All the scriptures you quote about the "heart" having its own mind, and willl, and being able to see, hear, and talk, I look at those scriptures metaphorically both physically and spiritually. I see the "heart" as part of the "body", not as some kind of spirit "person" inside my body having special functions and abilities. When the scriptures speaks of the heart as being deceitful, or wicked, or commune with your heart, or your heart is awake at night, or the heart is stirring him, that verbiage is metaphoric, and you would have to stretch the scripture a long way to say the heart has its own mind and will and sees, hears, and talks and is one of 3 persons that make up man. Wow, that's a lot deeper than I am willing to go with the make-up of man.
You say that man is made up of "soul, "heart" and "spirit". I just happen to disagree with you. If you asked 10,000 Christians what is the make-up of man you would get at least 20-30 different answers. So there is certainly no consensus about the make-up. It doesn't matter how clear you say the scriptures are for you on the matter, you will still get 20-30 different answers all backed up by scripture as I did.
You say: I hope you can see clearly, the distinct separation between the body and soul, through the above verse in Matthew. You are not the body and the body is not you. When you leave the body, it will die and fall to the ground as James stated. Jas 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
I see that Matthew uses the terms body and soul and that James uses the terms body and spirit. I think that the terms "soul" and "spirit" are used interchangeably as the same element, and they should use "spirit" not "soul". Again, I believe that the soul = both the body and spirit of man. This is my interpretation of scripture again, but I believe my interpretation is correct as you believe yours is correct.
You say: However, I think there is a slight problem with your theory of man being made like God when you include his physical body. When the body dies and decay, the man ceases to be a three part being, as you say we are. Therefore, at best we would onlyhave two parts to our being, no longer made in the likeness of God.
Have you ever heard of the resurrection? When Jesus died on the cross his spirit left his body and it died. The soul was now divided. The body part of the sould lay in the tomb for 3 days, while the spirit part of the soul went to Paradise and then went to preach to the spirits in prison. Then after 3 days his spirit returned to the body and the spirit and the body were again united to form a resurrected soul. So today Jesus has a flesh and bone body and spirit.
Question, if God is three persons in one, with three minds, wills, and personalities of their own, how are we made in the image of God, after His likeness, having three parts in one person? It would stand to reason, that if we were made like God, we too would have to have three beings in one, rather than three parts, which is not made like God. Logically speaking.
In my opinion we are not made up of 3 persons, the soul, the heart, and the spirit. In my opinion, we are made up of only 2 elements, body and spirit (the spirit includes our mind and will). Since I believe man is made up of body and spirit, and we are made in the image and likeness of God, to me it is perfectly logical to believe that God is made up of a body and a spirit too. I know I am on the right track when I look at the resurrected Jesus. He is made up of a glorious resurrected body and spirit.
And I know that we too will have our vile bodies changed and fashioned after Jesus's glorious body when we are resurrected.
So if we will have glorious souls, of body and spirit, and Jesus is made-up the same, it is reasonable to think that God is also made up the same way.
These are my opinions, based on the interpretation of scripture as I see it. You obviously have a different interpretation and I respect that.