Natural or Supernatural

Brothers and Sisters,

Do you believe or find Scripture to say that there are distinctions between the natural and supernatural? Are they meaningful distinctions and if so, what is the distinction. Is the distinction a matter of degree or quantity? Is the distinction a matter of nature and quality?

For example, what is the distinction between natural talents and spiritual gifts?

Or, what is the distinction or difference between the natural mind and the renewed spiritual mind?

What is the difference between natural ethical integrity and the righteousness or holiness God has and wants to come out of His people?

What is the difference between the goodness of natural man ( his patience or kindness, or his happiness ) and the fruits of the Spirit?

Particularly, I'm interested in the distinction between "natural love" and the "love of God that is poured into" the believers' hearts.

Are the difference between the spiritual attributes a matter of quantity and degree or is their a difference in the nature and quality of the attributes of the born again Spirit indwelt believer versus the natural man?

As to love, the believer is called to

Love our enemies

Love our neighbor

Love our spouse and children

Love our spiritual family

Love God.

Also, God is said to love His enemies, love mankind, love His spiritual children and His bride and to love Himself. How do all these loves differ, if at all? The Bible seems to make clear differences. Is there a difference between natural love and spiritual love and how meaningful is the difference?

So often, I find that there is a tendency to blend the natural and the supernatural and with regard to "love" to define it almost wholly in natural terms. We define the love God gives us by the Spirit through the lens of our natural loves. For example, you might hear a mother say she could never love the brethern with the same level of love she might have for her own natural children. She might even say she would find it impossible to love the brethern even remotely the same as her natural children. This love of a mother is presumed to be so much stronger than brotherly love and rightfully so in their natural viewpoint.

Likewise, people find it extremely difficult to love their enemies, those that hurt them deeply. What kind of love are we supposed to love our enemies with? Is it a love of pity and kindness or a love like we love the brethern with, one that is deeply affectionate and fervent? Is love of neighbor the same as the love of the brethern according to Scripture?

To me, having discipled and taught for many years, many Christians hear about spiritual wisdom, spiritual thinking, spiritual gifts, godliness and righteousness, spiritual fruits and spiritual love and use their own definitions derived from the natural "equivalents" of those things to then understand what the Scripture is addressing. They just think the spiritual is the same as natural but in greater degree; more of it and more of it employed in higher frequency or for the glory of God instead of for self.

My own reading of Scripture brings me to a different place. The supernatural is so far above the natural in degree, nature and power that it is difficult for the natural mind to even grasp and certainly, the supernatural can't even be remotely replicated by the flesh. I think I get this from Scripture and this is important because opinion matters little, especially when it comes to the nature or soul of God implanted in the nature of man.

How we resolve this question of the difference between the natural and the supernatural goes a long way to understanding the differences Christians have in their expectations of the Holy Spirit, of themselves and of their understandings of Scripture, especially of how it is to be interpreted in order to be applied.

Definitions have so much to do with so many things in the Christian life. We can define supernatural at a lesser natural level and end up in one place or define it another way and end up on our knees.

Sorry if I sound confusing or irrelevant. I think this is a seriously important topic because conversations abound about the spiritual health of the church or where she should be but isn't. I wonder if we have so dumbed down the supernatural to a "natural Christianity" that is sincerely struggling to be a little bit more cleaned up
and God focused than the next guy. Our expectations have been dumbed down so that being a Christian is a matter of belief and walking in a certain direction and we have lost or set aside the supernatural. Just a question and observation. This is not about any person or group of people. I've seen this issue everywhere and in all church groups. Not in every person or even most, but certainly everywhere.

The distinction between natural and spiritual is a distinction between man and God, creature and creator

Infinite in nature.

It is said of Evan Roberts that druing the Welsh Revival and as he was in the pulpit one time that he had a view of eternity and the danger that faces the lost souls sitting before him, that he was filled with supernatural love and pitty for them he began to groan under the burden for their souls as if he was in an excruciating pain that it frightened the people present..

The natural man knows nothing of this kind of love..

It is not something you grow into. It is something spontaneously imparted.

We have adopted evolutionary definitions to explain Christianity and forgot that it is a creation of God..
It is the life of God in the soul of man.

CofG,

Methinks you have answered your own question;

"My own reading of Scripture brings me to a different place. The supernatural is so far above the natural in degree, nature and power that it is difficult for the natural mind to even grasp and certainly, the supernatural can't even be remotely replicated by the flesh. I think I get this from Scripture and this is important because opinion matters little, especially when it comes to the nature or soul of God implanted in the nature of man."

