Q.
Do the heart, soul, mind and strength in Mark 12:30 all relate to the body, soul and spirit and if so, how?
–Jon
A.
Great question! I have pondered the same over the years. I used to think it was simply a matter of spirit, soul, and body, which would make the word heart parallel with the word spirit.But my understanding of the heart does not fit this conclusion. In my understanding, the word heart is the collective response of the soul. It is the summation of the interworking of the soul. Perhaps we could describe it as the reflection of the soul.
The soul is the mind/thinking capacity, the affections/desiring capacity, and the will/choosing capacity. The heart is where the soul goes. Proverbs 23:6-7 illustrates the point: “Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye [a miser], neither desire thou his dainty meats: For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.”
Here we see a man who says one thing, but down deep in his heart he believes another. In verse seven, the first word heart is actually the word normally translated soul, and the second occurrence of heart is the normal word for heart. “For as he thinketh in his heart” is the idea of “For as he calculates in his soul.” This is what the second word heart refers back to—the interworking of the soul. The heart is the way of thinking which reveals what one really believes. This miser said, “Eat and drink,” but he doesn’t really mean it. He is watching closely, resenting what others eat. He says one thing, but he believes another. His heart was miserly.
So the heart is what one down deep believes, which is the full combination of the soul. When Jesus said in Mark 12:30, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength,” He started with what you truly believe (heart), which is based on the interworking of the soul beginning with the thinking (soul, mind), and is lived out in the physical realm (strength).
Also, my understanding of the human spirit is that for the believer it consists of something of God’s nature implanted in the core of the believer. It is “God’s seed” (1 John 3:9), the “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), and the “new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:24). Therefore, the regenerated spirit consisting of God’s nature implanted in the believer already has love for God. The heart and soul and strength then must yield to the Holy Spirit who leads within the human spirit, from the center to the circumference.
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We were just having this discussion yesterday morning during our devotional time. What is the heart, and how does it function? Is it always “deceitful and desperately wicked” or is this speaking of the unsaved soul? Your explanation is quite helpful.
It’s interesting that the heart as the summation of the interworking of the soul can get deceived, but the generated spirit is not “desperately wicked,” it is radically righteous—the righteousness of God in Christ.