Theology

Five Protocols for Distinguishing Soul From Spirit

by J.W. Phillips
05/27/25
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Five Protocols for Distinguishing Soul From Spirit

Satan doesn’t want you to know who you really are.

A major way Satan accomplishes this objective is by confusing you about what your soul is and what your spirit is. 

Most Christians use the terms soul and spirit interchangeably. This practice is a huge tip-off these Christians are being hurt by what they do not know.

There are immensely practical benefits that are gained by understanding what each of these terms means. To use these terms interchangeably means the believer doesn’t understand what either one of them means.

You may be thinking this confusion about soul and spirit is of little consequence. If so, you would be wrong. Clarity about these terms, biblical terms, is immensely important!

The functions and capacities of the spirit are different from the capacities and functions of the soul. But if you don’t know that, you won’t function as you should.

Dichotomists believe that soul and spirit are the same. Trichotomists believe they differ.

The apparent sameness of soul and spirit, claimed by dichotomists, dissolves if a proper protocol is used for determining the appropriate theological bin that verses addressing this subject correctly belong.

Consider five protocols for correct interpretation.

Old Testament or New Testament?

When reading a verse about the heart or some function of the soul involving volition, cognition, or emotion, the first criterion in this protocol is obvious: Which Testament, the Old Testament or the New Testament, is applicable when it comes to understanding that verse?

There are verses in the Old Testament which describe a heart that seeks God (Psalm 119:144, 145), trusts God (Psalm 28:7), meditates upon the truths of God (Psalm 19:14), applies the wisdom of God (Psalm 90:12) and even welcomes God’s testing (Psalm 139:23) 

So is this heart to be identified with our new nature? No, it is not, because the Bible says of this Old Testament heart that it is desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and therefore would have to be replaced by a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26) that would have a critical capacity the old heart didn’t have: the ability to obey God’s laws (Jeremiah 31:33).³⁴ 

David’s plea for God to create a new heart within him (Psalm 51:10) may have been more profound than he ever realized. It is clear that the heart David wanted replaced—indeed, that God wanted replaced—is not at all the same heart as the new heart God provided to New Testament believers (Hebrews 8:8-13).

Therefore, as we seek to understand the new nature and locate the domain inside us where this new nature exists, we can place all the verses in the Old Testament that describe the heart available then into a different theological bin than the one where verses descriptive of the new nature belong. 

A second protocol applicable for determining context implements a criterion that answers the question:

Aspiration or Achievement?

All these functions of the soul—will, mind, and emotion—noble though they were in their aspiration, failed when it came to achievement.

In Romans 8:2, Paul declared “… the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free ….” Notice, his soul didn’t make him free. His spirit did—that is, his new nature where the Holy Spirit dwells.

There are many verses in Old Testament and New which describe efforts and energies spent by will, mind, and emotions. Instead of indiscriminately lumping all these verses together and seeing supposed commonality, we need to determine whether the verse being examined is one conveying an aspiration of the soul functioning on its own, or an achievement of the soul empowered by the spirit. 

A third criterion to use in this suggested protocol is one that distinguishes between— 

Source or Agency?

Often, this distinction isn’t located in the words of a particular verse but can be determined by contextual clues.

Let me give an example by using a passage that connects both testaments of Scripture.

A scribe approached Jesus one day to ask him, what is the first or greatest commandment?

Quoting from the Old Testament, Jesus said, “… you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

Taken in isolation, one might think that heart, mind, soul, and will are capable of loving like this. In this verse, the agents and instruments of love are cited but not the source of it.

It is elsewhere we learn that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), that the Spirit was sent forth by God into our hearts (Galatians 4:6), that our minds can be instructed by the Spirit (I John 2:27) so that we can know the mind of the Spirit (Romans 8:27), and be strengthened with might by God’s Spirit (Ephesians 3:16).

When Scripture’s full testimony is considered, we are made to know that the Spirit who indwells our human spirit is the source. The heart, the soul, the mind, and one’s strength are all instruments—capacities for expression but not sufficient generators of these expressions.

Often, outcome and means may be identified (the instrument used, the expression conveyed) and source may not.

There’s nothing unusual about this kind of communication, really. For example, I may say that I went to work this morning, without saying anything about my car. The source for my travel, the real power I relied on for the trip, was provided by the car. Nevertheless, I need not stipulate always what can be well understood. Assuming that there should be this much detail is to assume too much.

A fourth protocol needed for establishing clarity about soul and spirit involves recognition that:

Same Attributions Do Not Mean Same Identity

For example, Scripture describes the soul departing at death (Genesis 35:18; I Kings 17:21) and the spirit departing at death (Psalm 31:5; Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59). So does this mean that the soul and spirit are the same? Not really.

What it does mean, minimally, is that both the soul and the spirit depart at death. Those dearly departed are sometimes referred to as spirits (Hebrews 12:23; I Peter 3:19), and sometimes they are referred to as souls (Revelation 6:9; 20:4). However, such designations hardly secure the conclusion that soul and spirit are the same.

The intent of these verses is simply to refer to individuals; and so functional speech like this shouldn’t be pressed to say more than what it was intended to say.

Just as I have an individual soul, I have an individual spirit, and therefore referring to me one way or the other is accurate.

One could also refer to me by describing my physical body, which, according to science, is sufficiently capable in its characteristics to distinguish me from every other person on earth. But just because I can be accurately identified physically doesn’t mean that my true identity can only be explained by my physical attributes.

Let me give an example from Scripture. When Scripture says Stephen saw Jesus in Heaven standing (Acts 7:55), in some sense it was the physical attributes of Jesus that came into view and thus clearly distinguished Jesus from all the angels in Heaven.

Yet, no one would use this verse to claim that the body of Jesus is the same as his spirit, since Jesus is also referred to as a spirit.

While there are accounts in Scripture that refer to Jesus in terms of one aspect of his person, his physical presence; there are also accounts that refer to another aspect of his person, his effervescent glory.

Even though Jesus’ identity is established in both ways doesn’t mean each criterion for establishing his identity is interchangeable, one equating with the other.

We are making much too much of this supposed sameness between soul and spirit, ignoring as we do so the common usage of daily language that sometimes substitutes the part for the whole.

Referring to a new car, for example, I might say, “I can hardly wait to get behind the wheel.” Or maybe, if I’m one of those thrill-seeker types, I might talk about taking that new car on some country road and “putting the pedal to the metal. 

By referring to a car in this way, no one would ever conclude that the steering wheel and the gas pedal are the same, even though the car in each instance was referred to in such a singular and summary way.

Nor would it ever be assumed that because one part of the car was identified and not another that there aren’t any other parts to the car.

Putting the right protocols in place, such as those suggested in this post, will help to make clear what never should have been a mystery in the first place.

Once we follow a protocol that distinguishes between attributions and identity, between agency and source, between aspiration and achievement, and between what was possible during the Old Testament and what is possible in the New Testament, the dichotomist argument begins to crumble, so that appearance gives way to reality and theory yields to truth.

Unnecessary confusion has come to the church because of this unfounded assumption that soul and spirit are the same.

They are not.