The Spirit in the Trinitarian Model

.... To begin this lesson, I’d like to make one thing clear up front. As we look at the actual Godhead itself, in correlation to the model we described in the previous lesson, I’m going to quote as much Scripture as possible. But in some areas I’m going to go into human understanding – and you’ll be able to see those areas when they come up – so once again I want to be clear in stating that I am only talking about the Trinitarian concept. I am not trying to make this into a new doctrine. Please don’t embrace it as anything more than that unless you can find more specific Scriptures than I’ve offered here.

.... In our previous lesson we’ve described the tripartite man of spirit, soul and body, as a ‘scale model’ of the Trinity. Now let’s try to match some of this to the Godhead itself, the ‘original pattern’, since man was made in God’s image.

.... Okay, first of all, does God have a spirit within His triune nature? Well of course, this is a very easy one to answer because the Holy Spirit is often referred to in Scripture as "the Spirit of God" (compare Matthew 3:16 to Luke 3:22). He is the third member of the Godhead. So in our concept model, it’s easily to correlate the spirit of man to the Holy Spirit of God. If a part of the Godhead is the Holy Spirit, it’s no wonder that we have a spirit as well, since we were made in the similitude of God who has a Spirit.

.... Now your spirit is your ghost – it’s the same underlying Greek word – maybe that will help you understand a little more clearly what your spirit is. It’s the perceptive part of you, that also communicates with God’s own Spirit.

.... So far our match-up is well made. We’ve correlated the Spirit within the Trinity of God to the spirit within the triune nature of man. Now let’s go on to the aspect of the soul:

To view the next section, on the Soul in the Trinitarian Model, scroll down or click HERE.