enough by the picture it paints of
the natural man.
This picture is so sharply drawn, the figures stand out in such
living and apt delineation, that no one can mistake the import.
According to the Bible, man came direct from the hand of God. God
created him body, soul and spirit--a tripartite being. The soul was
the person, the seat of appetite and passions. The spirit was the
seat of the mind, the centre of reflection. Spirit and body were the
distinct agents of the soul. The spirit, the agent to connect the
soul with God--the body, the medium of the soul's manifestation or
materialization in this world, and the instrument for its use and
enjoyment. The mind, seated in the spirit, was intended, under the
influence of the spirit, to be the governor and regulator of the
soul--enabling the soul rightly to use its appetite and legitimately
to satisfy its passions.
Thus organized, God set man up in the world to be his
constitutional, moral, spiritual and governmental image--his
likeness morally--his image (his representative) administratively.
Man turned his back on God, listened to the appetite of his soul,
and surrendered to the demands of sensual hunger.
The soul, at once, sank down into the environment of the body. The
mind sank down into the environment of the soul and became,
henceforth, not a spiritual mind, but a mind "sensual," "devilish,"
a mind continually suggesting to the soul fresh and unlimited
gratification of its desires. With the breakdown of soul and mind,
the spirit lost its vital relationship to God, lost its function as
a connecting link with, and a transmitter of, the mind and will of
God; so that it could no longer enable man to know and understand
God; and feeling the influence of the mind, instead of influencing
it, followed it in its downward course into the environment of the
soul.
Out of this dislocation the soul came forth dominant over mind and
spirit. Soul appetite and soul desires became supreme; the body, the
willing and active agent thereof. From this period on, man was no
longer a possible spiritual being, but a "natural" man. The word
"natural" is "soulical." In Scripture it is twice translated
"sensual." The much-used word "psychological" is a derivation of it.
In the Bible sense of the word, a psychological person is just the
opposite of a pneumatical or spiritual person.
Man was now psychological, soulical, sensual. He had been
transformed into a being no better than
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