NATURAL. The contrast between ‘natural’ (Gr. psychikos ) and ‘spiritual’ ( pneumatikos ) is drawn out by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:44-46 . The natural body is derived from the first Adam, and is our body in so far as it is accommodated to, and limited by, the needs of the animal side of the human nature. In such a sense it is especially true that ‘the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God’ ( 1 Corinthians 2:14 ). Man derives his spiritual life from union with Christ (‘the last Adam’), but his present body is not adapted to the needs of this spiritual existence; hence the distinction made by St. Paul between the natural body (called the ‘body of death,’ Romans 7:24 ) and the spiritual body of the resurrection. The transference from the one to the other begins in this life, and the two beings are identical in so far as continuity creates an identity, but otherwise, owing to the operation of the union with Christ, distinct.
T. A. Moxon.