Natural,
Worldly, Sensual – Jude 19
We have come to one of the more
significant verses in Jude, verse 19. It is significant not only because of the
role that it plays within this particular epistle because it helps us to
understand very clearly, even though we have the word ungodly used numerous
times to indicate those that are unsaved, that these opponents are unbelievers.
They have never put their faith in Jesus Christ. A Christian is someone who has
believed that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their
sins. These false teachers have never done that. They may have professed to be
Christian but that is different from professing faith in Christ. Professing to
be Christians can refer to anybody. They may believe all kinds of things but
just claim to be a Christian because they grew up in a Christian home, came
from a supposedly Christian nation, etc. People think they are Christians for a
lot of reasons and they profess to be Christians. But a profession to be a
Christian is quite different from making a profession of faith. A profession of
faith is claiming to have believed that Jesus did on the cross for ones sins
and that that alone is sufficient for eternal salvation.
So these false teachers have
infiltrated this group of believers in Asia Minor who are being addressed by
Jude, the same group that was addressed by Peter that false teachers would
come, and now with Jude they are very much present.
One of the things that we note in the
text is that Jude uses the plural demonstrative pronoun these again and again
to refer to this particular group. For example, he says in verse 4, For
certain men have crept in unnoticed. That is the group he is describing, and
all of the use of the word these goes back to that. In verse 8 he says, Yet
in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject
authority, and revile angelic majesties. Verse 10, But these men revile the
things which they do not understand Verse 12, These are the men who are
hidden reefs in your love feasts Verse 16, These are grumblers, finding
fault, following after their {own} lusts It is true that a lot of believers
are that way. They are complainers because they are living like unbelievers.
But this group is composed on unbelievers.
Now we come back to these again in
verse 19. It is amazing how many translators of the Bible get this wrong. This
is why it is so important to study from the original languages. A lot of these
modern translations are really nothing more than theological interpretations.
This passage is a great example of how translators bring their frame of
reference, their preconceived theological framework to the text and then impose
it upon the text without translating a word, and therefore they dont translate
it, they interpret it and give something other than a translation. This leads
to much confusion.
Jude 1:19 NASB These are
the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. Well of
course they cause divisions if they are grumblers, complainers, worldly-minded,
walking according to their own lusts. They are self-absorbed, arrogant, flatterers, they all think they know what is best and what
is right for the congregation. Whenever you have anyone who grumbles and
complains about things that causes divisions. It
brings discord into the unity of the congregation. The congregation is really a
team and needs to function like a team in support of one another without
bickering and fighting with one another. There are always people
who are going to rub one another wrong, thats typical. We all have sin natures
and our sin natures sometimes are going to get in the way, but we have to treat
one another in grace and love. When there are unbelievers they cant do that.
So this group is divisive, they cause divisions.
Three different versions:
NASB: These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded,
devoid of the Spirit.
NKJV: These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not
having the Spirit.
NIV (1984): These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural
instincts and do not have the Spirit.
Notice the word in the NASB,
worldly-minded, in the NKJV sensual persons, in the NIV who
follow mere natural instincts. Actually, the NIV
is a little closer because at least it uses the word natural. What does it
mean to be natural? The English word translated into Greek is psuchikos, though it is use in other
verses, is somewhat ambiguous. The term natural is not a technical term in
English or in Greek, so we have to understand that there is an interpretive
factor in this that these translators are using that they ought not use because
it does distract us in the English from being able to get an accurate
understanding of this text.
The first part is correct: the ones
who cause divisions. The main idea of this word apodiorizo, a participle here. It
is used with an article, so that indicates it is used as a relative pronoun. It
is describing this group as those who cause divisions or those who are
divisive. That is the basic meaning of this word. So these are those who cause
or create or generate divisions/schisms within a congregation and they set
people against each other. This is one of the signs or evidences of the works
of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21. Believers can do this as well but this is
clearly talking about unbelievers.
The next word is the word that is so
significant. It is translated worldly-minded by the NASB and
by many other translations as well. The Greek word translated worldly is kosmos which
refers to an orderly system, and orderly way of thinking that dominates the
world of men, a particular culture of men. Sometimes the word worldly is
used, e.g. Romans 12:2, that we should not be conformed to the world. But the
Greek word there is not kosmos,
it is aionos, a time word which
indicates the spirit of the age. It is a very close synonym for kosmos. But this word worldly is not a
synonym for kosmos. That is a bad
theological assumption which comes from an erroneous
view of the nature of man.
