We frequently hear the phrase “the whole man,” and its meaning merits serious consideration from a biblical point of view.
Man, the creature Christ came to save, has a body, mind, and spirit.
The body is the tangible, or physical, part of man, which possesses the senses of sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing. His mind is that which thinks, reasons, remembers, and decides. Through his spirit man is capable of communing with God and receiving God’s revelation of himself.
The body may be developed and trained to perform great physical feats of strength, endurance, and skill.
The mind may be trained, instructed, and developed to the point where it can assimilate a wide scope of knowledge and understanding.
The spirit, in its natural state, is either dormant or in open revolt against God. When touched by the Holy Spirit it undergoes a supernatural change that Jesus speaks of as being “born again,” or “born from above.” Because of this change it is then capable of spiritual perception and of fellowship and communion with God.
Even though a man may have a superbly developed body, that body will in time experience the ravages of disease and regression until death occurs.
The mental faculties may be developed to amazing heights of knowledge and inventive genius, but ultimately the thought processes cease, the ability to reason fades away, the memory fails, the will can no longer be exercised. All these endowments, together with the physical body in which they reside, perish.
But what about man’s spirit? The Bible tells us that “the spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, seaching all his innermost parts” (Prov. 20:27).
By inheritance and in practice, man’s spirit is in revolt against God, disobedient to him, and “desperately wicked.” It needs to be changed, regenerated, lighted by the Holy Spirit, and thereby brought into subjection to and fellowship with God.
At death the body begins the process of decaying, and the mind ceases to function, but the spirit continues to exist, either in fellowship with God, or separated from him.
For the Christian the body will be raised again, glorified in the likeness of our Lord’s resurrection body. The mind will be restored, with capability to recognize, rejoice in, and worship and adore the King of Glory. The spirit will be in perfect union and fellowship with its Maker—all of this for eternity.
How great the difference for the unbeliever! In speaking of the resurrection, our Lord says: “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28, 29). The Apostle Paul affirms, “There will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust” (Acts 24:15).
At the resurrection, the mind of the unbeliever will again function. The Bible indicates that he will protest to the Lord, telling of his many good works, only to hear Jesus say, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evil doers” (Matt. 7:23). The mind will be capable of conscious distress, and there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The spirit of the unbeliever, made for fellowship with God, will find itself separated from God: “tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil” (Rom. 2:9).
Our sole hope is in Christ, who through the new birth redeems the body, renews the mind, and regenerates the spirit. The body needs the redemption that will eventually change it into the likeness of our Lord’s glorious body. The mind needs to be renewed and enlightened so it can grasp spiritual truth. Without this renewal, the word of the cross is folly, and man is incapable of receiving the gifts of the Spirit.
The mind must also be humbled before God’s revelation of truth, accepting it by faith, not solely by reason. The nature of faith is clearly stated. It is “putting our full confidence in the things we hope for; it means being certain of things we cannot see” (Heb. 11:1, Phillips). In his own reasoning the unregenerate man pits his knowledge and understanding against God’s revelation of truth. He accepts his own conclusions, thereby repudiating God.
The spirit needs regeneration because it is in revolt against God and under the domination of Satan.
Humanity is sick—fatally so—because it is made up of individual persons whose bodies, minds, and spirits are in desperate need of renewal and regeneration. When man is reborn by the Spirit of God, all three components of his being are involved. The result is the redemption of the “whole man.”
The question naturally arises: Is physical healing of the body a part of the atonement? Some say it is.
Unquestionably God heals today. He usually does it through the means of medicine, surgery, and other specific therapies. But there are also many authenticated cases of divine healing outside the framework of medicine. (This has occurred in my own family.) Furthermore, God obviously has given to some the special gift of healing others, through prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit. That this gift seems to be growing in our day may be a sign that our Lord is coming soon.
But to claim that if we have “sufficient faith” we can be healed of all our physical ills is a dangerous doctrine. The Apostle Paul had some ailment that he referred to as a “thorn in the flesh.” He prayed earnestly that God would remove it, but God had something better for him: a demonstration of the marvelous sufficiency of his grace.
Furthermore, to argue that healing depends solely on faith brings us to the obvious conclusion that if our faith were sufficient we could never die.
Spiritual healing of the body is an act of God’s sovereign grace, administered by his Spirit and used for his glory.
The “renewing” of the mind is also a work of the Holy Spirit, opening up to the believer an entirely new vista of God’s grace and mercy, giving him a new perspective on life so that he can rightly differentiate between time and eternity, this life and the next, and evaluate all aspects of his life by this all-important standard.
The regeneration of the spirit too is a supernatural act of God’s grace and mercy, a work of the Holy Spirit.
God offers this redemption of the whole man in its glorious fullness, to be received by faith. The social activist is right in affirming the physical needs of men, but he ministers to the whole man only as he looks beyond physical needs. Man has a body, a mind, and a spirit, and Jesus came to save all three.
