1 Corinthians 2:14

14. The natural man The secular or worldly man, who possesses only the worldly “understanding that judges only by sense” and time. See note on 1 Corinthians 3:1. The word natural or psychical, derived from ψυχη , psyche, (soul,) seems to presuppose the threefold division of man into body, soul, and spirit. In that division the spirit is the highest nature of man, in which he bears the nearest affinity to God, by which he is a moral, conscientious, or religious being; while the soul embraces man’s animal and secular understanding, by which he is acute in things of sense. Notes Matthew 5:3, and 1 Corinthians 15:44. The natural man is one whose spiritual nature is torpid or deadened by sin and the predominance of earth and sense. His is the spirit of the world and the wisdom of men, but not the spirit which is of God or the wisdom of God.

Receiveth not His torpid spirit is unsusceptible to communion with God.

Foolishness How intensely does the purely secular man scout the utterances of the devout spirit! How sneers he at the very thought of communion with God! How easy it is to burlesque the language of piety! True, those very men have their solemn moments, and their trying crises, when conscience is touched and their ridicule is hushed. And how will men who scorn the thought of communion with God abide to meet him in the judgment, face to face?

Can he know He has an absolute incapacity for knowing the beauty of holiness and the blessedness of divine things.

Spiritually discerned While his spirit is torpid and unsusceptible. Even in natural science there are recognised unseen truths. Says Professor Tyndall, “Besides the phenomena that address the senses, there are laws, and principles, and processes, which do not address the senses at all, but are spiritually discerned.”