The term theologians use to talk about
those passages in Scripture which clarify and talk
about the nature of mankind, their makeup, is biblical anthropology. That is
the technical term for how the Bible views the makeup of man. Modern man sees
human beings as the product of a long-term evolutionary process, and so
everything about the makeup of man is grounded in a material makeup. There is
no such thing as a soul or a spirit or an immaterial part of man. Everything
according to evolutionary doctrine is that man is material. So our
personalities, our decisions, the choices we make, all
of these are predetermined because of genetic makeup, DNA
structure, these kinds of things.
This leads to a problem today because
if you are going to assume that man is a product of natural processes,
Darwinistic evolutionary processes, that he is basically just composed of
various chemical and the interaction of these chemicals and hormones and a few
other things lead to certain behavior, then man is not really a responsible
moral agent. This is used today as a means for avoiding personal
responsibility. But the Bible challenges that and says we are all responsible.
We are not the product of the interaction of a bunch of chemicals or physical
makeup but we have an immaterial part of our makeup identified as the soul.
Actually there are two immaterial aspects to our nature, there is a soul and
something called a spirit or human spirit, which is how we distinguish it from
the Holy Spirit.
Our soul is comprised of our mentality
(we think), self-consciousness, volition (we have moral responsibility and
opportunity to make choices), and a conscience (we learn right and wrong).
So the Bible teaches that man is
composed of these different elements: body, a soul (which energizes the brain),
and another term that has been brought in theologically is passions which
relates to volition—the training of our emotions via our volition to do that
which is right.
The word here translated
worldly-minded is the Greek word psuchikos
(the ikos ending indicates it is
an adjectival form based on the noun psuche).
psuche is the Greek word for soul.
We find it in words today such as psychiatry and psychology. The very term
psychology indicates the study of the soul. In modern psychology (there are
different branches of psychology, some of which are legitimate) the aspect of
interpersonal, interactive, conversational secular psychology—helping
people solve problems, etc—assumes that on the basis of the study of man
through empiricism they can arrive at absolutes about the nature of the soul,
the makeup of man, and why people do the things they do.
But there are over 300 different models
of psychology that psychologists have generated, so how do we know what is
right? The only way we know what is right is that the creator has informed us
as to what the makeup of man is. That is why we reject most of these
psychological models. They are going to have some truth in them. Every one of
them is living in Gods world and has to be consistent to some degree with the
reality of God and so they have benefit. But many studies have shown that the
number of people who improve as they are facing depression or other emotional
problems or conflicts the same percentage that goes to a psychologist who
improve (no matter what school of thought they go to) are identical to the
percentage who do not go to any kind of counseling, because it is a matter of
growth and time and learning and many other factors. All of these schools of
psychology buy into an assumption on human makeup.
There are some genetic factors that may
impact certain things that are thought of as mental disease, and they may in
fact have that. So we have to make a distinction between people who are just
having problems emotionally. But the point is that modern psychology makes a
truth claim that they have on the basis of empiricism a clear understanding of
the makeup of the human soul (though many of them dont define it materially),
that they have a handle on human behavior and they can identify problems and
take people through the solutions to those problems. That is a truth claim, and
that truth claim runs 180-degrees opposite the truth claim of Scripture which claims to be the exclusive authority on what
makes a healthy soul.
The Bible says that the reason we dont
have healthy souls is because of sin. Sin is not a recognized concept in modern
psychology. Sin is rejected. Even a lot of so-called Christian counseling
systems where they take a humanist model and blend it with some Scripture so
that it has a faade or veneer of Scripture is nothing more than human
viewpoint with a lot of Scripture verses and a few biblical ideas attached, but
it is not a biblical model.
We have to start with the Scripture.
The Scripture says worldly-minded, and that is not an accurate translation. The
problem isnt that they are worldly-minded, the
problem is that they are unbelievers and they cant think in terms of truth.
