“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.”
(1 Cor. 2:14, NKJV)
It is an absolutely mysterious law that keeps and regulates the gates of the living world. Part of what is fascinating about it is the extent to which the widely encompassing helpless realm of what is dead is totally cut-off from the realm of the living, specifically through the law of biogenesis. Through this enigmatic law the non-living part of all things that exist are kept from the possibility of life. There can categorically be no resurrection from that realm of the dead. There is thus a fixed gulf between life and death.
The Bible contains an explicit statement about the law of biogenesis as it is applicable to the spiritual life. What first strikes one about this is that this gulf is indeed fixed. The gate of the natural realm to the spiritual realm is hermetically sealed on the natural side, in other words it is so dense that nothing can penetrate it. In the natural reality the distance between the organic and the non-organic is so big that, for instance, no mineral can bridge it. Similarly, the door between earth and the heavens is locked, and no power on earth can open it. The world of the natural man, from fleshly thoughts and mortal bodies, are thus so far removed from the spiritual world of God that no mechanism bridges the great divide.
No organic or carnal effort, no modification of the environment, no secret vitamin or ingredient, hormone or chemical, no meditation or psychic power, no moral path or behaviour, no self-improvement, no character development or religious approach, no ritual or ceremony or tradition can fill any carnal man, “of the earth, made of dust” (1 Cor. 15:47), with the attributes of spiritual life, with incorruption or immortality. The spiritual realm of God and his sons is so strictly protected that no osmotic creepage to the realm of carnal thought is possible, specifically because of the inaccessible membrane of the law of biogenetics. This is why Jesus explains to Nicodemus in John 3:3 and 5 that no one will see or enter the kingdom of God, “except a man be born again” (IAV). Jesus states it in an interesting manner: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” It’s not a question of not being allowed to – it’s a question of being unable to!
The Biblical principle at the root of this is 1 Cor. 2:14: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Take note – he/she he cannot do it, regardless of how intelligent they are, or what good people they are, or how free-thinking. It is just as impossible for the carnal mind to ponder spiritual things as it is for a rock to spontaneously bring forth life. It is strictly speaking scientifically impossible that natural man can enter the spiritual realm of the Spirit of God! There is no entrance from the lower realm to the higher realm, except to be born from above (John 3:3). Remember what Solomon holds forth in Prov. 15:24 (AMP): “The path of the wise leads UPward to life, that he may avoid [the gloom] in the depths of Sheol (Hades, the place of the dead).”
There needs to be a transferal of life if a rock or a plant or an animal or a human wishes to move from a natural sphere to a higher sphere. The earth can never lay claim to the kingdom of God – IT MUST ORIGINATE FROM THE HIGHER SPHERE! The kingdom of God, the higher realm, must take possession of the earthly realm. Even though the kingdom of God is WITHIN me, I cannot possess it or enter it as I am only an earthly being. It needs to possess me. Christ can possess me, but I cannot possess Christ.
In Matt. 13:31-32 Jesus explains this very important principle in simple terms: “Another parable He put forth to them, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.’” How can the inorganic, non-living mineral elements of the earth be raised up in the organic kingdom of living things? In the seed there is a germ cell of life. The seed that contains that germ cell is planted IN THE EARTH, in the lifeless mineral sphere or realm, the kingdom of the dead.
Once it is buried in the earth, with the right amount of light and water, and the right temperature, the seed germinates and life starts to manifest in the seed. Eventually life bursts forth from the dead inorganic sheath that envelops it, and the life of the seed is released. As life becomes manifest and increases, it assertively takes possession of the chemical elements in the soil, and then builds living tissue from materials that have never lived. The inorganic chemical materials become wondrously living tissue! Death is consumed by life! The lifeless elements of the earth are transformed in the living substance of the plant.
Now it is very clear why Jesus uses this simple example to explain the kingdom of God. The most miniscule of all seeds become the greatest of all herbs! The plant that stretches deep into the dead world in which it has been embedded, touches the minerals with the mystery of life, and then rises to THE TOP in a transformed state, so that it can exist in the living sphere. In exactly the same manner the Breath of the Living God is blown over the dead souls of people, and this transforms them in a manner that allows for them to cross over the desert of mortality and death, and fills them from on high with individual holy, eternal and godly qualities of incorruptible life. This life produces in them wondrous faculties through which they who are born in the Spirit can see and enter the kingdom.
It’s clear that one’s own attempts at bringing about this change is impossible! How empty are the religious rituals, the laws we make for ourselves, and the never-ending good attempts! Place a (dead) rock in the (dead) earth and absolutely nothing will happen, even if you play the most touching music during the altar call. You can minister to the dead rocks with the most beautiful doctrine, but they will still be subjected to sin and death, and it cannot be otherwise. You can have the non-born again individual move through whatever camp or religious program, but he remains dead, based on the law of spiritual biogenesis. How beautifully Eph. 2:1-5 explains it: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked … But God … even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ … and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”! Selah!
- Selah: Read Ezek. 47 for a practical story about biogenesis.
- Read: 25-30
- Memorise: 26:20 (what a verse, especially in this context!)
