NATURAL MAN, THE. "The natural man receivethnotthethingsof theSpirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" Cor. :14). (a) Here it is plain that by "the stature! 17t011" is not meant a person devoid of natural judg-rnent, reason, or conscience, in which sense the expression is often used among men. (b) Nor does it signify one who is entuely governed by his fleshly appetites, or what the world calls a voluptuary, or sensualist. (c) Neither does it signify merely a man in the rude state of nature, whose faculties have not been cultivated by learning and study, and pol ished by an intercourse with society. The apostle manifestly takes his "natural man" from among such as the world hold in the highest repute for their natural parts, their learning and their re ligion. He selects him from among the phil osophers of Greece, who sought after wisdom, and from among the Jewish scribes, who were in structed in the revealed law of God (i Cor. 1:22. 23). These are the persons whom he terms the wise, the scribes, the disputers of this world—men to whom the gospel was a stumbling-block and foolishness Cor. :20, 23). The natural man is here evidently opposed to
fromChrist at the resurrection,according to Cor. xv :44. 45. Now the spiritual man is one who has the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him (Rom. yin :9), not merely in the way of miraculous gifts, as some have imagined (for these were peculiar to the first age of the Christian Church, and even then not common to all the saints. nor inseparably connected with salvation, Cor. xiv :r-4), but in his saving influences of light, holiness and con solation, whereby the subject is made to discern the truth and excellency of spiritual things, and so to believe, love and delight in them as his true happiness. If therefore a man is called "spiritual" because the Spirit of Christ dwells in him, giving him new views, dispositions and enjoyments, then the "natural man," being opposed to such, must be one who is destitute of the Spirit, and of all his saving and supernatural effects, whatever may be his attainments in human learning and science. It is obviously upon this principle that our Lord insists upon the necessity of the new birth in order to our entering into the kingdom of heaven (John iii :3, 5). (Watson, Theol. Dict.)