What does it mean for the soul to walk?

When God created man, He created his spirit and soul and formed his body from the dust of the ground (Gen. 1:26-27, Gen. 2:7). So, man is essentially a spirit, he has a soul and lives in a body (1 Thess. 5:23, Heb. 4:12). 

It is good to note that each compartment is a man. Scripture refers to the spirit as the inner man (Eph. 3:16), the soul as the inward man (Rom. 7:22) and the body as the outward man (2 Cor. 4:16).

Adam’s partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil caused his spirit to die or to be unresponsive to God (Gen. 2:16-17). The spirit of man is made to respond instantaneously; it is likened to a candle (Prov. 20:27). However, the soul is not an instantaneous entity (Psa. 18:28). Rather, it operates through knowledge.

The soul, being a man (inward man) which runs by knowledge, has the ability to walk (Eph. 2:1-2). After man fell in the garden of Eden, man began to walk according to the knowledge it had acquired by reason of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This knowledge is called ‘Sin’. Ephesians 2:2 further shows that men for generations had walked according to the course of this world, under the tutelage of the prince of the power of the air. If we walked according to a course, we must have been given the knowledge of that course as every course has its knowledge, even in the natural.

It is the soul that has the ability to do this walk. For every course in the natural, one cannot advance in its learning without obeying the laws around that course. Such laws include reading, understanding, writing and passing tests and examinations. The soul must also learn and obey the laws guiding every knowledge it encounters for it to progress. This learning and obedience is what makes the soul to walk.

At New Birth, the spirit of a believer gets quickened or regenerated. This regeneration makes the spirit to become Christ or to become one with the Lord (Rom. 8:10, 1 Cor. 6:17). After one gets born again, the natures that have been formed in the soul by reason of walking according to this world’s course have to be removed (Eph. 4:22-24). 

This can only happen if one learns a contrary, and higher nature called Christ (Matt. 11:28-30, Eph. 4:20). Every believer must receive Christ by learning and then walk by the wisdom he has received (Col. 2:6).In other words, every believer must learn and obey the revelation of Christ for Christ to be formed in the soul (Gal. 4:19). 

The obedience to the commandments of Christ is what makes the soul walk. Hence, Christ must first be revealed and then the believer must obey or walk according to the revelation the soul has received.