<p>5:23- see on Phil. 1:10.</p><p><i>Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ</i>- The context in :19-24 is of the work of the Spirit; and it is the Spirit which sanctifies or makes us holy (1 Cor. 6:11). The Holy Spirit is literally 'the spirit of holiness / sanctification'; &quot;sanctify&quot; here is a form of the word for &quot;holy&quot;. It is by the Spirit that we are made holy or sanctified. That work of sanctification affects every part of our lives and being- it operates upon us &quot;completely&quot;. However the Greek translated &quot;completely&quot; is a unique word in the New Testament, and literally means 'complete to the end'. The Spirit works in our minds now to progressively transform us, and it is that same Spirit which shall transform our bodies physically at the last day into immortality (Rom. 8:11). Paul has spoken earlier of the possibility of being alive at the Lord's return, and this was his great wish as it is ours. And it seems he has that in view here, in wishing that their whole spirit, person &quot;soul&quot; and even their body would be &quot;preserved blameless&quot; at the Lord's coming. We are or course sinful, but we are counted as &quot;blameless&quot;; as explained in Romans 8, the work of the Spirit is to make us in reality how we are counted by the grace of imputed righteousness. That grace has its outflow in the grace or gift of the Spirit in transforming us into that which we are counted as by status.</p><p>Paul at times quotes from or alludes to popular Jewish ideas with which he may not have necessarily agreed. The lack of quotation marks in New Testament Greek means that it&rsquo;s hard for us at this distance to discern when he does this &ndash; but it seems to me that it&rsquo;s going on a lot in his writings. Thus he uses the phrase &ldquo;your whole spirit, soul and body&rdquo;, a popular Jewish expression for &lsquo;the whole person&rsquo; &ndash; but it&rsquo;s clear from the rest of Paul&rsquo;s writings that he didn&rsquo;t see the body and soul as so separate.</p>