Bible Dictionary

SENSUAL

Sin & Judgment • New Testament

Sensual describes a person governed by lower appetites, self-interest, or merely natural understanding rather than by the Spirit of God. In the New Testament it can range from self-indulgence to moral corruption and opposition to spiritual wisdom.

Definition

Sensual describes a person governed by the lower, self-directed life rather than by the spirit in communion with God. It may involve animal appetites, intellectual self-interest, or moral corruption. In the biblical psychology described here, the soul is the center of personal being, standing between the body’s lower nature and the higher spiritual nature. Sensuality is therefore the degradation of the spirit into subordination to the self-centered soul.

Biblical Usage

In the New Testament, sensual may describe wisdom that is earthly rather than from above, or persons who are sensual and do not have the Spirit. The sensual person does not receive the things of God’s Spirit and is not subject to God’s law. The term ranges from self-indulgence to gross immorality and the exclusion of God from life.

Historical Background

The distinction among fleshly, sensual, and spiritual describes a threefold relation of human life to body, soul, and spirit. The soul as the seat of senses, desires, affections, appetites, and passions was distinguished from the higher rational nature in Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy.

Historical Bible Dictionaries

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)

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

Back to Dictionary Search