DeWitt Tabernacle Teaching
Series
(Do
We Have Two Souls?
What
Is The Soul?)
By C.W. Wood
We are not to become war-like and hostile toward each other to the point of disfellowshipping. How often have we condemned the denominational brothers for such tactics? Have we now been invaded by this same spirit? We do know that while we left our own flanks unguarded the enemy has separated us into different camps.
This should not be so. It is good to be full of zeal and desire the truth of the Word, but we do well to remember the teaching of God’s Prophet. How often did Brother Branham exhort us to return to New Testament Christianity in that we lay aside all human philosophies and creeds, and embrace the Christ of the Word. He declared that the scripture must be our last authority, and the name of the Saviour be the only name we bear.
Unfortunately, some are now showing forth a divided Body of Christ, and this while we strive to attract precious souls to the end-time message. Which camp are you in dear friend, and which doctrine do you promote? The outsider is many times hard-put to discover what we believe. Often the teaching varies with the part of the country we are in and even worse, some churches in the same areas are in disagreement.
We
said in the beginning that the Lord has given us the answer to our present
dilemma. It is to be found in Eph.
4:11-15, “And He gave some Apostles, and some Prophets, and some
Evangelists, and some Pastors and Teachers.” (What are they for Lord?) “For
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the Body of Christ. Till we all
come into the UNITY OF THE FAITH, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro,
and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all
things which is the Head, even Christ.”
May I tell you the main theme I see in these scriptures? It is STAY TOGETHER until we all come into the unity of the truth. The true Bride must stay together. You say, “But some refuse to stay together.” No doubt this is true, but we know that the seed never pulls away from the shuck. In an ear of corn the shuck always pulls away from the grain as it ripens. The natural always types the spiritual.
The Bride must stay in her place and let those who will not receive the Word do the pulling away. It will not turn out well when we try to reverse God’s order. Let us stand on our scriptural ground and know that those who pull away do so because they are not of us.
1
John 2:18-19, “Little Children it is the last time and as ye have heard
that Anti-Christ, shall come, even now are there many Anti-Christ, whereby we
know that it is the last time. They
went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would
no doubt have continued with us. But
they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not of us.”
We are saddened when some pull away, but we must remember that it is the Word of the Lord that separates. We are to stay where God places us, even as Abraham. His post of duty was on the mountain, away from the world and it’s sin. We are to strive with all that is in us to keep our skirts clean, and when we fail we must repent and make any restitution necessary.
Someone may object that there are those who will stay in our midst and continue to generate trouble. This is true, but the Bride will know them because they will refuse to follow all the Word. By their fruits the Bride will know them, and be as wise as a Fox in dealing with them, but at the same time be as harmless as doves towards them. In this the Bride will fulfill the scriptures where Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that despitefully use you and persecute you.” (Matt. 5:44) We must often endure the spirits that are on these people. This is a part of our suffering for Christ’s sake. Only the Bride will be anointed to fulfill the above scripture.
We always remember that it is possible for our Lord to change a heart in a moment’s time, even as he did for the Apostle Paul who was before his change, the Number One Enemy of the true Church. And, so we see that one who is desperately wrong in some things, can still be a wheat. This must be at least one reason why the Lord instructed us to leave the ones we supposed to be tares, and who choose to remain in the Church. Some will leave because of the Word, but some will stay even though they refuse to obey all the Word.
Let those remain who choose to stay, and by faith put them in Father’s hands. At harvest time He will know exactly who is who, then we will have taken no chance of putting out a wheat plant. Of course, this does not include allowing open sin that endangers the character of the whole church. We do understand there is a point beyond which Christian fellowship cannot continue. But let us be certain it is sin we stand against, and not the personality of a brother. Let us war against the enemy and not each other.
But I have departed from the subject before us, namely the so-called “Two Soul Teaching.” It has been the experience of this writer that at times our differences are only in a play of words. By that I mean we sometimes use different words to portray the same truth. There is no doubt some confusion in our ranks over the “Two Souls” and I do not know all the teaching that is going forth. My desire is to help clear the air.
Dear Bride, we can be wrong at times. How often I hear it said that, “The Elect cannot be fooled.” This is the scripture, but remember this only means that we cannot be PERMANENTLY fooled. It does not mean that we can’t be on a side road TEMPORARILY. The man who believes he cannot EVER be deceived, is deceived already.
I do believe that Brother Branham explained what we are calling the “Two Soul Teaching.” My only desire is to direct us to the central truth so that true brothers will be able to come together in unity. UNITY is a key word. God’s power only flows through His body, as it should when we are in UNITY. I believe one thing the Rapture waits for is the UNITY of the Bride. If this be so, how we must labor to bring it to pass.
