Body, soul, and spirit - What does this mean?

We update studies as the Lord Jesus leads us. You can find the latest update of this study at ChurchAges.net

The Bible never says body and soul and spirit

The Bible has it in the reverse order.

First the spirit, then the soul, and last the body.

I THESSALONIANS 5:23    And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole

spirit and soul and body

be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Watchman Nee the famous Christian author reversed the order and wrote of "body, soul, and spirit" and the churches followed him.

This meant that the most valuable part of humans, right on the inside, was the spirit.

At times, brother Branham agreed with him.

61-0101 REVELATION  CHAPTER  FOUR.2
Now, what is a man? He's a triune being;

body, soul, and spirit.

SARDISEAN  CHURCH  AGE - CHURCH  AGE  BOOK CPT.7
Now, their lives were not their own, and neither were their lives Christ's, but they belonged

body, soul, and spirit

to the Church of Rome.

In 1965 brother Branham changed the emphasis and placed the soul as the most inward portion of a person.

65-0815  AND  KNOWETH  IT  NOT

And neither can you be manifested without being the trinity person that you are, that's:

body, spirit, soul.

Without either one of them, you're not complete. See? You didn't have a soul, you'd be nothing; you didn't have a spirit, you wouldn't be nothing; you didn't have a body, you just be a spirit, not a body.

65-1207  LEADERSHIP

Look here, you are a outside person. You have five senses that contacts that outside body. God gave you five senses; not to contact Him, your earthly home: see, taste, feel, smell, and hear.

Then you have a spirit on the inside of that, and it has five outlets: conscience, and love, and so forth. Five outlets that you contact the spirit world with that, but with your spirit.

Your physical contacts the physical. Your spiritual contacts the spiritual.

But inside of that you've got a soul,

and that soul is that gene that come from God.

The soul is the innermost part that comes from God.

65-1126  WORKS  IS  FAITH  EXPRESSED

But when it's directed from the inside, it throws all the rest of it together. That's the guidepost. That's the control tower, the inside of the inside.

The soul controls the spirit, the spirit controls the body.

It is the soul that actually drives you through life as the soul controls and motivates your spirit,

which controls your body and tells it what to do.

Spirit soul and body is NOT THEIR POSITION in a human

I THESSALONIANS 5:23    And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole

spirit and soul and body

be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This verse is explained by most churches as representing the order of these three physically.

The body on the outside. The soul inside the body gives the body life. The spirit inside the soul is the innermost source of motivation.

The following diagram is how the churches see a human being. It is wrong.

This supposed explanation makes the spirit the innermost or most valuable part of the person.

MATTHEW 16:26   what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

This verse makes it clear that the soul is the most valuable part of a person.

Churches that put the soul between the spirit and the body then believe in a “soulish” life.

"Soulish" is an unscriptural word.

They regard the soul as being the life within the body of the person.

Explaining our belief with an unscriptural word means that we are wrong.

But animals also have a spirit of life in them.

Anyone who has owned a pet dog knows that an animal has its own life which produces its own personality.

ECCLESIASTES 3:21   Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Animals also have a spirit which is their life. But animals have no sin so they do not have to answer to God for their lives. They live by instinct. Their spirits are poured out into the dust when they die.

EZEKIEL 18:4   : the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Sin is associated with the human soul. The soul thus has free will, the ability to choose.

This prophecy was given about Jesus coming as a Prophet.

DEUTERONOMY 18:18  I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

:19   And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Self-will is the gateway to the soul. We can choose to believe the Words of Jesus or doubt Him and have unbelief in His Word.

ROMANS 10:17   So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

The human soul is what gives us the ability to believe the Word of God, the Bible.

Your soul is either the source of faith or unbelief (doubt) in God's Word.

You decide of your own free-will whether you will believe or not believe.

Let us consider what the Bible says about  “Life” and the “mind”.

ROMANS 8:10   And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life.

The life within any living person or animal is a spirit.

ISAIAH 38:16   O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit:

Human spirits have to go up to God’s Judgement throne to give an account for their free-will choices.

