Starting with God Himself, as the Trinity by the title Elohim implies. And remember we're still talking about our circles. Here Paul is signing off his letter to the Thessalonians, and let's see what he says.
I Thessalonians 5:23
"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; (or completely, all together, as this is the definitive goal) and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
So what are we? We are a three part being. Now we guess the theologians would call it a trichotomy or trichotomous that is to say having three parts, but that's too big a word for us. We are just simply three part being. We are body, soul, and spirit, and that's the way Adam was created. He was created with that perfect body that could have lived forever. He was created with a personality or character, patterned after the personality and character of the three persons of the Trinity, a mind, a will and a set of emotions. But he also had the third part which is what we call the spirit. The portion through which inspiration or illumination comes through to us. So this first circle completed with all three parts of body, soul, and spirit represents Adam as a perfect three part being.
The spirit is the area where Adam had fellowship with his Creator God. The portion through which communication took place other than the mouth and the spoken word. The spirit was also intrinsically united with the soul, and we still look at it that way. So that Adam in his purity, in his original state, through his spirit fellowshiped with his Creator, and through that fellowship with his Creator, it had an effect upon his very personality, his mind, his will, and his emotion, and that in turn exercised the body. Now we don't know how long Adam, woman, were in the Garden before they fell, but however long it was it was perfect. It was a glorious experience, and they could look forward to their Creators coming, maybe once or twice a day to walk with them, and commune them. I must stress that the woman had no name until the separation from God took place and this I feel needs to be understood and this is recorded in chapter 3 verse 20.
And naturally we've still got lots of questions about Adam and woman for example, where did they sleep at night? Where did they experience their days of habitation? Did the Lord also have a beautiful home for them? We'd like to know that. We're sure they didn't wonder around in the Garden of Eden 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, what did they do to occupy their time. We've always told people that the Bible tells us everything we need to know, but it doesn't tell us everything we'd like to know. This we do know though, Adam and woman who became named Eve lived in perfect communion, and fellowship with their Creator. Sin hadn't even showed it's ugly head.
Then, the next thing we know is that Adam sinned when he ate, and for that we want to make a second set of circles. Remember over here in the first set of circles before Adam ate we have Adam complete. So in this next set of circles, again this outside ring represents the human body. Adam is still living just like he was in the first circle. He is still a body, he still has his soul, the mind, will, and emotion, none of that has changed since he ate, but the moment Adam ate of the fruit, he lost that third part, the spirit, it died or becomes none responsive to God as it were and he becomes nothing now but a body, and a soul, and now the spirit is counted as dead!
From Adam and Eve on every person that is born, comes into the human experience with only a body and soul, the spirit part is hidden and is asleep as a seed. It in effect like the natural seed has a hard shell around it something like a thick veil. That spiritual part of each is dead or unable to communicate with God. It has no fellowship with God, it has no communion with God. Also remember the moment Adam sinned the soul became a sin nature, a bestial nature like Satan's. So now Adam and Eve have become sin-natured creatures, and that's the way each person is when they come into this world. That's the best way we can explain it. They are now operating under a sin nature or have the character potential of Satan, and this sin nature is separated from God. And it's going to influence the physical body, not for good, but rather for evil. That's the whole concept of the spiritually dead individual. Oh we can move through life with the most pleasant of personalities but let a crisis of some sort happen and that personality changes to the most vile person around. Train up a child with no rules of conduct or boundaries and what happens? all manor of crimes or sins.
Now this is exactly what Paul talks about when he says in Ephesians 2. Let's look at that and start at verse 1.
Ephesians 2:1b
"...who were dead in trespasses and sins;"
We weren't dead because of what we did, but rather we started there at birth. Every baby that is born is born in sin, dead in trespasses and separated from God, lacks the ability to communicate with Him. Let's go back to Romans chapter 5 for a moment and let us show this. Do you realize that all the way from Genesis chapter 3 to Romans chapter 5 there is not a word of Scripture that deals with Adam, with the exception of one or two places as a name in a genealogy. Not one word of Adam being the cause of sin and death. Not one word of how he at one time was a spiritual being in fellowship with God. We don't find this until we get to the Apostle Paul's writings. Now in this chapter here it comes.
When I think about these things it is amazing that Jesus in His 3 years of earthly ministry never revealed this. Have you ever thought of that? Why didn't Jesus take the time with the twelve or during His teaching, and say "Now look folks, the crux of your problem was Adam. And it was with Adam that sin and death came into the world." But see Christ never mentioned that. And the closest we can come to that is in the Old Testament and it's found in Jeremiah. Let's turn to Jeremiah 17 and start at verse 9.
Jeremiah 17:9a
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:..."
That as close as we can get to the problem, and we can't build doctrine like Paul does on that one verse. Now let's look at what Paul says in Romans chapter 5 and verse 12. Please keep this in mind, that Paul write and spoke what he heard from the mouth of God through the ontological essence of Christ's Spirit within him the same as we're to become empowered to do as a son of God.
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