I now address the question if Man is a tripartite being. Spirit and soul can be confusing concepts since the words appear to be used interchangeably in Scripture. And where does spirit fit in?
For 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. Hebrews 4:12
From my first book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks, I addressed this issue with comments that give support to Hebrews 4:12:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in our image, in my likeness” . . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:26-27
God is a triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit knows the Mind of God. (1 Corinthians 2:11) Since man was created in the image of God (imago Dei) it is biblical that man is tripartite with body, soul and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 states, “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.” When God formed man from the dust of the ground, He breathed “the breath of life” into him. (Genesis 2:7) It is this life from God that constitutes the human spirit, and as it is with God only the human spirit truly knows the mind of man. It is the soul of man that is the vehicle through which the mind’s will operates, and if a repentant man’s soul wills to obey God, it will allow the spirit to rule over the man as ordered by the indwelling Holy Spirit. As spirit acts upon the soul of man, the soul in turn expresses itself through the brain and body.
With the Fall of man (Genesis 3) the image of God in humans was corrupted with the loss of intimate communion between the soul of man and the Holy Spirit since Man in sin experienced spiritual death, losing [the indwelling personal] communion between the Holy Spirit and his human spirit. Man’s mind became governed by his soul, the will of his own self-centered focus. The relationship between God and Man was and is designed to be a bidirectional, interactive one. Man’s capacity is to use all the communicable attributes of his Creator God, his mind being created in the image of the Mind of God. The restoration of this interaction depends upon Man’s repentance and the soul’s choice to follow the Counsel of the Holy Spirit through his human spirit.