The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man (1 Cor 2)

Question 4143

In 1 Corinthians 2 Paul draws a stark line between the natural man, who cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, and the spiritual man, who discerns all things. The natural man is not a wicked extreme of humanity but the ordinary human being apart from the Spirit, and Paul says plainly that such a person finds the things of God to be folly and is unable to understand them.

This passage explains why the gospel is embraced by some and dismissed by others, and why spiritual truth can never be grasped by intellect alone. The difference between the natural man and the spiritual man is the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The setting in Corinth

The Corinthians prized human wisdom and eloquence, ranking their teachers like celebrated philosophers. Paul confronts this directly. He reminds them that he came not with lofty speech but preaching Christ crucified, a message the world regards as foolishness. The power of his ministry lay not in persuasive words of human wisdom but in the demonstration of the Spirit.

Out of this Paul develops a contrast between two kinds of wisdom and two kinds of people. There is the wisdom of this age, which is passing away, and there is the wisdom of God, revealed by the Spirit. And there are two corresponding hearers, the natural man who lives by the first, and the spiritual man who has received the second.

Who the natural man is

The phrase translates the Greek psychikos, which comes from psyche, the soul. The natural man is the soulish person, the human being operating on natural capacities alone, without the Spirit of God. This is not a description of the especially depraved but of every person in their unconverted state, however cultured, clever, or moral they may be.

Paul says three things about this person, and each is sobering. The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. He finds them folly, regarding the message of the cross as nonsense. And he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The problem is not a lack of intelligence but a lack of the Spirit who alone makes spiritual things intelligible.

Why the natural man cannot understand

Paul roots the inability in the nature of the truth itself. The things of God are spiritually discerned, which means they require the Spirit to be perceived. A person without the Spirit lacks the faculty by which such things are grasped, rather as a person without hearing cannot appreciate music however excellent it is. The fault lies not in the music but in the absent capacity.

This is why the natural man can study the Bible with great learning and still miss its glory. He may master the languages, the history, and the arguments, and remain blind to the One the Scriptures reveal. Jesus said the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth because it neither sees nor knows Him, a theme we develop in our article on what an unregenerate person can perceive spiritually.

Who the spiritual man is

Over against the natural man stands the spiritual man, the pneumatikos, the person who has received the Spirit of God. Paul says we have received the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given to us. The believer has been given the very faculty the natural man lacks, and so is able to receive, welcome, and discern the things of the Spirit.

Paul goes so far as to say the spiritual man judges all things, weighing and appraising what the soulish person cannot even perceive. This is not arrogance but the simple result of having the Spirit. The believer is enabled to see the wisdom of God in the cross, to taste the sweetness of the promises, and to recognise truth and error in a way that natural wisdom never could.

The Spirit and illumination

This passage is one of the clearest statements of what theologians call illumination, the work by which the Spirit opens the mind to understand the truth He has revealed. Illumination is not new revelation added to Scripture but the inward enabling that lets a person grasp the Scripture already given. The same Spirit who inspired the word now makes it intelligible to the believer.

This is why prayer belongs with Bible reading. We do not approach Scripture as the natural man approaches a textbook, trusting our own powers to extract its meaning. We come as those who depend on the Spirit to teach us, asking Him to show us what is there. The difference between the Spirit illuminating work and His convicting work in unbelievers is taken up in our article on the Spirit illuminating and convicting work.

A word about the soul and the spirit

The term psychikos repays a moment thought for those who hold, as we do, that a human being is spirit, soul, and body. The natural man is soulish, living from the seat of natural personality and intellect, while the human spirit, the part made for fellowship with God, lies dead in sin and unresponsive. When a person is born again, the Spirit of God brings the human spirit to life, and only then can the things of God be truly received.

This does not mean the believer ceases to think or that the mind is bypassed. The Spirit works through the renewed mind, not around it. But the decisive change is that the dead human spirit has been quickened, so that the person is no longer merely soulish but spiritual, able to commune with God and to understand His word.

The natural man and gospel ministry

This teaching has direct consequences for how the gospel is preached. If the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit, then no amount of clever argument or polished presentation can of itself produce faith. Paul deliberately refused to rely on persuasive words of human wisdom, lest the faith of his hearers should rest on eloquence rather than on the power of God. The Spirit’s work of opening the mind is described further in our article on the Spirit’s role in illumination.

That does not make preaching and reasoning pointless, for God is pleased to work through the message proclaimed. It does mean that the decisive factor is the Spirit, who alone can open a blind heart. The preacher labours and reasons and pleads, yet trusts that only the Spirit can turn a natural man into one who receives the truth, and this keeps the messenger humble and prayerful rather than confident in technique.

It also explains the strange division the gospel always creates. The same sermon that one hears as the wisdom of God another dismisses as folly, and the difference is not intelligence or education but the presence or absence of the Spirit. The natural man is not won by superior arguments but by the Spirit who gives life, and so the church prays as earnestly as it preaches.

For the believer this is a quiet comfort. The understanding you now have of spiritual things did not come from your own resources, and so it cannot be taken from you by those who are wiser in the wisdom of this age. You were once a natural man, unable to receive these things, and the Spirit changed that, and what He has begun in you He will carry on.

None of this should make the believer proud, as though spiritual understanding were a personal accomplishment. The very capacity that distinguishes us from the natural man was given to us and not earned, and the right response is gratitude rather than any sense of superiority toward those still in darkness. We were once in that same condition ourselves, unable to receive the things of God, and only the grace of the Spirit has made the difference.

So, now what?

If you are a believer, take heart that the very ability to value the things of God is itself the Spirit gift to you. The fact that the cross is precious to you rather than foolish, that Scripture feeds you rather than bores you, is evidence that you are no longer the natural man but have received the Spirit of God. That should both humble and reassure you.

Come to your Bible, then, in conscious dependence on the Spirit. Ask Him to open your understanding before you read, expecting Him to show you Jesus on the page. Do not lean on cleverness, your own or anyone else, as though spiritual truth could be quarried by effort. It is given by the Spirit to the humble.

And let this passage shape how you pray for those who do not yet believe. Argument alone will not persuade the soulish heart, because the things of God are spiritually discerned. Pray that God would give His Spirit, open blind eyes, and bring the dead spirit to life, for that is the only thing that turns a natural man into a spiritual one.

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14