The Soul

The Soul

God’s promises are directed first at men’s souls.

“You shall love the LORD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deuteronomy 6:5

All worldviews are rooted in unseen realities—concepts of the greatest good, expressions of hope, statements of vision, mission, goals, and so forth; none of these are presently visible. They exist only as projections of the thinking of those who hold to them. The difference between the worldview of Scripture and all other worldviews is that unseen realities in which the Biblical worldview is rooted are real, and they come before and give shape to the thinking of those who articulate visions, goals, and aspirations for the worldview revealed in Scripture, beginning in the Law of God.

The Biblical worldview grows out of the worldview kernel deposited in God’s Law. It does not surprise us that, in God’s Law, the unseen Lord holds out His unseen promises first of all to the unseen portions of the human being—the soul. We do not, in the first place, love God with the strength of our physical members, doing and obeying in a merely rote and robotic manner. This is not the way to realize the promises of God. Our first calling is to engage the Lord and His promises in our souls—heart, mind, and conscience—and then, as our God-enthralled souls direct, to bring our bodies into conformity with and obedience to His Law.

Obedience of life begins in the soul, where the heart fears and loves God, the mind understands and embraces His instructions, and the conscience values God’s will and wills our members to obey His Word. The more we understand about the unseen aspect of the human life—the soul—the better able we will be to know the Lord Who gives His Law and the promises which obedience to that Law bring within our grasp.

As we shall see, God not only speaks His Law to our souls, but He instructs His people concerning how they must engage the different aspects of their souls with Him, training and disciplining their affections, thinking, and priorities to seek the Lord and His promises above everything else. Unless we first gain mastery over the inward, unseen parts of our lives, we will never enjoy the abundant blessings God holds out to us in His precious and very great promises.

But the Law of God ultimately points our souls beyond itself, to the full realization of the Law and the promises in our Lord Jesus Christ. On our own, apart from the regenerating work of God’s Spirit, we have no heart for God or His promises, much less for His Law. Only as we come to know Jesus Christ, cling to Him, and seek His Kingdom and righteousness, in the power of His Spirit, can the righteousness of God’s Law and the full and abundant life of God’s promises begin to be ours.

For a more complete exposition of the promises of God, order a copy of T. M.’s book, I Will Be Your God, from our online store. How do Jesus and the Law relate? Read T. M.’s Crosfigell offering, “Supreme Wisdom.”

Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.