Genesis 2:18, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; and I will make him an help meet for him.”

God gave Eve to Adam to he his wife and God said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

Adam was created with the power to love and to express that love in fidelity. Adam had emotion.

As a Person God willed and expressed his will in action thus revealing the that will is inherent in personality. God made Adam in His image.

Genesis 3:6, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”

Adam was created with the power to will and to express that will in choice. Adam had volition.

God’s first man was made in God’s image in the sense of having a personality patterned after God’s in its power to think, to love and to will; but with this difference, that God thought, loved and willed on the plane of uncreated, unlimited, eternal, divine life, while Adam thought, loved and willed on the plane of created, limited, finite, human life. The intel- lectual, emotional and volitional life of God’s first man was perfect within a limited sphere. Above and beyond this was the perfection of God’s per- sonality within an unlimited sphere. (See Diagram 2.)

The resemblance which God’s first man bore to God through likeness in personality made communion and cooperation between them possible; while the difference of plane on which each lived determined the basis of their relationship. God was the Creator, Adam was the created. God was the Sovereign, Adam was the subject. It also set the boundaries of Adam’s intellectual, emotional and volitional life; all must lie within the realm of divine sovereignty. The sovereignty of God expressed in His divine will was to be the circumference of Adam’s human life. Unlimited liberty in

thinking, loving and willing was given him. But one condition had to be met. He must think, love and will within the circle of God’s will.

Such a limitation was not for the purpose of making God a glorified despot: a sovereign who ruled arbitrarily with no thought for the well- being of his subject. On the contrary the limitation was wholly beneficent. It was purely for the purpose of keeping man in the only sphere in which he could remain perfect, in which he could come into the fullest and most complete realization of the possibility of his being, in which, in fact, he could remain in communion and cooperation with God.

That God intended man to become even more than we see him to be in the unfallen first man of Eden the whole trend of the Bible shows. Adam was made in the image of God plus the capacity for sonship. “Man as originally created, was not only in the image of God, he was also made to live in union with God, so that all his limitation might find its com- plement in the unlimited life of the Eternal. It is a great mistake to think of man as made, and then as put into some position where he might rise or fall, according to the capacity of his own personality. It is rather to be remembered that he was created in the image of God, and then put into a probationary position through which he was to pass unharmed to some larger form of existence, if his life were lived in union with the God who had created him. If however he chose a separate existence, and cut himself off from union, in that act he would fall” (G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of the Christ, p. 28).

What would God’s first man do? Would he accept the limitation and live his life in union with God, content to let it be kept wholly within the circle of God’s will, or would he exercise his will in a choice contrary to the will of God and so cut himself off from the life of God? There would be but one way to know—the way of a test. God gave the test.

Genesis 2:8-9, “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Low) God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

Genesis 2:16-17, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

"Of every tree thou mayest freely eat”—unlimited freedom of choice within the will of God. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it”—limitation of choice bounded by the will of God.

“The Lord God commanded the man saying, Thou shalt not—” Here was the great divide. This was the watershed between the sovereignty of the Creator and the subjection of the created. All on one side was within the circle of God’s will: all on the other side was without the circle of God’s will. All on one side meant union with God: all on the other side meant separation from God. All on one side spelled life: all on the other side spelled death. God gave the test. Adam was to make the choice. God gave the command. Adam could obey or disobey.

Just here we must pause to penetrate a bit deeper into the study of Adam’s personality to see if there was anything within him to hinder or to help him in the making of his choice. Did God make Adam so that he could will to live wholly within the circle of God’s will and have every other part of his being in active sympathy with such a decision? In the very constitution of Adam’s being did God place anything that would favor and foster such complete and continuous obedience?

Scripture does not say a great deal about the threefold nature of man but what it does say is very illuminating and indubitable. It does tell us how man came to be what man now is.

Genesis 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

Scripture names for us the component parts of man as thus created by God.

I Thessalonians 5:23, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In Genesis 2:7 God gives us the divine order in the creation of the component parts of man.

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” “The first man is of the earth, earthy.” The earth was to be man’s dwelling place. In order that it might have communication with the external world in which it dwelt, the body of man was formed of earth, and then equipped with five senses, sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. Because of its con- nection with the earthly, the body is the lowest part of man. Yet it has the exalted privilege of being the home of the spirit and of being its only outlet to the world of sense. The body is the port city of the human personality.

“And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The divine Potter formed the human frame and then breathed into it the breath of life. This life principle which came as a direct emanation from God became the human spirit. Some one has aptly said, “Man is dust inbreathed by Deity.”

