood in order to redeem and save the soul of man.
“For the soul (life) of every body [is] its blood, it is its soul; therefore I said to the children of Israel: do not eat blood from any body, because the SOUL OF EVERY BODY IS ITS BLOOD: whoever eats it will be cut off ”(Lev. 17:14), - here the blood is connected with the soul of the body as well as itself the soul is connected with the life of the body. That is, the soul here is life in a living body.

The flesh of the body, like the body itself, belongs to the realm of the Holy Spirit, that is material world therefore the human body is the temple of the Holy Spirit: “Jesus answered and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews said to this: This temple took forty-six years to build, and in three days will You raise it up? AND HE SPEAK ABOUT THE TEMPLE OF HIS BODY” (John 2:19-21).
That is why the Lord took a rib from Adam and rebuilt it into Eve, this shows that the rib - bone, belongs to the sphere of the Father, that is, to the spirit of man, and God the Father himself initially contained in His Form both the Holy Spirit and the Son of God. That is why the very bone of the body is, as it were, the “spirit of the body”, its main part, which contains all three parts of the body - spirit, body and soul (in that order), just like God the Father, before the transformation that took place in it, contained both the Holy Spirit and the Son of God.
Therefore, by taking Adam's rib, the Lord took not only a part of his bone, but also a part of Adam's spirit. Therefore, the spirit of Eve is also part of the rebuilt spirit of Adam. And just as God the Father initially contained the Holy Spirit in Himself, so Adam's bone initially contained both the spirit of Eve and the flesh of Eve, and therefore her soul. All this is evident from the words of Adam, which he said when the Lord brought Eve to him: “And the man said: Behold, this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she will be called woman, for she was taken from man (Gen. 2:23).
But the Lord took only a rib - Adam's bone. However, Adam says that Eve is also flesh of his flesh: "This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Therefore, the bone of Adam, figuratively depicting the spirit - the spiritual sphere of the Father, contained in itself the flesh of Adam (which is in the material sphere of the Holy Spirit), just as in the beginningless Form of God the Father was contained from eternity the Personality of the Holy Spirit, who once acquired a new Form - The form of the Holy Spirit.

Are such complex explanations necessary? - you say. They are simply necessary to find answers to the most important questions - related to eternity. Please note, I am talking about the Forms of the Divine, not Their eternal Divine Persons. Since of the Three Forms of the Divine only Two Forms have a beginning, they (these Forms) also have an end. Only the beginningless Form of God the Father has no end. That is why the spirit of man (referring to the eternal Form of God the Father) is immortal, since it exactly copies the beginningless Form of God the Father, and this Form had no beginning, and therefore there will be no end.
On the contrary, the Form of the Holy Spirit (whose sphere is the body) and the Form of the Son of God (whose sphere is the soul) have a beginning, and hence an end, that is, these Forms of the Divine are finite. Therefore, both the human body and his soul are finite, that is, mortal and can be forever and completely destroyed.
Consequently, only the human spirit is immortal, because in order for the human body to become immortal, a person had to eat from the tree of life, which carries the beginningless, eternal, spiritual Form of God the Father.
Only then the human body, having become a spiritual, and therefore immortal body, would also make the human soul eternal, which would now be composed of two immortal parts - from the eternal spirit and the eternal spiritual body. This is how a man would become a son of God, and not just a created man created in the image and likeness of God. Indeed, in the genealogy of Christ, presented to us by the Evangelist Luke, Adam is not called the son of God, but God's: "Enos, Seth, Adam, God" (Luke 3:38).

So, having gained immortality for his body, through eating the fruits of the tree of life, a person would have gained the immortality of his soul and become an eternal copy of God - in all His three Forms, that is, a person would become the son of God - an Angel.
The tree of life, through its fruits, distributes the eternal nature of God into human bodies, because the tree of life carries the spiritual nature of the beginningless Form of God the Father. The spirit of every person also belongs to this beginningless Form, therefore those people who fall into the lake of fire will remain in it for all eternity, for their spirit is eternal, since it has the eternal nature of the Spirit of God the Father. Satan and the angels who supported him will go into the lake of fire in immortal bodies, souls and spirit, for they have the eternal nature of the sons of God.
Many Christians today think and say that the God who is Love will eventually forgive all sinners. This is a terrible self-deception, since the word of God, which promises eternal punishment for sinners, cannot be violated, and the Lord Jesus Himself pointed out this fact: “Jesus answered them: Is it not written in your law: I said: are you gods? If He (God) called gods those to whom the word of God came, AND THE SCRIPTURE CANNOT BE BREAKED, do you say to Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world: You blaspheme, because I said: I am the Son of God? (John 10:34-36).

