01.28. NOTES
Note on 1 Thessalonians 5:23. " Spirit, soul and body. .. entire." It refers to man in his normal integrity, as originally designed.... All three, spirit, soul and body, each in its due place constitute man " entire " The " spirit " links man with the higher intelligences of heaven, and is that highest part of man which is receptive of the quickening Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:47). In the " unspiritual " the spirit is so sunk under the lower animal soul ... that such are termed " animal " (English Version sensual, having merely the body of organized matter, and the soul the immaterial animating essence), having not the Spirit.
Note on 1 Corinthians 2:14 " Natural man ": lit. a man of animal soul. As contrasted with the spiritual man,he is governed by the animal soul, which overbears his spirit, which latter is without the Spirit of God (Jude 1:19). So the animal (A.V. natural) body, or body led by the lower animal nature (including both the mere human fallen reason and heart), is contrasted with the Spirit quickened body (see 1 Corinthians 15:44-46). The carnal man (the man led by the bodily appetites, and also by a self-exalting spirit, estranged from the divine life) is closely akin: so too the " earthly ". Devilish or demon-like, led by an evil spirit (James 3:15), is the awful character of such a one in its worst type... .
NOTE ON 1 Corinthians 2:15. " He that is spiritual," lit. " the spiritual (man) ". In 1 Corinthians 2:14 it is " A (not the as in A.V.) natural man". The spiritual is the man distinguished above his fellow men as he in whom the Spirit rules. In the unregenerate, the spirit which ought to be the organ of the Holy Spirit (and which is so in the regenerate),* is overridden by the animal soul, and is in abeyance, so that such a one is never called " spiritual ".
NOTE ON 1 Corinthians 3:1. " And I ... " i.e., as the natural (animal) man cannot receive, so I also could not speak unto you the deep things of God, as I would to the spiritual; but I was compelled to speak to you as ...to "MEN OF FLESH. . . ." The former (lit. fleshly) implies men wholly of flesh, or natural. Carnal or "fleshly ", implies not that they were wholly natural or unregenerate, but that they had much of a carnal tendency, e.g., their divisions. Paul had to speak to them as he would to men wholly natural ... not withstanding their conversion.
NOTE ON James 3:15 " Sensual," lit. animal-like: the wisdom of the " natural " man ... DEVILISH in its origin ... and also in its character, which accords with its origin.
Some " Soulish " Counterfeits of " Spiritual " realities Every genuine spiritual phenomenon has its soulical counterpart, e.g., the love of truth, or love viewed as a spiritual phenomenon, differs essentially from the soulical counterfeit. Love, as consisting in sentiment and the strong stirrings of affection, is a mere fleshly principle. It shuns suffering, it courts worldly enjoyment and consideration, it exhibits itself in the strength of the domestic and social attachments, and in its most refined form, takes a deep interest in alleviating the miseries and promoting the comforts of the family of man. All this may exist with deep rooted hatred to the truth.
Love as a Divine principle and spiritual phenomenon, is distinguished by properties exactly the opposite of all this. It is love to God and is the result of our knowing that God hath first loved us (1 John 4:19). While soulical love pretends to cherish attachment to the Creator through the medium of the creature, spiritual love goes out to the creature through the medium of the Creator. Soulical love would, for the promotion of the apparent good of the creature, sacrifice at any time the truth of the Creator, whereas spiritual love rejoices to know that through the truth of the Creator the real good of the creature is secured and promoted.
Spiritual love is emphatically love to the truth, and love to others for the truth’s sake. Soulical love appearing to be spiritual, may be detected to be what it is by this test, that the truth of God is always in its estimation secondary, whereas the essential feature of spiritual love is its supreme and exclusive attachment to the truth of God. The soulical nature of love professed often betrays itself in a great anxiety to reconcile the Word of God with wellestablished human facts, and cogent human reasonings founded thereon, and this even at the expense of the Divine veracity being compromised and encroached on. The language of love which is Divine and spiritual, is " Let God be true, though every man should prove to be a liar ".