In doing research for Man as Spirit, Soul and Body, I discovered that one of the most scholarly, convincing books available on biblical psychology was published in Scotland in 1875. Since then I have only had a photocopied volume…until I discovered an economical Kindle ebook edition at www.Amazon.com.

Here is a brief quote from the Preface:

“The psychology of the schools is radically different from that of Scripture; yet to this day divines treat the distinction of soul and spirit as if it were only a verbal one, and speak of mortal body and immortal soul in phrases which are unconsciously borrowed from Plato rather than from St Paul. That philosophy should be content with a division of human nature into two parts only, “the reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting,” is neither strange nor inconsistent. The wonder rather would have been if the Pneuma had been detected by those old Greeks who, with all their wisdom, knew not God, and therefore knew not of a dormant faculty of God-consciousness which exists only as a bare capacity for good, not as an active energy or habit in man until he is born from above. Thus the trichotomy of human nature into spirit, soul, and body is part of that “hidden wisdom which eye had not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” till it was taught us by God in his Word [1 Cor. 2:9,10]. The Bible which contains the only sound system of theology, is also the teacher of the only sound system of psychology. Yet divines have paid too little attention to the psychology of the Bible, and in consequence obscurities, if not positive errors, have crept into theology, which can only be cleared up by bringing the light of Biblical psychology to bear on theology.”

— The Tripartite Nature of Man: Spirit, Soul, and Body, Applied to Illustrate and Explain the Doctrines of Original Sin, the New Birth, the Disembodied State, and the Spiritual Body by John Bickford Heard

I urge students of biblical psychology to get this classic volume and give it due consideration.

-J.B.W.