Witness Lee on the Tripartite Man

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

WITNESS LEE (1905-1997)

Witness Lee also clearly saw that man is a tripartite being. In the first chapter of his book Basic Lessons on Life, Lee points out that man was created with three parts.

God used two kinds of materials—the dust for making man’s body and the breath of life for producing man’s spirit. When these two things came together, right away man became a living soul. That means the soul is the issue of the breath of life getting into the physical body of man.

It is clear that man was made in three parts: the outward body, the inward spirit, and the soul as the very being of man. This is why 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says that our whole being is composed of our spirit, soul, and body. We are a tripartite man. The soul is our being with our body as the outward organ and with our spirit as the inward organ. (12)

In his book The Economy of God, Witness Lee, like Murray and Larkin, compares the three parts of the temple to the three parts of man.

The Scriptures point out that we too are the temple (1 Cor. 3:16). We as tripartite beings are also composed of three parts-the body, the soul, and the spirit…. Today this type of the temple of God is fulfilled in us. We are of three parts: our body corresponds to the outer court, our soul to the holy place, and our human spirit to the Holiest of all, which is the very residence of Christ and God’s presence. (29)