“The natural man receiveith not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.” (1 Cor 2:14 KJV.)
Snickering and scoffing, preening, prideful, self-centered, lecturing, blogging, the natural man has more important things to do than receive such foolishness as God. So he hurries to the coliseum or Super Bowl or megachurch, or to protest marches, vigils, or maybe to riot and an after-riot barbecue, or after-dinner theater. If he sees himself reproved even subliminally, certainly if contradicted, he is offended, even enraged and passes laws by the hundreds, riots again, and crucifies.
The natural man comes in many models, always said to be all new and just released even if previously owned and threadbare, and in chains flaunted as priceless haute fashion bracelets.
In truth the natural man is ever degenerating, mutating, devolving, shrinking in bulk, muscle, mind, and naturally grotesquely bent towards following his slave driver and disinclined to follow God, cringing at the thought of Him, even denying He exists. Or if nominally a follower, to compartmentalize or cage Him to keep Him safely out of sight.
Alas, oh, how befuddled, muddled, and addled the natural man is! Talk about foolishness. He adjudges Satan as God or God as Satan. Good as bad, black as white, up as down or every which way but upward and heavenward. The natural man is a natural hypocrite.
He has no comprehension that his tailored bespoke suit or her just-off-the-runway outlandishly expensive gown are but filthy rags.
It was Satan that did all this to him.
At the beginning God had created man in His own image, upright, stunningly tall, brilliant beyond our imagination, consummately beautiful, sinless, and possessed of free will. It was man’s free will that Satan exploited. Despite God’s walking with him, usually at eventide, and personally warning him to be on guard, man sinned anyway. He thus became Satan’s captive, his lawful captive, not yanked by the nose but giddily and willingly as if entranced by Pan’s flute, surely to die, doomed.
John 3:14 again: The natural man receiveith not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are only spiritually discerned.”
“God is a spirit. and they that worship him must worship him in spirit” (John 4:24 KJV).
The natural man is flesh, carnal, whether philosopher or rioter. The natural man is, unless grounded in mount Zion and built upon the firm foundation, is rootless, wafted by any zeitgeist, readily sucked into tornado spouts or lured into UFOs, captivated by a pretty serpent.
By nature fallen man’s instinct or inclination is not towards God but Satan. In the natural man’s heart sin thrives. Like weeds and thorns, sin will flourish in any soil, any condition whether desert or rice paddy. No cultivation or fertilizer is needed. It’s already embedded, rooted, burgeoning. But grace and Godliness, though of ultimate power, can thrive only in the willingly surrendered heart, diligently, daily, continuously prepared for the precious seeds of truth and then actively and assiduously tended.
God had looked upon his just-created world, especially man, and pronounced it good, very good. The new natural man – captive, confused, pitiful – pronounces himself even better than very good, and getting better and better all the time.
During the American century, the American natural man in his pursuit of happiness clawed his way to the top of corporations or corporate churches, abused and perverted the privileges and endless blessings God has poured upon this country. The coddled citizen has indulged welfare, debt, obesity and personal trainers. Overdosed, he has stumbled to rehab or been rushed in a gurney to the ICU. Great flag, banner, and protest sign waver (seems he burns only flags), he erupts in a belly laugh when the producer gives the signal. A backslapper, especially of his own back. Deplorable and proud of it, a social justice warrior and proud of that too, the newly minted American, whether here legally or proudly otherwise, sees himself as the ideal citizen. What was the American Dream ends as California Dreamin’.
In the spotlight at galas in his honor, an American invention, one of disproportionately many, the natural man flaunts the inner power built into man as original equipment. This inner power is conjured on demand – upsy daisy! – by positive thought a la Norman Vincent Peale, or by any of the historical Enlightenments, or any philosophy or philosopher, whether ancient Greek or modern French or Indian, virtual on uTube or live at expensive at seminars.
Having fallen for Satan’s philosophically seductive liberation, fallen natural man is now naturally inclined to follow Satan's philosophies as mouthed by Plato, Rousseau, and a parade of other serpents.
