A Word from Bob
For an 18-page free PDF of all 112 biblical passages about our being embodied-souls, go here: Toward a Theology of Embodied-Souls. If you would like to share the link to this free PDF, here it is: https://rpmministries.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Toward-a-Theology-of-Embodied-Souls.pdf
Introduction
Note #1: This is a preliminary collation (Draft 1.0) of 112 biblical passages that potentially relate to our being “embodied-souls.” God designed us not just as physical bodies; not just as non-physical souls; but as embodied-souls. “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). Some of the 112 passages are more directly related to this topic—(such as Genesis 2:7, for example), while others may be more indirectly related (covering general issues of God’s creation of humanity, for example).
Note #2: Additionally, each of these passages must be examined in their biblical context (biblical theology) and then related to one another in the overall flow and development of the scriptural doctrine of “anthropology” (systematic theology).
Note #3: For a comprehensive look at how to develop a theology of a biblical counseling issue, see Figure 1 (Toward a Biblical Theology of Biblical Counseling) at the end of this document. For a full development of this process of developing a theology of a biblical counseling issues, see my two chapters (chapters 10-11) in Scripture and Counseling: God’s Word for Life in a Broken World. For a free 24-page development of this process, see: Scripture and Soul: Implementing the Hermeneutical Spiral in Biblical Psychology Interpretation and Biblical Counseling Application. Thus, this present collation of verses is just one preliminary piece in a much larger process of theological development of what it means for biblical counseling that God designed us as “embodied-souls.”
Note #4: For an introduction to what a book on biblical counseling and embodied souls might look like, see 10 Questions About Biblical Counseling and Neuroscience: Becoming Soul Physicians of Embodied Souls.
Note #5: For additional resources on the topic of embodied-souls, see: 15 Resources for Counseling the Whole Person: God Designed Us as “Embodied Souls.”
Note #6: For a collation of over 400 resources on research and biblical counseling, see: 400+ Resources on Biblical Counseling and Psychology-Related Research.
Note #7: This present research collation uses the “classic” CFCR model:
Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation
That is, it attempts to collate and then categorize biblical passages about God’s creation and design of humanity according to:
C/Creation: God’s original design (biblical anthropology).
F/Fall: How our fall into sin impacts God’s original design of us as embodied-souls (biblical hamartiology).
R/Redemption: How our salvation and sanctification in Christ impacts and begins the restoration process (biblical soteriology).
C/Consummation: How our final glorification impacts us as embodied-souls (biblical eschatology).
Of course, many of the passages could be listed in more than one of these four categories (and some are so listed). Additionally, after the four CFRC collations, you will find a collation of passages that could help to explore biblically how Jesus lived out and modeled sinless humanity as an embodied-soul.
Creation Passages: God’s Original Creation Design of the Embodied-Soul
- Genesis 1:26-28: Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
- Genesis 2:7: Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
- Genesis 2:22-24: Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
- Genesis 5:1-2: This is the written account of Adam’s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.
- Genesis 9:6: Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God has God made mankind.
- Job 33:4: The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
- Job 38:4-7: Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
- Psalm 8:3-6: When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.
- Psalm 100:3: Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
- Psalm 102:25-27: In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.
- Psalm 104:27-30: All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
- Psalm 139:13-18: For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.
- Isaiah 42:5: This is what God the Lord says—the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it.
- Isaiah 54:5: For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is his name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.
- Jeremiah 1:4-5: The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
- John 1:3-4: Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
- John 2:24-25: But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
- Acts 17:24-28: The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
- 1 Corinthians 8:6: Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
- 1 Corinthians 15:45-49: So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
- Colossians 1:15-17: The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
- Hebrews 1:2: But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
- Hebrews 1:10-12: He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”
- Hebrews 2:5-8: It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet.” In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them.
Fall Passages: The Fallen, Finite, Frail, Failing Embodied-Soul
To view the rest of this document, and the rest of the 112 biblical passages about our being embodied-souls, you can visit and download for free: Toward a Theology of Embodied-Souls.
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