A KEY TO THE PAULINE REVELATION
How few of us appreciate the vast field of new material that we find in the Pauline Epistles.
John, Peter, and James give practically no new material. They all grew out of the teachings of Jesus in His earth walk. You can feel that John leaned on the breast of his Master. As you read his epistle, you can feel love throbbing through him.
But as we read the Pauline Revelation, we get no such consciousness of that. We are wading into new material—revelation knowledge.
We are going to study now the reason for the incarnation and the substitutionary work of Christ. We are going to look at man in the raw, just as he appeared before the Father.
You want to keep John 3:16 before your mind always in thinking of lost men. You must understand that man is not lost because of what he does. He is lost because of what he is.
THE NATURAL MAN: SPIRITUALLY DEAD
Ephesians 2:1–3: “And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins” (verse 2). Notice this first verse, that it says that this man, this natural man, is spiritually dead.
Romans 5:12: “Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men [that was Adam’s transgression].” He is not talking of physical death. He is talking of the nature of Satan.
God’s nature is life. Its first manifestations are love, joy, and peace.
Satan’s nature is spiritual death. Its first manifestations are hatred, murder, and deceit. His whole realm is called darkness.
Colossians 1:13: “Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.”
Notice the contrast. You have come out of the realm of Satan (spiritual death, hatred, and murder) into the realm of life, of light, and joy.
Jesus is describing natural man in John 8:44–45. He says what is hard for us even to repeat:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.
In those two awful sentences, Jesus describes natural man.
This awful insurrection covering the whole world is another instance. Think of the men and women who have been murdered in order to give one man or a few men glory and power and riches. The inhuman, devilish atrocities that have taken place in the last few decades, in so-called civilized countries, prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that natural man is a partaker of the very nature of the devil, who was a murderer and a liar. There is no truth in him.
Don’t expect natural men to give us a Christian government. They may be refined, cultured, highly educated children, but they are children of the devil.
This is the reason that natural man needs eternal life, the nature of God.
1 Corinthians 2:14: “Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged [or understood].” The marginal reading is: “The natural man [or the unspiritual man] receiveth not the things of God.”
The Greek word means “the psychical man,” the man that is absolutely under the dominion of Satan.
We must realize that the natural man is as much under the dominion of Satan as the recreated man is under the dominion of Jesus Christ.
When the mothers and fathers realize that their boy must receive eternal life or else he is going to walk in the way of Satan-ruled men, they will become anxious about their children.
2 Corinthians 4:3–4: “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.”
Notice now that the gospel is veiled by the god of this world. He has made the gospel to seem a sort of tyranny, and men shrink from it. The unsaved man doesn’t want to hear it. You see, his mind is enmity against God; he is not subject to the law of God.
Romans 8:7 is a description of the natural man though the epistle is dealing with the undeveloped believer who is under the dominion of the senses. This natural man’s mind is blinded. His thoughts are twisted by the adversary. He cannot see nor understand the things that belong to him in Christ.
Romans 1:21–22: “Because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
The twenty-eighth verse is perhaps the most awful: “And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting.”
You see, the natural man’s mind receives all those impulses and knowledges from the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling. They are all connected with his body, and his body is mortal, Satan-ruled. Now it is easy to understand that all the knowledge that the natural man would have would be biased by the adversary, cultivated by the adversary, so that the natural man would not understand the things of God. They are foolishness to him. His mind is blinded. He is living in the realm of darkness, spiritual darkness—the worst kind of the darkness.
You can turn an electric light on and illumine a room, but nothing will illumine that dark spirit but the life of God.
THE INDICTMENTS AGAINST NATURAL MAN
Romans 3:10–18 is the great indictment of the “supreme court” against natural man; and in that indictment there are fourteen charges. Every one of those charges is enough to destroy him, shut him out from heaven.
1. The first one: “There is none righteous, no not one” (verse 10).He is not talking to Christians. He is talking to men outside of Christ.
There is no one that has a standing with God. They are all under condemnation.
2. “There is none that understandeth” (verse 11).Their minds have been darkened. Their spirits are filled with the nature of the adversary; and their minds receive all their impressions and knowledge from the five senses.
That knowledge is distorted by Satan.
3. The third awful charge is, “There is none that seeketh after God” (verse 11).They are all seeking for the gratification of the five senses; and through that sense knowledge they are acquiring dominion and authority over weaker men and women.
4. Next: “They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable [unto God]” (verse 12).They have lost all their value. How this Scripture hurt me—that the whole unsaved world is unprofitable. Whatever they do will be the work of a spiritually dead man.
Their good works are the works of spiritual convicts, men who are living in rebellion against the knowledge of God and the will of God.
5. Notice the rest: “There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one” (verse 12).I can remember when convicts in state prisons used to manufacture shoes; and I remember, as boy, I didn’t want to wear a pair of shoes made by a convict. I think that feeling is common among most people.
Now you can understand why the good works of a child of the devil would not satisfy God. It is the work of a man under the indictment of being in union with Satan.
