Rev. Don Campbell
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017: THE OAK TREE, THE PIG, AND THE MAN
There is no analogy that can adequately explain the triune nature of mankind. We are made in God’s image, but that is a spiritual image and spiritual things are not fully understood by natural things. Be that as it may, analogies sometimes help, and I pray that this one does.
Visualize an oak tree that is dropping its acorns, a pig that is feeding voraciously on them, and a man who is observing. All three objects have life. Two of them have souls, and one has a spirit. The oak tree is alive but can do only one thing: produce acorns. The pig also is alive, but there are two parts to him: body and spirit: “Who knows whether a human spirit goes upward or whether an animal spirit goes downward to the earth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:21).
The pig, in contrast to the tree, has volition in the sense that pigs can move from tree to tree feeding, lie down to sleep, join with other pigs, and so forth. However, pigs never look up to thank the tree for its bounty, because they lack cognition (“Cognition is a term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension. These processes include thinking, knowing, remembering, judging and problem-solving. These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception, and planning”).
Man, who is made in the image of God, is a triune being: body, soul, and spirit. We have cognition, both intellectual and moral. We can ponder questions the pig cannot, such as: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? A study of soul and spirit shows that various intellectual and moral cognition are ascribed to both the soul and the spirit. This is why Vine’s Expository Dictionary says,
“The language of Heb. 4:12 suggests the extreme difficulty of distinguishing between the soul and the spirit, alike in their nature and in their activities. Generally speaking the spirit is the higher, the soul the lower element. The spirit may be recognized as the life principle bestowed on man by God, the soul as the resulting life constituted in the individual, the body being the material organism animated by soul and spirit. …Apparently, then, the relationships may be thus summed up ‘Sōma, body, and pneuma, spirit, may be separated, pneuma and psychē, soul, can only be distinguished’ (Cremer).”
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Only God can clearly divide body, soul, and spirit. Our challenge is not to dissect ourselves. Jesus said we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).
To love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind means simply to hold back nothing consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously—nothing intellectually, emotionally, or volitionally. In other words, it is to love with the totality of our being—from center to circumference.
