Chapter Three

The Triune Heater

I recently had an incredibly moving spiritual experience. I was sitting in my living room on a cold winter morning praying when my eyes rested on something that turned my worldview upside down. It was a heat vent. Now there is nothing more valuable than a heat vent on a cold winter morning in Iowa, but I digress. As I was praying and trying to stay warm, I looked at the vent and realized that the vent does not generate the heat I feel. Instead, down in the basement of our house, where only the family goes, is a unit that generates heat and pumps it throughout the house. When I sit in the living room, I do not see the heating unit. Instead I feel the heat. In between the source of the heat and the vent there is usually a damper. If the slats in the damper are set a certain way, the heat comes out. If they are set another way, the heat is blocked. Suddenly, I realized that this is how it is with God’s presence in the world. He has taken up residence in our spirit and is generating heat to save the lost, heal the hurting, and set captives free. He is trying to release that heat through our physical body, our hands and mouth. In between are the dampers of our mind, emotions, and will. If they are set a certain way, we cooperate with what God is doing and He touches people around us. If the dampers are set another way, they block the heat of God’s Spirit from flowing out of us. Our daily effort must be to align ourselves with God’s Spirit so He can do miracles through us. The book of Hebrews tells us that the tabernacle and the temple were a copy or shadow of what is in heaven (8:5).[i] They were images of God’s heavenly dwelling place. Therefore it would follow that since there is no tabernacle or temple today, and God dwells in His people, then the tabernacle is the pattern of how God dwells in us. Just as the tabernacle had to be built exactly according to the pattern, so our lives should be structured according to the pattern to host His presence.

We Are Three Part Beings

Just as the tabernacle was set out in three parts, the courtyard, the holy place, and the holiest place; and the heating system is in three parts, heater, dampers, and vent; God has also created us with three parts; body, soul, and spirit. Paul refers to these three parts when he says, May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:23; emphasis added) Most of the time in the scripture, the spirit is referred to as the heart. At least twenty times the theme of loving, seeking, obeying, or turning to the Lord with all of one’s heart and soul (one would assume that the body must be involved at some point) appears throughout the word of God.[ii] The most famous passage is the Shema, Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Dt. 6:5-6; emphasis added). Some would try to say that there is no difference between the heart and soul. They point out that Hebrew poetry often uses a second term to restate the first with the same meaning so soul is just a synonym for heart here. But the poetic form does not hold. Strength is definitely something different than the first two. It does not make sense for the first two terms to refer to the same thing and the third one to refer to something different. All three terms must refer to different things. The difference is even clearer in Hebrews 4:12; …the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow… Here we have four terms in couplets. Heart and soul are paralleled with joints and marrow. If heart and soul are synonyms for the same thing, then joints and marrow must be also. But this is not the case. Joints and marrow are definitely not the same thing, and neither are the heart and the soul. There must be a difference between the heart and the soul.

The Body

We struggle with the concept of our own triune nature because we have a hard time differentiating between the three parts of our being. We generally understand the body or flesh since we all have physical bodies. Those who pass by can see our physical attributes. The whole world can see that I am old, overweight, and bald. This is the body. But very little about us can be known simply by observing the physical. At the most one can make judgments about another persons health and cleanliness at this level. This corresponds to the courtyard area of the tabernacle. Anyone could observe the sacrifices, the washings, and the outside of the tabernacle. The external is always the least important part.

The Soul

We have a harder time understanding the difference between the soul and spirit. Our soul consists of our mind, will, and emotions. Some of these attributes can be seen in our actions but to actually know a person’s soul, we must spend time with them. We must talk about issues and watch their reactions to numerous situations to understand their thoughts and feelings. This area corresponds to the holy place. Not everyone could walk in and see this part of the tabernacle. It was restricted to the priests. In the same way only a handful of people get know our soul.

The Spirit

Our heart or spirit is that place where we interact with God and the spirit realm. Many ignore that place and try to pretend it does not exist. It is that part of us which gnaws at the corners of our mind. Some refer to it as the conscience. It is actually where we here the voice of God convicting us. It is the place where the “god shaped hole in all of us” exists and cries out to be filled. It is the place where God begins His work in us. When we are born again, God takes up residence in our spirit. Our spirit man becomes a new creature in interaction with Him. The rest of our Christian life is one long process of letting God work His way out from our spirit man through our thoughts, feelings, and actions as we are renewed and conformed to His image. The heart or spirit corresponds to the holiest place, God’s throne room, where He dwells. This dwelling place has moved from the little dark room in the back of the tabernacle or temple to the spirits of those who choose to follow Him.

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[i] Since the author starts by referring to the temple of Jesus’ day and ends by talking about Moses’ instructions on the mountain, it is safe to infer both as being the copy or shadow. [ii] Dt. 4:9; 6:5; 10:12; 11:13; 26:16; 30:2, 10; Josh. 22:5; 1 Kng. 2:4; 8:48; 23:3; 23:25; 1 Chron. 22:19; 2 Chron. 6:38; 15:12; 34:31; Mt. 22:37; Mk. 12:30; Lk. 10:27