St. Paul implies in the text that all three branches of our complicated nature are to undergo sanctification that this leavening process is to go through the entire mass, until the whole is leavened. As the entire man is to be sanctified, so the entire man is to be educated, to be taken early, before the character has crystallised, and to be developed in all his faculties, corporeal, mental, and spiritual.
I. It is not on the mind, in the ordinary sense of the term, that the eternal destiny of man is suspended. The wayfaring man, though a fool, may be a jewel in his Redeemer's crown. On the other hand, "not many wise men after the flesh" were among the first converts to the Gospel. Does it not follow necessarily that to cultivate the mind, while you neglect the development of the spirit and the heart, is one of the most melancholy absurdities that a world which is full of absurdities can present? How can any sane person, being a believer in Revelation, profess to educate at all, without educating for heaven in the first instance, and holding that object foremost before his mind. The cultivation of the mind ranks next in importance. And its importance is immense. But even the cultivation of the mind is chiefly valuable, as it enables us to apprehend God more clearly, and so qualifies us for communion with Him through His dear Son.
II. The education of the soul or affections is also part of the province of education.
III. The body also demands its share in the education of the whole man. For the body, though it is a garment laid aside at death, yet it is to be resumed again on the morn of the Resurrection, and worn throughout eternity the same as to its substance, only changed in form, and adapted to a glorified state of existence. There must be machinery, if effects are to be produced; for God works by means. But grace, the Holy Spirit, the Power from on High, except He put life and vigour into the means, they are all, even the highest of them, dead letters.
E. M. Goulburn, Sermons at Holywell,p. 456.
Spirit, Soul, and Body.
When this threefold division of our nature is mentioned, the term Body expresses those appetites which we have in common with the brutes; the term Soul denotes our moral and intellectual faculties, directed only towards objects of this world, and not exalted by the hope of immortality; and the term Spirit takes these same faculties when directed towards God and heavenly things, and from the purity, the greatness, and the perfect goodness of Him who is their object transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Let us see, then, what is that blamelessness, or that degree of perfection, in which we should desire all these parts of our nature to be found when we stand before Christ's judgment seat.
I. First, the body. Bodily pleasures are the first which we ever enjoy, and our earliest lessons in virtue are learnt in struggling not to give way to them. What is wanted is not to lower or weaken the body, but to raise and strengthen the soul and spirit, that the body may be ready and able to do their work, which it cannot do unless it be itself sound and vigorous.
II. The soul is that part which is most commonly strengthened by the growth and cultivation of the powers of the understanding, and by the various objects which attract the mind as we come forth into actual life. And the general tendency of civilised society is to call forth our minds into action rather than our bodies; so that as we advance in life the soul naturally takes the lead. This is the life, assuredly, of a reasonable creature; of one, looking only to this visible world, noble and admirable. And here, without the Gospel, our progress must stop.
III. But the Gospel which has brought life and immortality to light, has also pointed out to us that part of our nature by which we can be fitted for it that is, our spirit, our spiritual hopes, and our feelings of love and charity. The true object of man's life is to perfect our spirits, our desires after perfect happiness, our love to God and to men as the children of God; to perfect in us that part of our being, which alone is remote from selfishness.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. i., p. 227.
References: 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Bishop Barry, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 88; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. vi., p. 94; G. Bonney, Church of England Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 169; F. W. Robertson, Sermons,3rd series, p. 43; E. L. Hull, Sermons,1st series, p. 225.