ROMANS 8:27   And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,

EPHESIANS 4:23   And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

The Bible uses the expression “the mind of the Spirit” and “the spirit of your mind”. Thus there is no difference between the spirit and the mind. The spirit when it operates through your brain is your mind.

But scientists say that our thinking is also influenced by our hearts as well as our "gut feeling". So thinking is far more complex than what we realize.

Time involves a fourth-dimension that also involves the spirit world of good-and-evil because those spirits will eventually end when they are burned up in the Lake of Fire. Then time will also end.

We live in three-dimensional space that has length, breadth, and height. Space is inside a fourth-dimension pipeline of time that includes unsaved spirits or ghosts of dead people and the good-and-evil spirits of demonology that make demons so deceptive.

So the spirits of our minds contact this higher 4-dimension spirit world and are influenced by those spirits.

Our brain is some kind of aerial that picks up thoughts and ideas from that higher dimension.

Just like a radio or television can pick up invisible waves of information that pass through a room. Therefore natural man is endlessly influenced by spiritual wickedness that comes invisibly from a higher, and thus more clever, spiritual realm.

What is life?

ROMANS 8:2   For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus

II CORINTHIANS 3:6   : for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

These verses clearly link life with the spirit.

Spirit soul and body is the ORDER IN WHICH GOD WORKS

Let us consider what the Bible says about the physical order of the body and soul and spirit.

I SAMUEL 25:29   Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul:

but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life.

Wrapped up in the spirit or life is the soul.

PSALM 66:9   Which holdeth our soul in life,

The human soul cannot exist on its own but has to be held in the life of the spirit.

JOB 14:22   But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

“Him” must be the "spirit" as a person is made up of a body of flesh, soul, and spirit.

Your spirit produces the spiritual qualities of your personality. Your personality describes you as a unique individual.

Your life or spirit has your fleshly body upon it on the outside which enables your spirit to contact the outside physical world. And deep down within your spirit is your soul which enables you to contact and believe in the higher dimensions of Heaven and God.

This is the sixth-dimension, a much higher dimension of pure Heavenly spirits like angels. This is far above the fourth-dimension which is the realm of good-and-evil spirits.

So the actual order of these three, from the inside, is soul, spirit, and body.

So what does the Bible mean when it speaks of spirit, soul, and body?

HEBREWS 10:39   But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that

believe to the saving of the soul.

The soul of man is linked to believing in the Bible and to salvation. Animals do not believe in God. They live by instinct. Animals do not sin, thus they cannot be saved from sin.

ISAIAH 53:10   Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief:

when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,

The main focus of Calvary was the Soul of Jesus.

His Soul was the sacrifice that saved our souls.

He became a Kinsman Redeemer, a Human Being just like us, only without sin.

"Spirit, soul and body" are the order God works in because the first move comes from God's Spirit which convicts the human spirit.

I THESSALONIANS 5:23    And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole

spirit and soul and body

be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The "spirit, soul, and body" represents the order of God's plan for our rebirth.

The first step is when the Spirit convicts us about sin

Secondly, the soul develops the faith to believe in God and His Word.

Then the body comes under subjection to the Word of God.

The real sin is unbelief

It is the soul that is linked to sin.

EZEKIEL 18:4   the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

ISAIAH 53:10   Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief:

when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,

MICAH 6:7   Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for

the sin of my soul?

PSALM 49:15   But God will redeem my soul

PSALM 49:8    (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:)

Jesus purchased the redemption of our souls at Calvary. That was a complete work. Redemption of the soul is past tense, we just have to recognize that fact.

There is nothing anyone can do today to save their soul.

HEBREWS 9:12   Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

Eternal redemption. God always had His salvation plan in His Mind. The Mind is an attribute of Spirit and God is a Spirit. All the way back from before the beginning He already knew who would worship Him and believe His Word.

God's Spirit convicts my spirit. I repent and realize that He saved my soul 2000 years ago. My soul begins to believe and feeds on the Bible verses that I can understand. This builds up my faith and brings my body under submission.