They are identified as soulish (psuche
= soul), and this is really how it should be translated. The contrast is
between the person who is soulish and the person who is pneumatikos [pneuma
= spirit; ikos = adjectival]; the person who is soulish. What we will see is what makes
the difference is that the soulish person is spiritually dead; the pneumatikos person has been regenerated
and is spiritually alive.
The place we go to understand this is
the best passage where psuchikos
is used, and that is 1 Corinthians 2:14 NASB But a natural
man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
What we will see is that that word things refers to that which has been
revealed to mankind via Scripture and the Holy Spirit. So the things of the Spirit refers to enscripturated revelation.
The natural man cannot accept them—operation truth suppression. He
doesnt want to. It is foolishness to him. He is operating on a totally
different framework. He is setting himself up as God, worshipping the creature
rather than the creator, according to Romans 1:18ff. Of course, what God says
to him is professing to be wise, he has become a fool. Then God say not only
does he not accept them but he cannot understand them,
is not able to understand them because they are spiritually appraised.
So there is something
missing from the makeup of this natural person that he doesnt have that makes
it impossible for him to understand the framework of biblical truth.
We have another use in 1
Corinthians 15 where it is used twice, in vv. 44, 46 in terms of a spiritual [pneumatikos] body versus a natural [psuchikos] body. Here it has the idea of
that which is in the realm of the spirit. The natural body, the psuchikos, is in the realm of the
physical. The context is talking about the mortal body prior to physical death
versus the interim and later a resurrection body, i.e. a spiritual body, a body
pertaining to the spirit because this individual has this kind of body because
they are regenerate.
Then we have a third
passage, James 3:15 NASB This wisdom [human viewpoint] is not that
which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural [psuchikos], demonic. This soulish wisdom is that which is
generated from unbelievers as they try to put together the issues of life. And
it is demonic because human viewpoint wisdom is consistent with the wisdom of
Satan. They both operate on arrogance and autonomy—arrogance toward God leads
to independence from God and then antagonism towards God. Again, it is related
to the unbeliever.
To understand 1 Corinthians 2:14 we
need to go back to the earlier verses in the chapter to set the context. Paul
in this epistle is really having to correct the
Corinthians Christians because of a lot of sinful behavior. They are divisive,
they are lining up cliques and are very assertive about the fact that they were
following Paul or somebody else, like Apollos, and so were better than anyone
else. This has created divisions within the congregation. This
is generated by believers because Paul always treats them as believers,
but they are believers living like unbelievers in this passage.
In vv. 1, 2 he says, And when I
came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom,
proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus
Christ, and Him crucified. Paul isnt emphasizing his natural talent and is
not coming with the rhetorical flourishes that were characteristic of the great
orators of the day. He isnt there to impress them, he
is there to communicate truth to them in a way that they can understand. [4] and
my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
So the emphasis is on
Gods wisdom. As he is introducing this section he is drawing this contrast
between the wisdom of God on the one hand and this human wisdom on the other
hand—divine viewpoint wisdom and human viewpoint wisdom.
1 Corinthians 2:7 NASB
but we speak Gods wisdom in a mystery [previously unrevealed truth], the
hidden {wisdom} which God predestined before the ages to our glory; [8]
{the wisdom} which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they
had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. He goes off
into hypothesis in v. 8, saying that none of the rulers of this age knew this.
But the knowledge was available to them; it was in the Old Testament. Something
was missing; they didnt get it. They were ignorant of who Jesus of Nazareth
was and so they had to crucify Him.
The reason for emphasizing this is
because from verse 8 and this reference to the rulers of this age who crucified
Jesus and verse 9 which blends the main ideas of two passages from Isaiah
together is that we see that whatever Paul is saying about the makeup of human
beings and their access to revelation this applies to Old Testament saints as
it does to New Testament saints. The reason for saying that is because there is
a distinction in terms of the New Testament believers. The New Testament
believer has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, he has the illumination of God
the Holy Spirit, which wasnt available in the Old Testament. What Paul is indicating
here that there is an assumption that the Old Testament individual should have
been able to understand this; but they are missing something.