God Himself defines the human spirit in these words, “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the innermost parts.” The spirit is the crowning part of man’s being. It is God’s masterpiece in human creation. It is the part of man which has relationship to the unseen, spir- itual world, which has fellowship with God. Through the spirit man ap- prehends, loves and worships God. Dr. A. T. Pierson says, “The spirit receives impressions of outward and material things through the soul and the body, but it belongs itself to a higher level and realm, and is capable of a direct knowledge of God by relation to its own higher senses and faculties. In an unfallen state it was like a lofty observatory with an out- look upon a celestial firmament” (The Bible and Spiritual Life , p. 116). The spirit is the capital city of the human personality.

“And man became a living soul.” Above the body and beneath the spirit stands the soul, the medium between the two. It has been said that in its relationship to the body and bodily senses it might be likened to the photographer’s darkroom. The impressions regarding the external world received through the senses are gathered up and conveyed to this dark - room where they are developed into distinct expressions of thought, emotion or will.

In its relationships to the spirit and the spiritual world the soul might be likened to the judge’s bench. The evidence regarding God and spiritual realities which the spirit finds in its research in the spiritual realm is brought to the bar of the soul and there either accepted or rejected.

Man, then, is a trinity; spirit, soul, and body are the integral parts of his triune being. In the constitution of God’s first man two independent elements were used; the corporeal and the spiritual; the material and the immaterial. Each was essential because man was to be related to two worlds; the seen and the unseen; the material and the spiritual. He was made primarily for God and in order to have intercourse with God he must have a spirit capable of communion and fellowship with the divine .Spirit. But man was to be placed in God’s material universe that he might have tangible relationship with the external world of people and things. So he must have a body capable of such contact and communica- tion. Man was to be in close, continuous touch with both heaven and earth; with the external and the temporal; with the spiritual and the material.

When God placed the spirit within the body its home on earth, the union of these two produced a third part and man became a living soul. The soul uniting spirit and body gave man individuality, it was the cause of his existence as a distinct being. The soul, consisting of intellect, emotion and will became the central part, the seat, as it were, of man’s being.

The soul acted as the middleman between the spirit and the body; it was the bond which united them and the channel through which they acted upon each other. The soul stood thus midway between two worlds: through the body it was linked to the visible, material and earthly; through the spirit it was linked with the unseen, spiritual and heavenly. To it was given the power to determine which world should dominate man.

The very great importance of this theme in its relationship to succeeding lessons and the intense desire that each reader may have a clear understanding of it leads me to quote at length from Andrew Murray’s book, The Spirit of Christ:

“The Spirit quickening the body made man a living soul, a living person with the consciousness of himself. The soul was the meeting place, the point of union between body and spirit. Through the body, man, the living soul, stood related to the external world of sense; could influence it, or be influenced by it. Through the spirit he stood related to the spiritual world and the Spirit of God, whence he had his origin; could be the recipient and the minister of its life and power. Standing thus midway between two worlds, belonging to both, the soul had the power of determining itself, of choosing or refusing the objects by which it was surrounded, and to which it stood related.

“In the constitution of these three parts of man’s nature the spirit, as linking him with the Divine, was the highest; the body, connecting him with the sensible and the animal, the lowest; intermediate stood the soul, partaker of the nature of the others, the bond that united them, and through which they could act on each other. Its work as the central power was to maintain them in due relation; to keep the body, as the lowest, in subjection to the spirit; itself to receive through the spirit, as the higher, from the Divine Spirit what was waiting for its perfection; and so pass down even to the body, that by which it might be the partaker of the Spirit’s perfection, and become a spiritual body.

“The wondrous gifts with which the soul was endowed, specially those of consciousness and self-determination, or mind and will, were but the mould or vessel into which the life of the Spirit, the real substance and truth of the Divine life, was to be received and assimilated. They were a God-given capacity for making the knowledge and will of God its own. In doing this the personal life of the soul would have become filled and possessed with the life of the Spirit, the whole man would have become spiritual.

“To gather up what has been said, the spirit is the seat of our God-consciousness; the soul of our self-consciousness; the body of our world-con- sciousness. In the spirit God dwells: in the soul self, in the body sense.”

It is clear from all this that God’s original intention was that the human spirit through which alone man can be related to the Spirit of God and to the spiritual world should be the dominant element in the human personality. The spirit was to be sovereign and as long as it remained so the whole being would be kept spiritual.

But while the the human spirit was to be sovereign in the realm of the human personality with both soul and body yielded to its dominance, yet it was to be subject in turn to a higher power. Dr. A. T. Pierson says, " one obvious lesson in this Biblical psychology is that God evidently de- signed that the human spirit, indwelt and ruled by the Holy Spirit, should keep man in constant touch with Himself, and maintain in everything its proper preeminence, ruling soul and body” (The Bible and Spiritual Life, p. 123). (See Diagram 3.)

Thus we see that the human spirit was to be a sovereign under a Sovereign. It was also to be the middleman between the eternal and the temporal; the unseen and the seen; the divine and the human; the heavenly and the earthly. The spirit had its windows opened heavenward and