REVELATION 17:8   The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not

written in the book of life from the foundation of the world,

when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

So the redemption of the soul is past tense. The plan was always in God’s Mind. Then Jesus came and actually paid the price to purchase our souls. But this great deed had always been in God’s Mind. It was nothing new.  Just a fulfillment of God’s thoughts from way back.

The redemption of the body is future tense.

ROMANS 8:23   And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves,

waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

On the day of the resurrection, the dead in Christ will arise in glorified bodies that cannot sin. That is when their bodies will be redeemed.

PHILIPPIANS 3:21   Who shall change our vile body,

that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
I CORINTHIANS 15:52   In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound,

and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

The redemption of our souls was bought at Calvary at His First Coming. At the future resurrection just before His Second Coming, the redemption of our bodies will happen when we are changed into glorified bodies.

Between the First and Second Comings of Christ, the Holy Spirit guides the church into the truth for their church age.

The Bible does not speak of the “redemption of the spirit”.

So what part does the spirit play in the salvation plan?

The human spirit plays no part at all in the redemption plan. It must only die.

I CORINTHIANS 15:31    I die daily.

The Holy Spirit plays the key role in the life of the believer between the redemption of the soul at Calvary and the redemption of the body at the future resurrection.

EPHESIANS 1:13   In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed,

ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

:14   Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession,

unto the praise of his glory.

What does “earnest” mean?

It means a down payment that secures the item against the day when the person comes to claim the item.

What is the down payment that ensures that only the Purchaser, Jesus, can take us?

The Holy Ghost baptism.

The Holy Spirit is the middle Man between the two crucial events. The First Coming to redeem our souls and the Second Coming to redeem our bodies.

The Holy Spirit in the Bride guides them to the full truth that will enable them to be ready for the Coming of the Lord.

EPHESIANS 4:30   And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

The Holy Spirit must replace our human spirit

Notice, there is no redemption of the spirit.  Why not?

Our human spirit has to die. It is a mixture of good and evil and thus has poisoned roots.

Our human spirit must die so that it can be replaced by the Holy Spirit.

COLOSSIANS 3:3   For ye are dead,

and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Rebirth is based on our old human spirit, with its nature of good and evil, dying and being replaced by a portion of God’s Holy Spirit.

Believing in Christ and the Bible is the basis of the new birth.

Unbelief is the real sin.

Everything that we do wrong is just the attributes of unbelief.

JOHN 8:24   I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins:

for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

HEBREWS 10:39   But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that

believe to the saving of the soul.

The main realm of the soul is that it enables us to believe if we want to believe.

REVELATION 22:17   And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come.

And whosoever will,

let him take the water of life freely.

Seven is the number of completion. Seven days make a week. But man was made on the sixth day. Thus he is not quite complete. Something is missing. We have a vacuum, an emptiness in our lives which we endlessly try to fill with material things and human ideas. Our restless human spirit can never be properly satisfied.

The Bible cure for this condition is to repent and be baptized.

ACTS 2:38   Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

When a repentant soul accepts Jesus Christ as personal Saviour, God injects a small portion of His Holy Spirit into that person. The Holy Spirit is the only One who can fill that vacuum that is around the human soul. The presence of the Holy Spirit within the person immediately reveals the dark nature of the human spirit and the saved person becomes more aware of his human sinfulness.

When we repent a cross-over occurs.

Our sinfulness flows onto Christ and some of His holiness and innocence flows into us.

The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. Our human spirit that we thought was so-called “living it up” is now revealed to us as a dark life of spiritual death. A mixture of good and evil that has poisoned roots.

The Holy Spirit brings our Godly human spirit into us

Man was made in the image of God. Thus God has human attributes which is why He came down on earth as a Man, Jesus Christ.

So the Holy Spirit has supernatural qualities as well as having the human qualities that God originally wanted humans to have.

The Holy Spirit thus makes us into the human being that God wants us to be.

As long as our old human nature dies.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5   Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

ROMANS 12:2   And be not conformed to this world: but be ye

transformed by the renewing of your mind,

Growing in grace means that God’s human nature grows within us as our old human nature dies.

The second step is holiness as the Holy Spirit clears away our sinful thoughts and behaviour.

