Topic
Sensual
4 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Romans 8:7ISBE
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
- 1 Corinthians 2:14ISBE
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
- James 3:15ISBE
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
- Jude 1:19ISBE
These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 4 references
sen'-shoo-al (psuchikos, "animal," "natural"): Biblical psychology has no English equivalent for this Greek original. Man subject to the lower appetites is sarkikos, "fleshly"; in the communion of his spirit with God he is pneumatikos, "spiritual." Between the two is the psuche, "soul," the center of his personal being. This ego or "I"in each man is bound to the spirit, the higher nature; and to the body or lower nature.
The soul (psuche) as the seat of the senses, desires, affections, appetites, passions, i.e. the lower animal nature common to man with the beasts, was distinguished in the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy from the higher rational nature (nous, pneuma).
The subjection of the soul to the animal nature is man's debasement, to the spirit indwelt of God is his exaltation. The English equivalent for psuchikos, "psychic" does not express this debasement. In the New Testament "sensual" indicates man's subjection to self and self-interest, whether animal or intellectual--the selfish man in whom the spirit is degraded into subordination to the debased psuche, "soul." This debasement may be
(1) intellectual, "not wisdom .... from above, but .... earthly, sensual" (Jas 3:15);
(2) carnal (and of course moral), "sensual, having not the Spirit" (Jude 1:19).
It ranges all the way from sensuous self-indulgence to gross immorality. In the utter subjection of the spirit to sense it is the utter exclusion of God from the life. Hence, "the natural (psuchikos) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God" (1Co 2:14). The term is equivalent to "the mind of the flesh" (Ro 8:7) which "is not subject to the law of God."
See PSYCHOLOGY.
Dwight M. Pratt
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.