This whole passage has a trajectory
that ends up contrasting the natural and the spiritual. Often we think of the
spiritual as the person who has the Holy Spirit. That doesnt work, because Old
Testament believers did not have the Holy Spirit. But whatever Paul is saying
here he is grounding it in the nature of man as in the Old Testament so that
whatever he says about the ability to understand revelation has to be applied
equally to Old Testament believers and New Testament believers. The rulers of
this age, v. 8, crucified the Lord of glory. When did that occur? It occurred
before the day of Pentecost in AD 33 when the church began. So it occurred under the old
dispensation of the Law, the dispensation of Israel, where believers were not
recipients of any ministry of God the Holy Spirit other than regeneration.
1 Corinthians 2:9 NASB
but just as it is written, THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND
{which} HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE
WHO LOVE HIM.
The connection, just as it is written, tells us that whatever he is going to
say in the next verse is to validate or substantiate the point he made in v. 8.
He than has a paraphrase, not a direct quote, of two ideas that come from
Isaiah 52:15; 64:4. The things is a neuter plural
pronoun in the Greek. The which is a neuter plural pronoun referring back to
the things. The all is also a neuter plural that refers back to the
things. So what he is talking about here is something that eye hasnt seen and
ear has not heard. In other words, it is not available through normal senses,
empirical data. It is not a result of mans observation or senses. The things
or something that come to man is not through the eye or through the ear in
terms of empiricism. Then he says, and have not entered the heart of man.
That is often a term for the mind of man, the center of mans being, his heart.
Sometimes that is a synonym for the entire soul,
sometimes it focuses more on the centerpiece of the soul which is the thinking,
the mentality of the individual. So the things he is talking about is
information (wisdom) that comes not from empiricism or rationalism but from a
different source. He says, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.
This is the end of this quote, and then verse 10 goes on to say:
For to us God revealed
{them} through the Spirit for the Spirit searches all things, even the
depths of God. The them is again a neuter plural pronoun, referring back to
the things. So the things dont have their source in human wisdom based on
empiricism or in the thinking of man in terms of human rationalism, but on the
external revelation of God. God revealed them to us through the Spirit.
This is one of several
uses of the word spirit in this section and every time we see the word it is
a translation of the Greek word pneuma,
and pneuma has numerous meanings.
It means breath, wind, air. It can refer to the Holy Spirit, it can refer to that aspect of human nature that is
immaterial called the spirit and is different from the soul. Sometimes it is
used as a synonym for the soul, sometimes an indefinite term for all of the
immaterial makeup of man, sometimes to the life of the man. So pneuma has a lot of different meanings,
and in this particular passage it has three or four different meanings. Paul
will shift back and forth.
Now he explains. for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
The Holy Spirit is the second person of the Trinity and He shares the same
essence as God the Father and God the Son; they are one in essence and an
indivisible unity, and are three distinct persons. So here we learn that God
the Holy Spirit is privy to every thing in the thinking of God, just as the Son
is and the Father is.
1 Corinthians 2:11 NASB
For who among men knows the {thoughts} of a man except the spirit of the man
which is in him? Here is the word spirit used a different way. It is not
referring to the Holy Spirit; it is referring to the inner thinking of the
individual. What he is getting at is: What human being knows what is going on
inside of a man except his own thinking? No one knows what is going on inside
of his own mind except that person. Only you know what is going on in your
head, is what he is saying here. He is talking about the inner thought life of
an individual. Even so the {thoughts} of God no one knows except the Spirit
of God.
The phrase the Spirit of
God is always this way: article, pneuma,
article, God. There are two ways this is expressed in the New Testament. One is
to express it simply as pneuma theou,
no article—Spirit of God. Or it can be with the article, ta pneuma tou theou. The tou theou indicates it is in the
genitive. The genitive indicates source or origin, among other things. So there
is no need to have a preposition put in there. Dozens of times in Scripture
where there is the phrase the Spirit from God ta
pneuma tou theou or pneuma theou
it is always that way. There is no preposition there.
But there is one place
that is going to show up in the next verse where Paul puts a preposition in the
middle of that phrase. We have to ask the question: why does Paul insert that
preposition? It is the only place in the entire New Testament. It is the
preposition ek to indicate source.
Most commentaries will say this is a stylistic difference. That is a cop-out. A
lot of people use stylistic difference because they dont want to think about
what is going on. Scripture teaches that every word is breathed out by God, and
not only every word but every ending, every little
particle. So there has to be a reason for it, God doesnt make mistakes.