The evil within our selfish fallen human nature so contaminates our motives that we actually have no good in us due to our own efforts. Bias, self-gain, and prejudice are our corrupt counselors.

ROMANS 7:18   For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

:19     For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 

ROMANS 8:10    And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

ROMANS 6:6   Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him,

that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

:7     For he that is dead is freed from sin.

:8     Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

Believing in Jesus and the Bible enables us to overcome sin.

Our own efforts to be good are futile.

A portion of the human nature of Christ needs to take over our lives and control our thoughts and actions. Only then can we become the human beings that God intended us to be.

But we must die to self before Jesus can set us free from sin.

ROMANS 7:22   For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

The Holy Spirit within Paul had the human attributes of a man.

ROMANS 7:23     But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

:24     O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

But Paul also had his old human nature that had consented to the killing of Stephen.

ROMANS 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Once we are saved the Holy Spirit and our human spirit fight within us like two dogs. The one that we feed the most wins.

The Holy Spirit only feeds on the Word of God.

Our works, in this sinful body, will never be up to God’s standards.  But in our minds, we can believe God’s Word.

Believing in Christ, and surrendering our lives to Him becomes the key to success. As we die to self, only then does His Life resurrect in us and make us alive. He wants full control of our thoughts and actions.

As we die to self, so the Spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Spirit, takes greater control of our lives.

The Holy Ghost baptism is when we fully surrender our lives to Jesus and the Bible.

The evidence of the Holy Spirit baptism is the ability of God to guide you into all truth.

JOHN 16:13   Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come,

he will guide you into all truth:

Only when our minds are subject to God’s control can He guide us into all the truth in the Bible that applies to our day at the end-time.

Unfortunately, we are unable to totally kill self, and some of our old fallen human nature still survives. This "self" is our biggest enemy.

Deception depends on unscriptural statements

The biggest hold that the Devil has over us is his ability to deceive us.

MATTHEW 24:4   And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

MATTHEW 24:24   For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that,

if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

The Holy Spirit guides us to Scriptural statements that are written in the Bible.

Deception comes in a thousand different ways, but none of those ideas is actually traced from written Bible verses to other written Bible verses as we move through the Bible.

“It is written” becomes the only difference between truth and deception.

EPHESIANS 4:30   And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Guiding us from Scripture to Scripture, the Holy Spirit seals us against error which can only enter by means of an unscriptural idea.

HEBREWS 9:12   Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

So when God’s Holy Spirit comes into a person, it brings into that person the perfect human nature that God always wanted that person to be.

Only the human attributes of the Holy Spirit can make you become the person that God intended you to be. Only then can you fit into His perfect plan.

The Blood of Jesus and believing the written Word make us secure for all eternity.

There is no other payment for sin than the Blood of Jesus. There is no other protection from sin than the Bible.

Self-will is the only entrance to the human soul. But human self-will cannot fully stay with the Bible, especially when things go wrong and self-survival floods our minds.

Self is our biggest enemy.

Self-will allows doubt or unbelief to flood our soul. Faith then departs because faith and unbelief cannot co-exist together.

That helps to explain why Jesus stands outside the church.

Backsliding means that our human nature grows to have more say in our lives. The Holy Spirit within us is grieved as He has less say in our lives.

Because self-will guides us down the wrong path and we also want to please God, then our only hope is to offer up our self-will to God as a sacrifice that is done of our own free will.

Willingly giving up my free will to God is my sacrifice

Willingly giving up my free will to God is the only real sacrifice that I can make.

My time, talents, and material goods were all given to me by God in the first place. Thus I merely give back to Him what He gave to me. No real sacrifice there.

But when God’s Will replaces my self-will as the entrance to my soul, then alone can faith fill my soul.

Faith is not mine, it is a fruit of the Spirit. As such it is a gift of God.

EPHESIANS 2:8   For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Grace means that we never deserved salvation and thus we can obviously never earn salvation by our good works.

Salvation comes through the good works and sacrifice of Jesus.

GALATIANS 5:22   But the fruit of the Spirit is

love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Faith finds its bedding ground in the soul the believes the Word of God.

The Word of God is a Seed that grows in the soul.

