“Are you Fleshly, or Spiritual?”

Sunday, March 06, 2022

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2.14-16)

This incredibly uplifting passage is found nestled between two sections of the letter in which Paul tears into the Christians at Corinth for a long list of sins, failures, and bad attitudes.  In fact, knowing that broader context makes it harder to receive and appreciate the encouragement in what Paul is saying.  He’s about to follow up these gently comforting words by saying,

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. (1 Corinthians 3.1-3a)

Reading these two passages gives us an experience of mental whiplash, because Paul deliberately contrasts the way things should be, and the way they actually are.  The line has been plainly drawn—on one side those who are spiritual, and on the other, those who are, as Paul says, “natural.”  Many is the person who finds consolation for his faults, by reminding himself that it’s only natural to feel or behave that way.  We live in an age of excuses and blame-passing, and for many years it’s been common to explain away vile behavior, finding a way to assign fault to anyone but the person who actually did the deed—in this case, the scapegoat is nature.  As usual, the lie begins with a kernel of truth—that the person who tempts someone else is partially responsible for the other person’s sin, and should bear a portion of the consequences.  Jesus warned against becoming stumbling blocks, for example saying,

“whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18.6)

But all too often, we go beyond this, and instead of allotting a portion of the blame to the tempter and the bulk of it to the sinner, we refuse to accept blame for ourselves or the people we love, and instead cast it all on the nearest convenient scapegoat.

Diverting blame, judgment, and especially punishment, regardless of the truth, is itself a natural behavior—little kids do it by instinct, and even animals do it.  But natural does not mean good, or right.  We shouldn’t console ourselves, or defend ourselves, on the basis that we’ve done something natural!  And that’s getting pretty close to the point Paul is making in 1 Corinthians—the natural person, that is, the person looking at the world from the perspective of the flesh or of the physical, cannot comprehend spiritual things.  They do not make sense to him.  In fact, we could describe “the things of the Spirit of God” as unnatural, although perhaps it would sound better to call them supernatural.  Can what is unnatural be good?

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5.22-23)

Of course it can be good!  Paul points out that even our law recognizes that such qualities as these are good, and never prohibits them.  But that’s not how the fleshly person behaves.  The fleshly person is motivated by fleshly desires to do fleshly things.  Paul provides us an admittedly incomplete list of these behaviors just a couple verses prior in Galatians:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. (Galatians 5.19-21a)

When we read this, we tend to imagine a single person engaging in all of these evil, soul-crushing behaviors at once, and so it’s easy to compare ourselves to that depraved caricature and reassure ourselves we’re doing ok.  But that’s not what Paul said.  Perhaps you’re not a drunk, a sorcerer, or a craven fornicator; but do you indulge your jealousy?  How often do you lash out with angry words?  Are you divisive, rather than a peacemaker?  All of these are works of the flesh.  None of them leads to the kingdom of God.  In fact, each one of these fleshly behaviors, even in the absence of all the others, is an obstruction between you and God, keeping you from the fullness of his love and care, keeping you from his presence.

When you become a Christian, you are reborn according to the Spirit, but that doesn’t mean the temptation to live according to the flesh will go away entirely.  Nor will it go away overnight—Paul told Christians at Corinth that they were still people of the flesh.  Salvation is fundamentally a very simple thing, focused on a complete change of mind, attitude, and behavior in a single moment—an act of submissive faith in surrendering through baptism.  But while we rejoice at the birth of a beautiful new baby, we don’t expect that the work is finished!  That child needs to be fed, nurtured, protected, and taught, and his life could still turn out to be a great tragedy.  It’s the same with the “infants in Christ” Paul addressed in his letter.  The new birth was cause to rejoice, but it’s time to grow up.  Growing up in Christ entails seeing the world as it really is—both the physical, and the spiritual.  Are you a spiritual person?  Or, are you only fleshly?

Jeremy Nettles

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