May I say in the beginning that I can’t find where the Prophet or the Bible says we have two souls. However, both teach that we have two NATURES. That is AFTER our New Birth we have two natures. From our physical, sex birth we only have one nature and it is evil. From the soul out, the nature of the unregenerate man is ruined. However, at the time of the New Birth there is a nature in us that DIES. But the nature, or the “law of sin” that is in our fleshly members does never die. And so we see that AFTER the New Birth we have two natures; one in the OUTER FLESH MAN that ever remains the same, and one in the INNER MAN of the soul that has been changed. Actually, the Prophet said the old soul dies and a new one takes its place.
QUOTE: SOULS IN PRISON, PAGE
7, “Now this, souls in
prison, souls that are now in prison. Now
the soul of man is not the body of man, it’s the soul.
And the SOUL IS SOMETHING THAT IS THE NATURE OF THE SPIRIT.
And then when the nature of a man (dies) when he said, “We are
dead,” the scripture plainly tells us we are dead, and our lives
are hid in God through Christ, sealed there by the Holy Spirit. (Referring to Col. 3:3)
Now it wasn’t your body that died. It wasn’t your spirit that dies. THE NATURE OF YOUR SPIRIT WHICH IS THE SOUL.” (End quote)
Please read the preceding quote carefully. He said, “The soul is the nature of the spirit.” To me he is saying the soul determines the nature that will be on the spirit. I believe that after the seals were opened he taught that the soul is the innermost being; that it is the control tower for the whole man. What is in the soul flows out and controls the spirit, and the spirit then controls the body.
Then in our previous quote he goes on to say, “The scripture plainly tells us we are dead---.” In other words, something died. Then he said, “It wasn’t your body or your spirit that died, but your old NATURE died, which is the SOUL.”
Please
notice how he uses the word NATURE and SOUL interchangeably. He declared that the old NATURE died, which is the SOUL.
We have had no problem understanding that we had a NATURE change at the
time of our New Birth, but now we hear a Prophet saying it wasn’t CHANGED, it
DIED. God did not overhaul the old
NATURE, or SOUL. He slew it and
gave us a new one by quickening the SEED that was placed in us at our physical
birth. Does not the scripture say
that we are NEW CREATURES? (2nd
Cor. 5:17) The old
CREATURE, or the NATURE, or the SOUL was not made over, it DIED!
In the light of the preceding quote, let us now look at a scripture that Brother Branham quoted in connection with the death of our evil SOUL. Ezekiel 18:4, “Behold, all souls are mine, as the SOUL of the Father, so also the SOUL of the Son is Mine. The SOUL that sinneth it shall DIE.” In the following statement Brother Branham apparently referred to this scripture.
QUOTE; SHOW US THE FATHER--SPINDALE, N.C. 56-0422, “But you know the Bible said, “The SOUL that sinneth, that SOUL shall die.” “Death means separate.” (End quote)
The Holy Ghost who wrote the scripture made a definite statement, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” In view of the Prophet’s teaching, which declares that our old SOUL DIES at the time of our New Birth, I can see that this verse has more than one meaning. The soul that never repents shall die because it was born evil, and since there is no eternal hell it must eventually die. Also, the man that does repent is given a new soul in the place of the one that must die at the time of the New Birth. And so, either way we want to look at it, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” This makes Ezekiel 18:4 exactly right as the Prophet said.
Why does the OLD SOUL, or the OLD NATURE, have to die in the one who repents? Let Brother Branham explain it to us:
QUOTE: YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN, PAGES 14-15, “We are all born in sin and shaped in iniquity, there is not a sound parcel in us. Our MINDS are bad, our SOUL is corrupted, our constant THINKING is evil. Every imaginary thought of a man’s mind is evil. And also our BODY is weak, our SPIRIT is no good, WE ARE JUST FULL OF CORRUPTION. And how could one corruptible thing bring a good thing out of a corrupted? In Job the 14th chapter, “Seeing that a man born of a woman is full of sorrow and trouble----“ and as the Prophet goes on speaking he said, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one! (Not one can do it.) (End quote)
This statement explains to me why the OLD NATURE, or SOUL, has to die. It was evil and had to be destroyed. If the OLD NATURE, or SOUL, is so completely changed that it no longer exists, is it not dead? And so the Prophet and the scripture said simply, “It dies.”