So, in order to be saved by complete salvation, it is necessary to pray to God that He does not yield to our natural soul, and also to reject it ourselves in everything that it does not like and in everything that is inherent in it by its nature, for only in this way will we save her god, eternal salvation, and with it our whole tripartite being.
That is why God has a good offer for us today: “Today I call heaven and earth as witnesses before you: I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deut. 30:19). Amen.

Reviews

Save God.
Maxim, before asking for answers - a preamble. :
I'm afraid to actually respond, tk. on the one hand, I am glad for many points of your presentation, on the other hand, it is probably premature to discuss the particulars of the issues raised, and one should spend money on discussing the method of communication in the same way as an employee is spent on caring for a tool.

I will link it for the purpose of writing reviews: in a conversation between two, there is almost no point in expressing an opinion if it is known in advance that the interlocutor will not admit to being wrong in any case.
But! I do not know, and you are more well-read in patristic literature, so in this position, please answer the questions Yes or No. And only after a possible answer Yes - references to the object.
Questions:
1. Do you know the facts in the literature when one theologian (priest, pastor is more high level, saint) admitted in a controversy that he was wrong in some thought?
2. Are you aware of similar confessions of pastors to the flock about management errors?

Andrew writes: Dear, do not spread heresy! You contradict yourself. And the Lord breathed the spirit into his face, and the man became alive. The spirit is the soul. The human body became alive. The body without the soul dies, but not the soul itself. You write heresy, speaking about the mortality of the soul, the Bible itself says the opposite!

Greetings brother Andrew!

If you have found texts in the Bible that speak directly about the immortality of the soul, please send them to us. We will be interested in exploring them.

I know at least one text that directly says that the soul is mortal: "For behold, all souls are Mine: as the soul of the father, so the soul of the son is Mine: the soul that sins will die." (). In addition, there are many texts that talk about this indirectly.

For example, the apostle Paul categorically states that the soul is mortal:

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." ()

Here we find a typical biblical literary device of opposition. Life is opposed to death, infinity is opposed to the finite. If the apostle Paul believed in the immortality of the soul, he would have written: "For the wages of sin is eternal torment" or something similar.

Supporters immortal soul often do not understand the absurdity of the concept they preach. Indeed, in fact, they offer people to believe in eternal life in any way of life - and the lawless person inherits eternal life (in the form of a tormented immortal soul), and the righteous. The difference between them is only in the quality of this eternal life. Some will live forever in comfort, while others will live in discomfort. But what does the Bible say about this? The Bible warns us not to give false hope to people. One is eternal life (with comfort), and the other is eternal death.

Now I would like to return to the roots. To the text from which you mentioned. I will give it exactly, and in different translations:

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of (orig. Neshama) life, and man became a soul (orig. Nefesh) alive." (, Synodal)

"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 being." ( , Jewish Tanakh of Yosiphon)

"I having created the Lord God the people from the gunpowder of the earth. I breathed the breath of life at the nostrils, and the people became a living soul." (But.2:7, Ukrainian translation by Ohiyenko)

As we can see, there is a clear sequence of actions expressed in verbs (in Semitic thinking, the keywords of any description are verbs, in contrast to Greek thinking, which was inherited by European peoples, including you and me):

1) the verb "created" (body, inanimate matter)
2) the verb "breathed" (life into a dead body)
3) the verb "became" (a living soul, i.e. a person)

At the same time, it is not said that the Creator breathed a soul into a person and he acquired a soul. It says "became", i.e. man became a person as a result of two previous creative actions. If the body is taken away / killed, then it is easy to understand what will happen:

"And the dust shall return to the earth as it was; and the spirit (orig. Ruach) return to God who gave it."

In parentheses, I have given the sound of the words of the original, so that you can compare with and see that it is not the soul that returns to God.

"The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and there is no longer any retribution for them, because the memory of them is forgotten,
and their love and their hatred and their jealousy have already vanished and they have no more part for ever in anything that is done under the sun.

In conclusion, in order to better understand this issue, I would suggest that you independently explore our selection biblical texts on this topic:

You can find a detailed analysis of the biblical terms "spirit", "soul" in this answer:

Sincerely,
Alexander

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