Apostle Paul wrote “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Thess. 5:23. From that passage, man is clearly a tripartite being. The spirit is the part of man that fellowships with God. The soul is the organ that sits our thoughts, will and emotion. The body is the part of man that communicates with the material world. Therefore, the meaning of salvation is that the three parts must be saved. The three-fold salvation are mentioned in the Bible (See I Cor 5:5, Rom 8:23 and I Pet 2:9).

At what point then do we experience that full salvation? The salvation of the spirit happens when a person believes in Christ, and the person is saved by grace through faith. When Ephesians 2:1 says “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;” The quickening here refers to the spirit, which was dead all along, and is now made alive when a man comes to Christ. This experience is what enables us to have fellowship with God. It is the “judicial” act called justification, where God is the Judge, and He declares the guilty sinner innocent. Before God, such an individual has never sinned before. The salvation of the body will happen when the believer makes it to heaven at last. When we overcome the corruption of this world and we are joined with the Lord in body.  This is the final salvation. But that will never happen until we win the war that is raging in our soul.

Apostle Peter admonished the saved believers in I Pet 2:11 “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;” It is possible to come out of Egypt which is like you being saved, but still you are stranded in the wilderness because of the many struggles in your soul, and if you cannot win that battle raging in your soul forget about making it to the promised heaven. In fact, you may be saved, but you are not safe until you enter heaven. That is why after you have experienced justification, which is salvation from the penalty of sin, you must press on to sanctification, which is deliverance from the present power of sin. This is what enables you to live a life of daily victory over sin. And only then can you experience glorification, which is salvation from the presence of sin, to live with God for all eternity.