“He that is spiritual…”

1 Corinthians 2:15a

Becoming the Spiritual Man: Three Phases

Knowing this important truth– that there are different spirits at work today– you should take as much time as you can with the Lord Jesus and His Book, the King James Bible, if you ever expect to become the spiritual man He expects you to be. I am glad you are reading about spirituality; but reading this devotion (or any other writing) will not make you spiritual: only the Bible can!

Part one introduced us to four kinds of spirits; today we look at becoming the right kind of spiritual.

The spiritual world is reality. We live in a physical world created specifically to instruct us on the real, eternal things we cannot see. There is a spiritual nature behind every physical construct. So we are given a portal into God’s realm, but there is a great disconnect between what we see and what we cannot. It is a greater divide than of describing color to the blind, or music to the deaf. We don’t possess in our fleshy self the senses necessary to comprehend the spiritual.

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5)

For a man to be spiritual, he must be able to take instruction from the One who is “a Spirit.”¹ This constitutes both a real problem, and a revealed answer.

The Real Problem of the Church

Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer did a classic study of the Biblical doctrine of spirituality in the early 1900’s that begins with Paul’s first epistle to the church at Corinth. Before Paul gets to rebuking the Corinthian church, he laments that they were not able to see the problem for themselves. Chafer notes what Paul recognized: that there is an obvious difference in the character and quality of the daily life of Christians– what they say vs. what they do. ² God’s high standards were not lived, nor were they loved. Why was there so much sin in the church at Corinth? Through adultery, idolatry, gluttony, greed, disorder, and division, the root of the problem was the lack of spirituality.

“Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:  But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:  Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.“

1 Corinthians 2:6-10

The Revealed Answer

This passage reveals that there are three attempts to get spiritual truth to a man:

1. Through the eyes. This is the testimony of creation declaring the glory of God (Psalm 19). But “eye hath not seen.”
2. Through the ears. This is the testimony of preaching and instruction (Proverbs 8:33-35). This too fails, for, “nor ear heard”
3. Through the mind, but “Neither hath entered into the heart of man.” Because the “heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” (Jeremiah 17:9)

So there is a threefold attempt to reach man through his vision, his perception, and through his intuition. There is also a threefold roadblock. Nobody saw these things before, else they would have behaved differently (v.8). Nobody now can get ahold of these truths through conventional means (v.9). Thirdly, unless the Spirit of God reveals “the deep things of God” to you, you cannot find them (v. 10)

“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.“

1 Corinthians 2:11

Chafer says it nicely: “Into the ‘deep things of God’ no unaided man can go.” Some have likened it to a fish trying to breathe air. It’s more like a fish trying to fly to outer space– he was dead long before he got into orbit. You cannot rely on theorem and postulate to gain access to the spiritual. You will need to follow an example. A man cannot be that example, for he is at best following his own Leader at a distance, at worst he is misled, or lost. At some point, arguments and facts, along with symbolisms and parallels, must bow to the One Spiritual Thing that exists in the natural world: The Word of God.

The Bible is the Key to Revealing the Mind of God

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

1 Corinthians 2:11-16

Chafer emphasizes that the ‘words’ come from the Bible. “God’s Book is a Book of words and the very words which convey “man’s wisdom” are used to convey things which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.” The Bible then is the guide, the aid by which man may enter the “deep things of God.”³

There is a clear line between one who believes the Bible and one who does not. The one who does not believe the Bible is called the “natural man” (v. 14). The natural man does not obey what the Bible says, “receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”⁴ He is missing that Key of knowledge to open the door to spirituality. Notwithstanding a change that may be made, for Paul and James were both natural, but they received the Word, and now they are with those who “have the mind of Christ.” They are spiritual, because they have received something spiritual (the Words of God) and can discern one who is lost from one who is saved, and discern truth from error (v.15).

There is this obvious divide given at the end of 1 Corinthians 2. There seems to be an on/off switch to spirituality. Light or dark. Received or rejected. Saved or lost. Spiritual or unspiritual. So the common question from the start is (and one that is not asked enough):

Is a saved man a spiritual man?

Reading For Three, Not Two

There are not just two phases of man, spiritual and unspiritual– there are actually three. If you keep reading past chapter 2 into chapter 3 verse 1, you will see the third angle that unseats the world’s philosophies of spiritualism and disturbs the careless believer.

“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.”

1 Corinthians 3:1

Carnality is the second arch nemesis of spirituality. A man who is lost can never be spiritual, but a man who gets saved is not automatically spiritual. He must grow out of a phase called carnality. This growing is a maturing meant only to stop at full spirituality. Yet many stall out here. Whereas salvation starts the change (from the natural) and further growth magnifies that change(to become fully spiritual), carnality signifies a stunting that is abnormal and unintended.

A man gets saved, and is separated from the natural man by his faith in God’s words. He is given the Holy Spirit, in addition to his old spirit, the spirit of man. The new Spirit makes a new nature which should grow until it leaves no room for the old nature– incrementally separating from the unregenerated ‘natural man’ by how he behaves. A carnal Christian is saved, but has not grown. He still walks “as men”.

“For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?”

What does that mean?

How to Recognize a Carnal Mindset

1. The carnal man is irregular in his reading of the Bible. He can be passionate at times about the Bible, but his actual knowledge of it is slim. A carnal man may say something like: “You don’t have to read the Old Testament to be a Christian,” or “Being a Bible encyclopedia never helped anyone.” A carnal Christian cares for only what good a Bible promise can do for him (regardless if it is meant for him or stolen).
2. The carnal man is unteachable. He thrives on arguments. Paul listed three: envy, strife, and divisions. The carnal man is constantly trying to prove something. If he is wrong, he will not repent, he will try harder. He will mistake salesmanship for conviction. His stubbornness will be called ‘perseverance.’ His ignorance will be called ‘dedication.’ Many believers follow a carnal leader because they too cannot tell whether the man is confident in Christ or whether he is just arrogant.
3. The carnal man thinks he is spiritual because he is saved. He feels great freedom because he is now on his way to Heaven and his sins are forgiven, but that is often the last interaction between this man and the Word of God. There is no growth, no discipline, no proving, no building, and no fruit in a life like this. This is the two-party system of spirituality that the devil wants the church to believe.

Pass through ‘Possess’ into ‘Partake’

By getting saved you posses a Divine nature. After salvation, you must grow out of your carnality to partake of that Divine nature. Simon Peter begins his Second Epistle ” to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:” He praises the grace that saved him, then he takes us into the future work of God in our lives: “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2 Peter 1:1-4)

Simon Peter said that the promises of Scripture were to help us get ahold of the divine nature after we have been saved. We are expected to grow!

“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;

and to virtue knowledge;

And to knowledge temperance;

and to temperance patience;

and to patience godliness;

And to godliness brotherly kindness;

and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
2 Peter 1:5-8

Salvation then, is not the end, but only the beginning. A Christian is not automatically equipped for spiritual warfare, nor is he automatically enabled with spiritual eyesight. These things come with growth.

Spirituality is Directly Addressed in the Bible

Unspirituality was the root problem among saved believers in the church at Corinth. They were where we ARE today. Saved, but still full of self.

Next time we will look at the evidences of the work of the Spirit of God, the clues to deeper spiritual walk, and intel of our spiritual warfare.

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1. John 4 ↩︎
2. Chafer, Lewis Sperry, He That Is Spiritual, Zondervan, 1918, 1967, p. 15 ↩︎
3. Ibid. p16 ↩︎
4. James 1:21 ↩︎