NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL
Scripture reveals that from the beginning of human history, natural and spiritual have been fundamentally different and opposing conditions. Cain was opposed to Abel in his response to divine things and this established a principle repeated throughout the Word of God, whether in Jacob and Esau, David and Goliath or the Lord and the Pharisees. Nicodemus was left in no doubt about the gulf between natural and spiritual (John 3) and the apostle Paul confirmed it in his letter to the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 2:14). The gulf between Israel (earthly, natural) and the church (heavenly, spiritual) was unbridgeable by any natural means.
What may not be as readily appreciated is that the same principle is equally applicable to the believer. This is so because he represents the two identities in one body, the old man (Rom.6:6) and the new or inner man (2 Cor. 4:16). The one has reference to natural life, the other to spiritual life and both are clearly demonstrated in the exercise of gifts. The natural gifts common to mankind are exercised by the christian in daily secular life, whether in employment or the home, but all such skills and abilities of the flesh are excluded from the spiritual sphere of the house of God, where only spiritual gifts apply.
We see, therefore, that the natural and spiritual elements in the believer are quite different and separate, having their own spheres of operation. However, some have thought that the old man, encompassing the flesh (human nature) in the believer, is dead in secular life as well as in divine purpose, but this manifestly fails to distinguish between the different spheres in which the believer is engaged, quite apart from the contradiction of daily experience in which we obviously use the natural abilities of the flesh common to man (2 Cor 10:3). The flesh is of course reckoned dead so far as divine things are concerned (Col.3:3), which is why natural gifts and propensities should be excluded from spiritual considerations. Again, some have thought that the flesh is represented only by Gal.5:17-21 but this fails to recognise that theflesh is descriptive of natural man in his totality (Vine).
The testimony of Scripture text is also clear in the matter of natural and spiritual. We sometimes hear reference to ‘the plain truth of Scripture’, as though divine revelation was a simple, straightforward exercise of reading the letter of the Word. But there is nothing ‘plain’ about spiritual truth; God has concealed it in the letter of Scripture (1 Cor.2:7) so that man by his natural faculties cannot discern it (1 Cor.2:14). On the other hand, there is plain truth in the epistles, relating to secular life, that anyone can understand because it is not of a spiritual nature. Nothing concealed about that. Not surprisingly, it is this natural aspect of Scripture that the religions of Christendom erroneously perceive to be Christianity. We see, therefore, that Scripture text itself testifies to the separate nature of natural and spiritual (Heb.4:12), an important distinction to recognise if we are to have a proper understanding of the believer’s place in the spiritual sphere and in the world, and thus of the nature of Christianity.
None of this excludes the fact that being a believer influences secular life, in that different motives and priorities now apply than was the case prior to salvation. Life in the world for the christian is seen from an entirely different perspective to his fellows, ideally being lived “in the Lord”, that is, in subjection to the plain commandments of the Lord relating to natural life; not Christianity but secular life influenced by it.
Another aspect of the believer’s life that illustrates the difference between the natural and spiritual spheres is that of good works. There are the natural good works of daily life with which we are all familiar, such as any public spirited person might undertake, including the believer, and there are spiritual good works that only a regenerate person can perform (James 2:21-25). Ideally the believer is engaged in both, whereas the unbeliever can only engage in one because he is separated from things spiritual. Similarly, natural relationships have their place in secular life but not in the divine system of Christianity where spiritual relationships apply.
It could hardly be clearer that the world is the sphere of the natural and moral, the scene of the manifestation of the flesh, whether for good or bad, whereas the house of God is the sphere of things spiritual. They are quite separate and the believer has his place in both, alive to the world in the flesh with its varied gifts, abilities and failures and alive to God in the new nature with its spiritual gifts and appreciation of divine things. Scripture makes a clear distinction between these two opposing conditions and so should we, recognising that Christianity is an exercise of spiritual things, not to be confused with the natural graces and activities of secular life. To do so is to rightly divide the Word of Truth.
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Addendum
It is quite extraordinary that some would deny this clearcut truth of Scripture, a response that indicates a spirit of rebellion. Further, there are those of a naturalistic persuasion in divine things, modern-day Pharisees, who take the view that recognition of the scriptural distinction between the two conditions somehow infers that believers can “live as they like”. To conclude so is a perversion that no right-minded believer would embrace (see article “The Believer and Good Works”).