The water of the Spirit germinates any seed in my soul

We have another analogy of the soul.   It is like a garden in which seeds are planted.

JEREMIAH 31:12  and their soul shall be as a watered garden;

Once seeds are planted, then the garden must be watered, which is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

JOHN 7:38   He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

:39     (But this spake he of the Spirit,

Water somehow brings life to parched ground.

LUKE 8:11   Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

I PETER 1:23   Being born again, not of corruptible seed,

but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

The Holy Ghost, acting like water, can only give life to the seed that is planted in the garden, which represents the soul.

So everything depends on the type of seed that is planted in our souls.

We choose to plant the Seed Word of God, or some other seed of human wisdom, in our souls.

Then the Holy Spirit simply waters and germinates whatever seed we chose to plant.

MATTHEW 5:45   ...  and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

We choose between the faith seed of God’s Word or the seed of deception which is human wisdom.

But the Word Seed has to die before it produces life.

So we have to die to self and our self-will before we can come alive in the Holy Spirit.

Each faith seed must die and then produce its own body

I CORINTHIANS 15:36   Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:

:37   And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:

:38   But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him,

and to every seed his own body.

If we have a Word Seed in our souls, then the first step is to water the Word Seed with the faith of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit produces faith in the Word of God.

This Word Seed then begins to grow and produces a Word body by bringing our bodies under subjection to the Word of God whereby we live a holy and decent life.

The roots grow down to symbolize growing deeper into the Word of God. This anchors the plant so that its leaves can grow upward into the “wind” of the Holy Spirit as He moves across the earth.

ROMANS 1:20   For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,

The rebirth follows the same pattern as a planted seed.

First, the seed is watered. Then the seed begins to grow. When the seed grows it produces a body that is suitable for the life that is in the seed.

The main root symbolizes Christ. He alone can make us grow and anchor us in the Word of God.

We are like side roots that are stuck on the main root.

The Spirit quickens or gives life to the Word Seed in the soul. So it is Spirit first, then soul.

Then the growing Seed Word finally produces a suitable body that lives a holy life obedient to the Word of God.

So the order of operation is spirit then soul and then finally body.

I THESSALONIANS 5:23    And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole

spirit and soul and body

be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

ISAIAH 26:9   With my soul have I desired thee in the night;

yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early:

The innermost desire to be right with God comes from the  Seed Word in the soul. Then the Holy Spirit produces a process whereby we grow in grace subject to the Word of God. Finally, our bodies are brought into subjection to Scripture.

JOHN 3:3   Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

:4   Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

:5   Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

The water refers to the water of the Word. The desire to wash our lives clean by being Scriptural.

EPHESIANS 5:26   That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the

washing of water by the word,

Only the Holy Spirit can perform this function as He gains control of our minds.

Thus we are born again when our bodies and minds live subject to the Word of God.

We have physical and spiritual senses

Many of our best-known physical senses are associated with our heads. This enables us to interact with the environment by using sight, hearing, smell, and taste.

The sense of feeling is a widespread sense. We can sense touching as we feel objects.

Then things get more complex as we also have sensors to detect hot and cold, pain, hunger, thirst, balance, movement, etc.

ROMANS 1:20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,

The mind of a living person is invisible because it is a spirit. We cannot see spirits.

But like our physical senses, there are also spiritual senses that help to determine our personalities. These are all aspects of the complex human mind.

Seeing in the physical world indicates that we have the imagination to see things in our minds.

Hearing is linked to our memories.

Our sense of touch or feeling illustrates that we also have mental or emotional feelings.

Taste is linked to reason whereby we decide if we like an idea and agree with it or not. We can then "swallow" the idea or "spit it out".

Smell is the most sensitive physical sense. A few particles of burnt food or perfume can be easily picked up by the human nose. This illustrates that we have a conscience that acts as an early-warning system when we are starting to do something wrong. This is our spiritual policeman that we should listen to.

Discernment or a "gut-feel" and intuition are also attributes of our minds.

These attributes of the spirit of our minds are basically controlled by the desire that comes from our soul.  Of our free will we desire to be Scriptural or unscriptural. This desire then determines the way we believe and think and act.