Spirit Soul Confusion and 2 Types of Defeats

We have shared that man is a tripartite being of spirit, soul and body. When a person is saved, his spirit is reborn by the Holy Spirit and has the indwelling of Holy Spirit. But his soul and body remain unchanged. This explains the need of Rom 12:2 when one mind has to be renewed with the Word of God. And also for 1 Cor 5:5 where the flesh is destroyed and the spirit is saved. Our rebirth spirit is of God, ZOE life and is perfect in righteousness and complete (Col 2:10, 2Pet 1:3 given all, Eph 3:20 power in us) and sin not (1 John 3:9). But our flesh does sin (Rom 7).

With Spirit and Soul against Righteousness and Sin, we have 4 combination. With the confusion of spirit and soul, we can add 2 more. See the picture below. The point of interest is in the confusion of Spirit (righteousness) and Soul (need to be sanctified).

Confusion Type 1 Acceptance by Work

•  The person's Identity is defined by behavior of Soul instead of by the Bible
• It is "Performance or Work Based Acceptance by God".
• A person's identity should be defined by his spirit – Rebirth ZOE (God’s kind of ) Life, that is complete and righteous. Have the Indwelling Holy Spirit and Christ inside and not by his performance of the Soul and body.
• This people will feel good when they have quiet time, prayers but will feel terrible when they sin. They felt condemned. However, instead of drawing from God, they promise to do better. But by their own strength, they will fail again, which results in condemnation.
• Some will try to remove condemnation by doing good work to compensate. They actively serve in church to remove the condemnation inside. They ask God for forgiveness and strength not realizing that Grace have been given in their Spirit and did not draw from it.
• Long term defeat and burnout resulting in them coming to the conclusion that God is not real or not helpful or not loving and hence they give up on God and go back to the world. 
• Sin ->Defeat ->Depressed ->Give Up -> Back to the World-> Denounce Christ
  

Confusion #2 Soul claims Spirit’s Righteousness

• These people claims Spiritual Righteous Standing before God for their Soul as well.
• They believe that no matter what they do with their flesh (soul and body) they will always be righteous.
• Salvation Grace becomes a License to Sin.
• When they sin, they confessed their righteousness
• Sinful acts are pardoned with God’s grace.
• Their salvation is of doubt as they misuse God’s grace.

Note: the two types of errors are learned from Ps John's 7 Sep 2006 message.