What are the Bible's examples of the pattern 'first the natural, then the spiritual'?
Scripture repeatedly shows the pattern first the natural, then the spiritual: first Cain, then Abel; first Ishmael, then Isaac; first Esau, then Jacob; first King Saul, then King David; and first Adam, the natural, then Christ, the spiritual. This rule of thumb runs all the way through Scripture.
Les explains that this pattern is a rule of thumb all the way through Scripture: first the natural, then the spiritual. He points to the Old Testament examples—Cain before Abel, Ishmael before Isaac, Esau before Jacob, King Saul before King David—and then brings it into Paul's text in 1 Corinthians 15:46, where the spiritual was not first. Adam was the first federal head of the human race, but Christ becomes the culmination because we are dealing not just with the physical but with the spiritual. So first Adam, the natural, then Christ, the spiritual.