QUOTE: C.O.D. BOOK, PAGE 676, “QUESTION: Explain the difference between the SPIRIT and the SOUL?” ANSWER: “Well now, that’s a hard one-If these eyes, if these hands, if this body stood here just as it is today--my body could still be here, but me (the real me) could be gone, what I am. Whoever I am on the inside of me has gone on. That part is the SPIRIT. THE SOUL IS THE NATURE OF THAT SPIRIT---. First you were mean, evil, and (full of) hatred, and malice, and strife. Now you are loving, sweet, kind, see the difference? It’s your NATURE--I’ll call it that. IT’S YOUR SOUL THAT’S BEEN CHANGED. THE OLD SOUL DIED, AND THE NEW SOUL, WHICH IS THE NEW NATURE WAS BORNED INTO YOU SEE?” (End quote)
Can we see that Brother Branham is using the words SOUL and NATURE interchangeably? He said, “I’ll call it that.” (Saying I will call your soul your nature.) As has already been stated, we have had no problem believing that our old Nature dies, but some of us have not understood that the soul and the nature were the same thing. And so we have some brothers saying the SOUL died, while others prefer to say the old NATURE died. To me the controversy can be settled when we see that our confusion has only been a different usage of words that mean the same thing. Nevertheless, these things need to be ironed out so that we are not throwing rocks at each other spiritually.
How many times he said, “The soul is the nature of the spirit.” In other words our soul is a nature, and this nature overflows into our spirit so that the same nature that is in the soul determines the character of the spirit. The spirit in turn brings the body under its control, for good or for bad.
This
helps us to understand the scriptures that teach no fountain can produce both
sweet and bitter water at the same time. James
3:11-12, “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and
bitter? Can the fig tree, my
brethren, bear olive berries? Either
a vine figs? So can no fountain
both yield salt water and fresh?”
When our Prophet declared that there is only one of two things in the soul, he was basing it on scriptures such as the one above. He said there is either faith or unbelief in the soul. This is back to the teaching of the INNER MAN and the OUTER MAN. In the beginning both the INNER and the OUTER MAN is defiled. That is to say the old SOUL, or NATURE could only put forth bitter water.
But then at the New Birth the old soul, or nature, died and was replaced with a new soul, or nature. It is at this time that the soul begins to put forth sweet water. But as the scripture and the Prophet said, it does not put forth both at the same time.
The
soul that has been born-again so that the old nature (soul) is destroyed has
been made righteous, as God is Himself. That
is to say that in our inner man WE ARE AS GOD. It is true
that our outer man so clouds the scene at times that it does not appear to be
so. Nevertheless, the scripture
declares it. 2nd Cor.
5:21, “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
In our soul we can no more sin than God can, after the New Birth. I would not dare to make such a statement if our God had not made it first. 1 John 3:9, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. For His seed remaineth in him, and he CANNOT SIN, because he is born of God.”
There it is Little Bride! When we are born-again, which is the soul (nature) dying and the new soul (nature) appearing, this is nothing more or less than the seed of God which was placed in us at our physical birth, springing into life.
Where the old soul was evil, the new one is holy and righteous. Where bitter water once issued, now only sweet water can come forth. Please understand this is not to say that wrong things can no longer come out of the mouth. We are only saying that when the outer man controls the tongue at times, the soul is not in agreement with it by any means, and will eventually cause us to repent.
To understand the scriptures that say bitter and sweet can not issue from the same fountain, we must again separate the INNER MAN from the OUTER MAN. We must see that the soul renewed by God has God in it, and can never be bitter again. And this remains true, while the outer man is still a cocklebur and at times will spew forth bitter water. But the inner fountain of the soul, after it’s renewal, can only put forth that which is good and sweet. Why so? Because it is the seed (soul) of the Creator Himself.
And so we see that man does not have two souls. He is born with a bad one from his physical birth, and at his new spiritual birth he receives another soul-nature by a supernatural work of God. This is why the Prophet could say that we must have the Token, which is the new birth, or the new nature, or the new soul.
We can be justified and not have the new soul, we can be sanctified and not have the new soul, we can have the baptism of the Holy Ghost on our spirit, but not have the new soul. We are “None of His” until the soul is changed, as far as going in a rapture is concerned. That is why Rom. 8:9 says, “---if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.”
The old soul nature must die, it must be converted. Psalms 19:7, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul----.” If a thing is converted it is changed from its original beginning so that it no longer exists as it once did. Is this not the same as “death” to the original? It is my belief that this is what our Prophet meant by the death of the soul. A complete conversion is the same as the death of the original.