The Holy Spirit was sent by the Father to convict the unsaved man of his union with the devil.
6. This indictment is awful, “Their throat is an open sepulcher” (verse 13).Can you understand it? Their throat is full of death. They are murderers.
The whole war atmosphere is described by this: “Their throat is an open sepulcher.” How it describes natural man as he really is.
7. But notice the next sentence, “With their tongues they have used deceit” (verse 13).I asked a class in a Bible school, “What badge should natural man wear—one single word?” A bright young man said, “The word, liar.” Think of wearing that on the lapel of your coat! Think of women wearing that badge!
Jesus said of Satan that he was a liar and the father thereof. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own. His own are natural men. (See John 8:44.)
8. Notice the next indictment, “The poison of asps is under their lips” (verse 13).It makes us think of Pearl Harbor, doesn’t it? It makes us think of the dark, awful crimes planned under the shadow of a free flag. It has been done.
The poison of asps is a deadly poison. The sting of an asp is death; and the sting of these men is death.
9. “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness” (verse 14).Here is the noisy, rough, thoughtless man whose mouth is the most dangerous part of him. Words have no sanctity nor beauty. He just uses words as children quarreling throw mud at each other.
How few men realize that the most sacred bonds of life are sealed with words. The tongue is the most beautiful element of man. And yet, this mouth that can speak love words and woo hearts, is full of cursing and bitterness.
10. This next indictment hurts: “Their feet are swift to shed blood” (verse 15).Notice the steps we travel down. There is none righteous; none can appreciate God; none can understand; none seek after God; all are seeking after things that gratify their senses; they are turned aside and together unprofitable.
They never help anyone to be better.
Nietzsche made Germany a nation of murderers—robbed them of their respect as a great nation.
11. “Their throat is an open sepulcher.”The dead are there. “Their tongues are filled with deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood”—to commit wholesale murder.
It is not the stealthy thief that is stealing in order to get food to eat, but it is the swift, fearless tread of an army led by a bloodthirsty general.
12. Notice: “Destruction and misery are in their ways” (verse 16).
13. “The way of peace have they not known” (verse 17).All that they have lived for and struggled for is to gain the ascendancy over the weak.
There is no peace in the homes of the people in those nations.
14. “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (verse 18).That is the end. This great indictment by the supreme court of the universe is the most awful document ever penned. It is descriptive. These charges are self-evident. They require no prosecuting attorney. The conscience of every man answers back that it is true.
TWO FAMILIES, TWO TYPES OF LOVE
1John 3:10 is a picture of the two families: “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”
1 John 3:14: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death.” Or, we know that we have passed out of death into life; that is, out of the family of Satan into the realm of life, the family of God. Why? “Because we love the brethren.” “He that loveth not abideth in death.” “Oh,” you say, “that man loves his family.”
Professor Henry Drummond, looked upon as one of the world’s greatest scientists, makes this remark, backed up by the testimony of every investigator in this realm: “No primitive people have love. All they have is sex attraction. The mother will fight for her child as the mother lioness will fight for her cub; but that same mother will offer that child to the crocodiles to appease her religious convictions. Mothers barter their children for immoral purposes.”
No, there is no love like the love that is spoken of in the new covenant. You know, we have never realized this fact: that there are two kinds of love in the world—natural, human love, described by the Greek word phileo, which means the love of natural man based upon selfishness; and the divine love, which is from God.
Natural love will turn to jealousy, bitterness, and hatred. The modern divorce court is the goddess of natural, human love; yet this human love is the best that the world has today.
But natural man hasn’t anything that commends him except to the heart that has been moved by the love nature of God. God so loved that He gave His Son to this world, this natural, demon-ruled, Satan-controlled human race. (See John 3:16.)
These people, dominated purely by sense knowledge, without any convictions that come from Christianity, are covenant breakers. Their word has no value. They are in union with Satan. They have the wisdom and cunning of the devil.
You see, they live in the sense realm. Here is a bitter fact: they cannot know God, neither can they know themselves. No psychologist today who denies the Lordship of Jesus, who doesn’t have eternal life, knows himself. Not knowing himself, he cannot know another.
This natural man doesn’t know the reason for creation. He doesn’t know the reason for man. He doesn’t know how man became what he is today; and he doesn’t know why heathen nations cannot produce inventors and great chemists. He can’t understand why that is.
We know that when a man receives the nature of God, he receives the nature of the Creator of the universe.
HOW MUCH DO YOU REMEMBER?
- Explain fully the reason for the incarnation and the substitutionary work of Christ.
- Explain Romans 5:12.
- How does Jesus describe natural man?
- Explain 1 Corinthians 2:14.
- To whom are the fourteen charges of Romans 3:10–18 directed?
- Explain why the unsaved man does not want to hear the gospel?
- Explain why the good works of a child of Satan cannot satisfy God.
- Give Scriptures, and contrast the two families.
- Why is it that natural man does not know the reason for creation?