What Bible examples show the first natural then spiritual pattern?
Scripture illustrates the pattern with Cain then Abel, Esau then Jacob, Ishmael then Isaac, and King Saul then King David. It also applies to Adam as natural and Christ as spiritual, to believers born natural then born from above, and to Antichrist then Christ.
Les explains that the format of all of God’s dealing is first the natural and then the spiritual. In I Corinthians 15:46, the text says the spiritual was not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. Les points to Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Ishmael and Isaac, and King Saul and King David as examples. He also connects the pattern to Adam as the natural and Christ as the spiritual, to believers who are sons of Adam and born of the flesh but after salvation are born from above and spiritual, and to the coming Antichrist as the natural man and then Christ as the spiritual. Romans 5 is cited regarding sin and death entering through one man.