QUOTE: GREAT COMMISSION, EDMONTON AB 57-0804A, “When you’re sick in your physical body----until this body has been redeemed it’s subject to sickness again. Exactly right. ----But it’s got to die. (The body has to die.) It’s got to perish. SO DID THE SOUL HAVE TO PERISH, THE THOUGHTS. The soul is the nature of the spirit, and those thoughts and so forth in you had to perish before the new man could be born into you, to make you a new creature in Christ.” (End quote)
QUOTE: CRUELTY OF SIN JEFF. IN V-25 N-4 53-0403, “Made him out of the dust of the Earth, now, not in His own image. He had already made the man. Then He breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living SOUL. So the SOUL of man is the nature of the SPIRIT. Now when you’re REBORN you don’t get a new SPIRIT, you get a new NATURE of that SPIRIT. It’s the same SPIRIT, but a new NATURE of it.
You take two men, stand them together, they both look alike, and one of them is a sinner, and one of them is a Christian. One man says, I’ve got a spirit the same as you have. See? But one of them is different, HIS SOUL, HIS NATURE IS DIFFERENT. HE HAS BEEN CHANGED.” (End quote)
Here again he uses SOUL and NATURE as being the same thing and goes on to say that the SOUL has been changed. The old, evil soul was changed, or done away with, or DIED, as the Prophet said in some places.
QUOTE: SOULS THAT ARE IN PRISON NOW, PAGE 9, “And we will have a body like His own glorious body. That’s why we are baptized into His Name, that we might come forth in His Name, in His Death; in His resurrection….that we rise again testifying to the world that we have a new life. THAT THE OLD MAN IS DEAD. WE BURIED THAT FIRST NATURE. That first NATURE is gone and now WE ARE THE NATURE OF HIM. He lives in us and we don’t do our own will, we do His will. We don’t think our own thoughts, the mind is what thinks.
The mind that was in Christ Jesus is in every Believer. There is the SOUL, and that’s what we are speaking of. Now that’s the part that I’m thinking of now, that’s within us, THE SOUL.” (End quote)
Can we see here that he is saying the SOUL and the NATURE are the same thing, and that the old man, or the old NATURE, or the old SOUL DIED?
Do you choose to say, “The old NATURE DIED?” Then the Prophet called it NATURE also. Do you, my brother, choose to say, “The old SOUL DIED?” Then the Prophet called it SOUL also. One thing all born-again people know is, “Old things passed away, and all things became new.”
If in times passed we did not understand that it was the NATURE of our spirit, which is the SOUL, that passed away, then I pray that we have now been enlightened and that the ground for our controversy has been dissolved.
We are well aware that there will be those who will continue in their unscriptural teaching, twisting the true message and the scriptures to fit their own ungodly life styles. Pity those who forsake their own common sense, and the Word of God to fulfill the lust of the flesh. Pity them as they delve into every teaching to see if they can find leeway for their sins. At the same time pray fervently, in case some of God’s own children are mixed up with them.
In closing we need to say a word about the difference between the new SOUL, which is He Himself, and in the Holy Ghost baptism, which only anoints us. When we receive the Token we have received God’s own Soul into our human body. It is He Himself, come, to change us PERMANENTLY in all our sinful thoughts and ways.
QUOTE: FAITH IN ACTION, CHICAGO, “Speaking about the eagle he watched on the mountain that day, Brother Branham said, “I could shoot you, and he wasn’t worried about that. I kept noticing him fooling with his feathers and wings like that. I thought, that’s it, he trusts in his wings. God gave him two wings and he is a free bird. He can escape from danger anytime he wants to---. If an eagle can have confidence in the wings God gave him, how much more ought you to have confidence in the Holy Ghost that saved your soul AND BAPTIZED YOU WITH HIS SOUL.” (End quote)
The true Seal of God is Him placing His own soul in us. His soul is His seed that was placed in us at our physical birth, and later quickened to life by His Spirit. As the Spirit watered the seed it sprang into life. That life is eternal and will eventually take us back to our origin, which was a God-like person formed in Heaven before the world was, a Theophany. We were first created in the image of God, we were of God’s own kind. But the Baptism of the Holy Ghost is an anointing of God’s Spirit that can come and go. It can lead to the Token-Seal when we follow on, but many do not follow on. Many are called but few are chosen.
This anointing can work gifts but because the Soul is not changed the anointing fades away at times, depending on the circumstances. Temptation easily draws this person away because there is no anchor in the soul. Contact with the world draws these anointed people back into their sins. This is why the Prophet said we can have this Baptism, or anointing, and still be lost. It explains why he said, “The Baptism of the Holy Ghost makes way for He, Himself.” It is He, Himself, that is the new NATURE, or SOUL. This new SOUL-NATURE is permanent, while the anointing is not necessarily so.
And so we see that we do not have two souls, but only one at a time, and it is either a good one or a bad one. If it’s still bad, Jesus said, “You must be born-again.”
He wants to give us a new SOUL-NATURE. AMEN!