Why is this ek in there? The reason is because God
is emphasizing the Spirit of God, because everywhere else in the New Testament
where it is talking about the Holy Spirit it doesnt use that preposition ek. But now he is going to talk about another
type of spirit that comes directly from God. In context, because of the psuchikos and the pneumatikos believer—the soulish
and the spiritual believer—the difference is what we get at regeneration,
i.e. the human spirit. So this spirit in verse 12, the ta pneuma ek tou theou, the spirit that comes from God, is
regeneration. It is the human spirit that we get at regeneration; it is not the
Holy Spirit. The capital S in the translation is an interpretive decision made
by the translator. Context tells us this. It makes sense that this is a spirit
from God.
1 Corinthians 2:12 NASB
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the [human] spirit who
is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. One
reason this makes sense is because when you have psuchikos mentioned in Jude 19 it defines it with an
appositional phrase saying, the psuchikos
person does not have spirit. It is not necessary to capitalize spirit. It
makes more sense when fitting it with this passage in its lower case. They are
not regenerate; they dont have a human spirit. they
are soulish, not having the spirit. That fits best with 1 Corinthians 2:12.
Paul says, we have received [as believers], not the spirit of the world, but
the spirit who is from God.
We have received
something. We are physically alive, we already have a
soul, so the spirit we receive is either going to be regeneration (the human
spirit) or it is going to be the Holy Spirit. The reason it cant be the Holy
Spirit is because this has to apply to the situation of the rulers of this
world before Pentecost and the situation of the people who made up the audience
of Isaiah in the Old Testament, and those folks did not live in the period when
the Holy Spirit was available to indwell them or to fill them. But the Holy
Spirit did regenerate them, so they received the human spirit. It has to apply
dispensationally across the board to the Old Testament as well as the New
Testament dispensation.
so
that we may know the things freely given to us by God. An unbeliever cant
really know the Scriptures. He can know a lot of facts about the Scripture but
he cant start putting things together to really understand the deep things of
God if he is not regenerate.
1 Corinthians 2:13 NASB
which things we also speak [scriptural revelation] Paul is adding himself to
Old Testament revelation and saying, We too (apostles)
also speak things in addition to what is taught in the Old Testament. not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by
the [Holy] Spirit, combining spiritual {thoughts} with spiritual {words.}
1 Corinthians 2:14 NASB But
a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God There is no ek here. This is the Holy Spirit, it is different from the ta pneuma ek tou theou in verse 12. for
they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are
spiritually appraised. So this word psuchikos
meaning a natural man indicates someone who does not have a human spirit. And
because of the last phrase in Jude 19, devoid of the spirit, this is talking
about what we have at regeneration. Literally the Greek says in Jude 19, not
having spirit. The translator has to interpret that and ask if this is talking
about the human spirit or the Holy Spirit. The problem is that if you lock into
thinking that this is just a contrast between church age believers and church
age unbelievers then you are going to go with Holy Spirit. But if it is a
universal principle related to soulish as unbelievers who cant understand the
things of the Spirit of God, whether it is Old Testament or New Testament, then
you have to go with human spirit.
In terms of biblical
anthropology there is a debate as to whether man is composed of three basic
components or two basic components. Dichotomy (two parts) means that you
believe that man is composed of two parts, a material part and an immaterial
part, and that these terms are used to describe the immaterial
part—heart, soul, spirit, emotional, whatever. But trichotomous [three
parts] means that man is composed of three parts: a body, a soul and a spirit.
The words soul and spirit are used in some passages interchangeably, and that
is because spirit is not always a technical terms referring to that component
of the immaterial part of man that is acquired at regeneration.
There are two passages
that clearly distinguish between soul and spirit. Hebrews 4:12 NASB
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit Its very clear.
There is a distinction between soul and spirit. There may be a lot of overlap
but there is a clear distinction. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 NASB Now may
the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul
and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Three components are emphasized there.
The dichotomous comes
along and says, Oh well he is just using this stylistic difference and just
using synonyms. But that just doesnt do the text justice. It is really talking
about three components.
Jude 19 is a crucial
passage for understanding that these false teachers are unbelievers.