The Total ManSample

God is Spirit, and the man He created is also spirit. This spirit-to-Spirit connection is what gave man the capacity to communicate with God. In Genesis 3, God, like any creator, allowed His creation to be tested. He did not create a robot programmed to obey commands automatically; He created man in His own image, with the ability to choose good or evil.

But God warned Adam and Eve of the consequence of failing the test; He said they would surely die. Yet when they disobeyed, God did not strike them dead. Instead, they were driven out of the garden. So the question is, did God lie? Absolutely not. Adam and Eve died that day, but not physically.

Remember, man is a spirit who lives inside a body and possesses a soul. When they disobeyed, their spirit, the part of them connected to God, died. The connection was severed. They were left with a body and a soul, now disconnected from the source of life, and were driven out of Eden. Just like the battery in our mobile phones, it supplies the energy that enables us to make calls, read text messages and browse the internet. When the battery is empty, we say the phone is dead. Now this does not mean that the phone can no longer function, or it is completely damaged. It simply means it has lost its ability to connect to a network.

This is why Scripture says if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The body remains the same, the mind remains the same, but the dead spirit, once disconnected from God, comes back to life. He is not a new body or a new soul, but a new 'creature'. The word 'creature' is very important because it is referring to a new creation, not a new form and not a new breadth. Remember, the spirit was created, the body was formed and the soul was breathed into the body. So if any man comes to Christ, the spirit that died in disobedience comes back to life and he becomes a new creature.

Think of an electrical cable. Inside it are different wires, each with its own function. Not all of them conduct power from the source. The one that does is called the live wire. A man without Christ is like a cable without a live wire. Everything may look intact on the outside, but there is no connection to power. Without Christ, the spirit remains dead.