THE TRIPARTITE - Introduction

We have been looking at the answer to the question ‘who are you?’ from the personality perspective. Now, we are going to look at the answer to the same question from the tripartite perspective. The personality perspective is a very personal way of seeing who you are. Your answer to ‘who are you?’ from the personality perspective will be unique and only applicable to you. Whereas, the tripartite perspective is God’s design of mankind. 

Tripartite stands for spirit, soul and body- the three parts of a human being. It is the spirit, soul and body that makes a human being to function in fullness. In order to have a complete understanding of the tripartite, we need to look at it from the point of origin. Therefore, our journey of learning about the tripartite starts from the creation scene.

Eden garden, the divine place where man started his life on earth. The garden where the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil was found. It is in that garden,  God revealed His divine design for humans. Before creating man, God said this:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26-27 

From this text, we come to know that humans were designed in the likeness of God. Therefore, to know the exact specifics of the human design by God, we need to know who God is in terms of design. 

The clue to understanding God’s design lies in the same verse that mentions the human design we just looked into (Genesis 1:26). The first line of verse 26 says “let us”. ‘Us’ is a plural pronoun,  which means that there is more than one. Let me direct your attention to three verses.

I and the Father are one

John 10:30 

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:17 

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!

Deuteronomy 6:4

The first 2 verses talk about Jesus. From these verses, we can find three persons who are mentioned as God.

    1. Father

    2. Jesus

    3. Holy Spirit

But, the third verse from Deuteronomy 6:4 says that there is only one God. You may ask, “how can someone be three and one at the same time, isn’t that a contradiction?”.

Let me explain. Every living thing in the universe, including God, can be identified based on its:

1. What-ness (nature)

the basic or inherent features, character, or qualities of something

2. Who-ness (Person)

Used when describing someone’s character or personality

For understanding, let me explain how these identification characters apply to human beings as we all are one. The what-ness of everyone on earth is ‘human being’. While the who-ness of each one differs from person to person. When we call someone’s name we are mentioning the ‘who’. Who-ness is the combination of aspects like kindness, goodness, anger, competitiveness, etc… of each person. Humans are 1 in being and 1 in person. This means that all human beings can only be 1 person and not many.

But God is not like human beings. He is the highest order of being there ever was and will ever be. Humans have only 1 person in their design. Whereas, God, the highest order of being has 3 persons in His design. The verses we looked into earlier help us understand this truth that God is 1 in being and 3 in person. Deuteronomy 6:4 talks about the one true God. The ‘one’ in this context, refers to the fact that God is one in being. The 3 persons are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The three persons are mentioned throughout the bible in various occasions and the verses quoted above are few of those. All three of them are God, but are different in role and who they are. This is why the statement ‘God is three in one’ isn’t a contradiction by itself. 

Now that we’ve come to the understanding that God is three in one, let’s go back to Genesis 1:26 to understand the human design which is in the likeness of God. 

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;

This means that, since God is three in one, there are three parts inside every human being. 

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

1 Thessalonians 5:23

In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul says that the wholeness of every human being consists of three parts, 

    

     Spirit

     Soul

     Body

These three parts together make up a human being. We usually don’t recognise these individually. As a believer or even as a human being it is very essential to have an understanding of how God designed us and who we really are. It is because we fail to understand how we are designed by God, that we don’t know how to respond to or do certain things that God asks of us. Some things can only be done in the spirit, while some only in the soul and some in the body. Only when we know the individual distinction between the three parts of a human being, can we respond to God from the in the right way. 

For example, worship is something that comes from the spirit as the word of God says,

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth

John 4:24

If we don’t worship from the spirit, then whatever we do that we think is worship, isn’t. 

Therefore, a clear understanding of the tripartite and their functions in the human design is very essential and critical. To simply put, the functions of the three parts of a human being is this:

     Body – world conscience 

     Soul – self-conscience

     Spirit – God conscience

We will look into the tripartite in-depth in the upcoming blogs. So stay tuned for more to come. Let the truth set you free.