Definition (house style)
Theological anthropology is the discipline that investigates the human being: his nature and constitution, his destiny, his relationship to God, and the effect of sin and grace on his being. On apokatastasis.wiki, anthropology is treated functionally: who and what is the human being in relation to God’s plan of restoration? The five authors agree that humanity requires redemption, but they differ fundamentally on the constitution of human nature — dichotomy (body/soul) versus trichotomy (body/soul/spirit) — and on how sin and grace affect the human person.
Author variants
Nee/Lee
Nee and Lee work with a developed trichotomy: the human being consists of spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body (soma), each corresponding to a space in the tabernacle — the body with the outer court, the soul with the holy place, and the human spirit with the Holy of Holies [EG, ch. 3]. The spirit is the innermost organ and the only space where God can dwell. BXL3 refines this with the heart-as-gateway model: the heart — comprising all the parts of the soul plus the conscience — surrounds the spirit and is its actual gateway: “The mind and the conscience are the two main parts of the heart. And since the heart surrounds the spirit, it is the actual gateway of the spirit” [BXL3, ch. 2]. The teleological formula is: “For what purpose did God create man? Solely that man might be His container” [EG, ch. 5] — the human being as a vessel destined to receive God as its content.
Jones
Jones emphasizes the distinction between mortality and sinful nature: the human being became mortal through the fall, but mortality is not the same as sinful nature. The imago Dei is for Jones eschatologically oriented — the true image of God is still to be fulfilled rather than merely lost. The will is a real but bound capacity, always operating within the framework of God’s sovereign governance.
Warnock
Warnock uses hyssop as his central human metaphor: the hyssop is the humble plant that carries and applies the blood of the Lamb (Ex. 12). The human being is weak and insignificant — but it is precisely through this weakness that God reveals his strength. Warnock emphasizes that original sin produces personal guilt (Ps. 51): humanity is co-implicated in inherited guilt and yet bears individual responsibility for its deeds. Redemption addresses the tripartite human: agorazo (body), exagorazo (soul), and lutroo (spirit).
Bullinger
Bullinger works with a dichotomy of soul and body as his primary anthropological schema and emphasizes the total depravity of human nature (the flesh): the flesh is incapable of improvement; only death and rebirth can bring radical renewal. His anthropology is strongly eschatologically oriented toward the resurrection of the body as the completion of God’s redemptive work.
Noordzij
Noordzij employs a sonship anthropology: the human being is created as the image-bearer of God (imago Dei), and that calling is only fulfilled in sonship (huiothesia). Moses functions as a type of the believer who grows toward full sonship through weakness and obedience — an anthropology that is relationally and eschatologically grounded.