CofG,

I think your question expresses a frustration more than anything. You see this distinction taught plainly in the Bible from beginning to end. On the other hand you see almost everyone claiming to be operating in the supernatural when it's obvious they are not.

Am I right?

UntoBabes, I’m not frustrated. Just trying to establish the full extent and standard of God’s grace and call the people to yearn for, believe in and pursue so much more that God has richly supplied in Jesus. Precious blood bought great power and great grace. Natural talents, natural love, natural holiness, natural wisdom and natural strength are not the Kingdom. Strong supernatural church for a great God. Jesus bought it God shall be displayed in His people. :)

I hear you, been there and done that.
From my own experience, people will not pursue that on their own because most people believe they are okay. The reason they believe they are okay is because they have never experienced what is real. Even as they read the Bible and see a different reality they still think they are living the biblical standard. They will interpret the Bible in light of their own experience and no further. For example, when people read about the fullness of the Holy Spirit They think they have it and who dares tell them they don't. I pray for an awakening and the pouring of the Holy Spirit because only when one has an encounter with God, do they realize that what they had previously was fraud.

Brother Robert: a deeply profound set of insights and questions.

Maybe part of the answer is found in conveyance.

More than just communication, more than just a solicitation for emotion, more than just data passing from person to person.

When a dullard attempts to convey the true sense of God's grace to others it flows like solid wax in a pipe. You end up having to push it with emotion, bang on it with definition, anecdote, humorous stories. You pressurize it with swaying the crowds. So, when others receive that solid wax, they do the exact same thing, they use the same strategies on others that were used on them.

But something was lost along the way.
'it was not conveyed to them in a way that brings life to them'
They are just as darkened in their minds about the wax as if they didnt know anything about it at all.
The ugly reality...after all that pushing and poking and pressuring and swaying and banging the wax is still solid, immovable and for all intents and purposes in their lives...useless.

Then, someone comes in...with wax/string and fire and now that solid wax literally holds a flame...completely inconceivable to everyone who were taught about wax previously.
The point of the wax...to fuel a string that for the most part burns very little but continuously gives light.

So it is, the Holy Spirit is the only one that can rightly and properly give understanding and purpose for things. Yet, the Holy Spirit did 'convey' the understanding for wax, the string and the fire almost instantly where years and years of definition, feeling and pushing or poking at it availed nothing.

The people could understand wax because some who had been taught of the Spirit was able to demonstrate the working of the Spirit because with the conveyance of the 'truth of wax' came the ability to pass along that truth to others.

Without receiving the things of the Spirit you cannot convey the things of the Spirit. Yet, the conveyance of the things of the Spirit is not a skill it is that Same Spirit demonstrating the same truth over and over again from person to person so that as many as received it became 'conveyors of the wax'.

Then after so many wax/string/lights were burning they were named 'children of light' and 'sons of light' for each of them who received the light received by the Spirit not just the natural workings of things but the spiritual workings of God. What separated the 'children of light' from the 'children of darkness' was not the human abilities, their wisdom or knowledge, their poor or rich status...but whether or not they had actually beheld the 'truth of wax' for themselves and had it conveyed by the Spirit to their own minds and hearts.

So it must be understood, wax and string and fire are all natural but what is supernatural is the life-changing conveyance of truth that forever removes the darkness from our minds.

Every kind of human apparatus has been created in order to duplicate the wax and string and fire and to combine them so as to achieve a continuous flame. Yet, all of them burn out, blow out or will not burn at all. The natural cannot and will not replace the Spiritual. God himself lights the wick and God himself fuels the flame despite the strong drafts.
God himself includes himself in every conveyance of the Spirit and every demonstration by the Spirit is a demonstration of God's actual presence hidden in what looks only natural. The natural and the Supernatural are intrinsically connected and yet are as dissimilar as fire and water.

The answer should not be divided into these categories as it talks in the bible that the antichrist himself
Revelation 13
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men

The antichrist can call fire down from heaven. The devil did miracles during the time of Moses

2 Tim 3
8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith

Exodus 7
10 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent.

11 Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.

12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.

13 And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

I am not one to dismiss the supernatural as I would rather it was biblically based and I am not a cessationist

There is supernatural good as well as evil
There is natural evil aswell as good

Galatians 1
1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

2 And all the brethren which are with me, unto the churches of Galatia:

3 Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,

4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:

5 To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

Mormanism and Islam supposedly came around from sightings of angels unless they present the gospel we should be wary but we should not despise the supernatural realm just question it