James 3:15
qThis wisdom descendeth not rfrom above, but is earthly, 7sensual, devilish.
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
οὐκ ἔστιν αὕτη ἡ σοφία ἄνωθεν κατερχομένη, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπίγειος, ψυχική, δαιμονιώδης.
Textual key: no entry
q:
Jeremiah 4:22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
1 Corinthians 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
Jude 1:19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Galatians 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Philippians 3:19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
r:
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
7:
1 Corinthians 2:14 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.
which they pretended so much to, who so criticized on other men’s actions, and inveighed against them, and which was accompanied with strife and envy.
i.e. from God the author of wisdom, from whom, though every good and perfect gift descends, Jas 1:17, and even knowledge and skill in natural things, Isa 28:26,29; yet this wisdom, being sinful, is not from him, because it
of the earth, of no higher original than from the first Adam, who was of the earth, and earthly, 1Co 15:47; and likewise because it is employed, and fixeth men’s minds, on earthly things.
this may be understood either:
1. According to the reading in the text, the word here used being so rendered, Jud 1:19, agreeable to 1Th 5:23, where soul, from whence the word is derived, is opposed to spirit, and taken for the sensitive powers, which men have in common with brutes, in distinction from the intellectual, which go under the name of spirit, and are proper to men: mere reason, without the Divine grace, being apt to degenerate into brutishness, and easily brought to serve the ends of sensual appetite, this wisdom may well be called sensual. Or:
2. According to Jud 1:19, natural, in opposition to spiritual. The natural man {1Co 2:14, where the same word, in the Greek, is used as here} is one that lives under the conduct of his own carnal reason, not enlightened, nor regenerated by the Spirit of God; a man of soul, (as the word imports), or that hath no better, no higher principle in him than his own soul. Accordingly, this wisdom here mentioned, is such as proceeds merely from a man’s own soul, in its natural state, destitute of the light and grace of God’s Spirit, and therefore may be termed natural.
because it is of the devil, or such as is in him, and makes men like him, who is a proud spirit, and envious, a liar and slanderer, Joh 8:44, and who observes men’s faults, not to amend them, but accuse them for them.