G. H. Pember on the Tripartite Man

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

G. H. PEMBER (1837-1910)

In Earth’s Earliest Ages, G.H. Pember employs Scripture to refute the erroneous notion that man has only two parts as well as prove that man is tripartite.

Thus in the very beginning of Scripture we are warned against the popular phraseology of soul and body, which has long sustained an erroneous belief that man consists of but two parts….

There are, however, one or two passages in which a reference to the threefold composition of our being could not be obscured. Such is the very remarkable verse in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “For the Word of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. iv. 12). Here Paul plainly speaks of the immaterial part of man as consisting of two separable elements, soul and spirit; while he describes the material portion as made up of joints and marrow, organs of motion and sensation….

Another obvious passage is the well-known intercession of Paul for the Thessalonians: “And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. v. 23).

Now the body we may term the sense - consciousness, the soul the self - consciousness, and the spirit the God - consciousness. For the body gives us the use of the five senses; the soul comprises the intellect which aids us in the present state of existence, and the emotions which proceed from the senses; while the spirit is our noblest part, which came directly from God, and by which alone we are able to apprehend and worship Him. (76-77)