Brethren:

To continue my response to the scriptures quoted by Brother John with the apparent intent to establish that all Christians of all ages receipt the “gift of the Holy Spirit" in a “non-miraculous” or not supernatural way. I now will give an exposition of the second verse that he quoted to support this view.

He quotes as follows:

1 Corinthians 2:14 "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Brother Alexander Campbell gave a far better explanation of these verses than I could even remotely hope to accomplish even if I had unlimited time and talent. Because he expresses my position concerning them so well and because of his superior educational credentials I have decided to simply quote his remarks in response to this particular verse. I will follow it with a few remarks of my own.

“Let it, then, be distinctly noticed, from all these premises that these gifts had for their object, first, the revelation of the whole Christian doctrine; and secondly, the confirmation of it; and without them no man could either have known the truth or believed it. To this effect does the apostle reason, 1 Cor. ii. 9-16. He shews that none of the princes, legislators, or wise men of Judea, Greece, or Rome, ever could, by all their faculties, have discovered the hidden wisdom, “which God had determined, before the Mosaic dispensation began, should be spoken to the honor of the apostles, gifted by the Holy Spirit.” For so it was written, “eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and into the heart of man (before the apostles) those things have not entered, which God prepared for them who love him. But God has revealed them (those unseen, unheard and unknown things) to us (the apostles) by His Spirit-which things (before unknown, unheard, and unseen,) also we (apostles) speak (to you gentiles and Jews, that you may know them) not in words taught by human wisdom, (in Judea, Greece, or Rome) but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, explaining spiritual things with spiritual words.” “Now, an animal man, (whether a prince, a philosopher, a legislator, or a rhetorician, in Judea, Greece or Rome by means of all arts and sciences) receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, (by all of his faculties and attainments) because they are spiritually examines” (by the light which revelation and not reason affords). “But the spiritual man (the man possessed of a supernatural gift) examines, indeed, all things; yet he cannot be examined by any animal man (because such cannot judge of the principles suggested to him by the spirit;) for what man (who is merely animal) has known the mind of the Lord, (his deep designs respecting Jews and Gentiles, now made know to us apostles,) who will (or can) instruct him (the spiritual man.) But we (apostles) have the mind of Christ,” and are able to instruct your spiritual men with all their gifts. O! You Corinthians! How has this beautiful passage been perverted by system into a meaning the most remote from the mind of the Spirit! The translation above given is most consistent with the original, and indeed, is the translation of Dr. McKnight, who seems to have rendered all those passages that speak of spiritual gifts, in all of the epistles much more accurately and intelligibly than any other translator we have seen. The animal man, or what our translators call a natural man, spoken of by the apostle, is quite another sort of man than the Calvinistic or the Arminian natural man. The apostle’s natural man, or his animal man, was a man who judged of things by his animal senses or reason, without any revelation of the Spirit; but the natural man of modern systems, is a man the revelation of the spirit and is in a “state of nature” as it is called. The apostle’s natural man’s eye had never seen, his ear had never heard, his heart never conceived any of those things written in the New Testament - our natural man’s ear has heard, and it has entered into his mind to conceive, in some way or other, the things which were revealed to the Holy Spirit by the apostles. To argue from what is said of the one by the apostle, to the other, is a gross sophism, though a very common one; and by many such sophisms is the word of God wrested to the destruction of thousands.”

I believe that anyone reading Brother Campbell’s remarks can see that all of these passages, this one especially, are related to the time when revelation was being given directly. And that they are designed to show the distinction between those who taught the truth by INSPIRATION of the Holy Spirit, and the one’s who claimed to be teachers but were not inspired by the spirit. There is a world of difference between the natural man using his natural reason to know things and the natural man who is inspired by the spirit of God and has the truth revealed directly to him. The former can never know anything that God has not revealed to him concerning what God will is. And the latter is the only one that could ever have know the truth simply because God revealed it to him. And others were given evidence through the miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit that God had revealed his mind or will to them. Thus the “man without the spirit is without question in this verse talking about the “uninspired” man who had not received any revelation from God. It is a monumental mistake to say that the natural man is the sinner who has a copy of the New Testament to read and cannot understand what he reads without the direct operation of the Holy Spirit. This is the doctrine of Calvin, not the apostles. For the New Testament is the expression of God’s will to man after it had been revealed to the apostles and he can, without any direct aid from the Holy Spirit, understand it. In fact it was given through the apostles and written in language so that the mind of God could be revealed to us. Without these revelations of the Holy Spirit that were confirmed as being from God by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven we would, as the Ephesians in Acts 19:1-6 not even know that there was a Holy Spirit. WE have the inspired word of God revealed for the very purpose of leading and guiding us to do the will of God. His word has been revealed and confirmed through those who had the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. And the Holy Spirit is guiding us today through those inspired, revealed, and confirmed words of God. (Mark 16:17-20; Heb. 2:3,4).

But to say that this verse in 1 Corinthians 2:14 is talking about some “non-miraculous indwelling of the Holy Spirit is as Brother Campbell has so aptly put it “a gross sophism” even if it is a “common one”.

I pray that our Lord will abundantly bless you all.

Your Brother in Christ,

E. Lee Saffold

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001