The Focal Point

Since the soulical person does not welcome the word of the cross, he obviously cannot comprehend what it is all about. Reception precedes knowledge. The ability or inability to receive tests the presence or absence of a quickened spirit. The capacity or incapacity to know manifests the vital or the moribund character of the intuitive faculty. The spirit first must be quickened before one is able to take in the things of God. With an enlivened spirit one is also given the intuitive ability to appropriate the things of God. Who knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man? A soulical person cannot discern God’s realities because he does not enjoy that new spirit which carries within it the intuitive power of discernment.

The Apostle Paul explains why the soulical man is incompetent to receive and to know matters pertaining to God: “Because they are spiritually discerned.” Do we not notice how the Holy Spirit repeatedly stresses the fact that man’s spirit is the place of communion with God? The focal point of this particular portion of Scripture (1 Cor. 2.9-3.2) is to prove and demonstrate that man’s spirit is basic to, and exclusive in, any fellowship with God and the knowledge of divine matters.