Rousseau was a star philosopher in the 18th century Humanistic Renaissance centered in the French Enlightenment. Brewing for a couple of centuries since the discovery of the noble if scalp-collecting American Indian, the Enlightenment saw the ideal natural man as the primal culturally innocent man, the Noble Savage. Thus apotheosized by Rosseau, the aboriginal original Noble Savage stood tall, while Voltaire said he walked on all fours, and ladies just had to cuddle him. In the 21st century the Noble Savage would be organically grown in a protected jungle.
In the Noble Savage, the pulsating evolution of natural man reached a peak. But Paul warns, “See to it that you are not taken captive through philosophy.” (Col 2:8 NLB)
The 20th century high point saw another model of mystic innocence, the drugged-out, dropped-out, daisy-bedecked, protesting peacenik, the homeless hippy.
Today’s high point in the devolution of the natural man is a tossup between the modern media bulging with zealous philosophically-trained ostensible journalists and clandestinely trained special forces rioters.
But even though wallowing in the mud but persuaded he’s standing up for his rights, fallen captive natural man is so loved by God that He gave His only begotten Son to save him and elevate him to a relationship closer than before he had fallen. Upon joining mankind in the flesh, Christ, in His first sermon, announced that He had come, as Isaiah prophesied, to free Satan’s captives.
Christ so loves all men that He sacrificed His own total deity to become one of us fallen men, our brother, for all eternity. To Christ, all doomed lives matter. Whether He matters to the looters and crucifiers is up to their free will, apparently long surrendered to Satan.
God’s hatred of sin is as strong as death, His love for the sinner is stronger than death. … By His humanity, Christ touched humanity; by His divinity, He lays hold upon the throne of God. As the Son of man, He gave us an example of obedience; as the Son of God, He gives us power to obey. (EGW, Desire of Ages.)
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, wholly remade, unfamiliar even to himself. Old things once naturally loved are now hated, and those once hated, loved. God has caused natural iniquities to pass from him; behold, all things are become new. (from and paraphrasing 2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV etc. By the way I prefer the KJV’s antique grammar, describing better than modern simple verb tense the progressive process from past to present, as in “are passed away,” “are become new.”)
Christ has promised, “Behold I make all things new” (Rev 21:5), whether a dying star-supernova or fallen man. In speaking to Nicodemus He had said, “except a man be born again he shall have no part in the kingdom of God.” Born anew. and then becoming as a little child, then maturing in grace, man casts off his fallen naturalness and becomes Christ’s brother.
While on earth to save man, Christ proclaimed that He, though He had created this world, was no longer of it. Satan had taken over clear title. Likewise his captive natural man, before the fall at home in sinless Eden is now cozy in this blighted planet.
Granted a temporary title to the earth, natural man is in his element. With nationalist chauvinistic fealty and guitar-strumming love for his fenced in ranges, teeming cities and homes whether palace or shack, he has a fanatical compulsion to save this planet and climate. If some part of natural man must save the planet, another part must destroy it whether by hydrogen bombs or Molotov cocktails.
Meanwhile Christ’s new creature is no longer at home on this earth. Full range social justice is but a distraction.
Like the human cannonball, we have been shot – blam! – into End Times. This will be a time of trouble and sin if possible exceeding that of antediluvian man. But natural man sees this as but an ugly interlude, and expects to settle back into gormandizing and fine-wining, marrying and giving in marriage or not bothering with the ceremonies or vows, or even the gender du jour. But instead there will be a crescendo of disasters beyond natural man’s oblivion and imagination or pretense.
And then shall the end come, the end of the natural man and the world that he has known and loved. And Christ will return in glory to repossess and recreate this earth for those who have chosen Him.
Dr. Kime was born in 1929, in Los Angeles, California.
Kime pursued dual careers in art (since childhood) and medicine (physician; specialties in internal medicine and pathology; clinical and academic). He studied the principles of art, chemistry of paint, and the works of master artists as assiduously as medicine. After retiring from pathology at Kettering Medical Center in 1994, Dr. Kime has concentrated on his art, producing portraits, seascapes and figural work mainly in oils, and urbanscapes predominantly in watercolor. Dr. Kime currently lives in Redlands, CA.
