Therefore, this is precisely what gives life to our soul, so that we’re able to please God and live a Spirit-filled life. Can you imagine placing yourself into such a detrimental situation where you can’t be fed indefinitely? We receive and discern God’s truth through our own spirit. The Holy Spirit Himself who indwells us carries out His works through our own human spirit. He Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16).
On the other hand, our soul is the very embodiment of our being because it’s housed our intellect, will, and emotion. Moreover, it’s our control center, our personality, and who we really are as human beings. In spite of all that capabilities, the soul is not sufficient to help us know God. To put that into perspective, our spirit is a lamp to our soul just as the Word of God is a lamp to our feet. With this in mind, our soul is being influenced by two powers: the power of the Holy Spirit through our own human spirit, and the power of Satan through our own flesh.
Spiritual death simply means that our own human spirit has become disconnected from God because of sin (Romans 6:23). The same way that our physical body needs food, water, air, medical care, and so forth in order to sustain and maintain itself, so is our soul. Since our soul is spiritual, it only needs spiritual nourishment and care from God, which we receive through Christ who is the Word.
When we find ourselves in that critical state, our soul is literally dead due to our disconnection from the source of life. Sin not only breaks our fellowship with God which cuts off His spiritual supplies to our soul, but it does inflict deadly damages to our own soul that can only be restored by the blood of Jesus.
Being that the case, our soul can no longer be influenced by our human spirit which is also symbolic of our God-given conscience unless something powerful is done by Him in order to reverse that strong hold of the flesh on our soul. Since we have a free will, God can’t do it alone without our active involvement because He won’t impose Himself on it.