1 Corinthians 2:14

1 Corinthians 2:14

The Spiritual Life.

I. If we cast our eyes over the world of human things, it cannot fail to strike us that there are certain inevitable classifications of mankind depending immediately upon the constitution of human nature. Thus you may classify men by their bodily gifts and graces, distinguishing them as the strong and vigorous, on the one hand, who scarcely know the meaning of pain or bodily weakness, who would scorn to ask if this present life, which is to them so glad a thing, be worth the living; and on the other hand, after many gradations of health or sickness, others whose cheek is pale and whose frame is wan and feeble from disease, whose life is a pain to them, who have little experience of earthly happiness, who, if they could, would flee away and be at rest. Or, again, you may classify men by their intellectual endowments, according as some men seem to grasp the truth of things by lightning flashes, and others cannot see the light at all despite their efforts, or, if they see it, are only dazzled by its brilliancy. Is there not yet another classification, that of the spirit? Is not the spiritual side of human nature as true as the intellectual or the physical? God made man in His own image; and human nature (be it reverently spoken), like the Divine nature, is a trinity in unity. It is to the spiritual side of man that religion appeals. For the natural man, as St. Paul says i.e.,the psychical man, the man of physical and intellectual culture receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.

II. I plead, then, for a frank recognition of the spiritual side or aspect of human nature. It is man's necessity to look beyond himself and the world of which he is a part, and to feel, however feebly, after the God who made him. And as the spiritual faculty is supreme in human nature, so is it essentially most delicate. It is hard to preserve in its sensitiveness; it is soon and easily blighted. Do not neglect, then, your own spirituality. You are responsible for it; your character depends on it. It is possible so to live, in such an atmosphere of clear and holy light, that you can as little doubt of God's Being as of your own. But it is possible also so to live that the primary elemental facts of human nature, upon which religion finally depends, shall seem to you as you reflect on them no better than the unsubstantial fabric of a dream. There is a faith which is stronger than reason, and which abides in the hour when human reason fails.

J. E. C. Welldon, The Spiritual Life and Other Sermons,p. 1.

References: ii. 14. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vii., No. 407; J. Burton, Christian Life and Truth,p. 225; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 152; E. White, Ibid.,vol. xxx., p. 360; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 98. 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 2:15. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 348.