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He that is spiritual is he in whom the Spirit of God dwells, pervading his spirit with a light and quickening it to a life above that of nature. This higher spirit life has many marks of distinction. It is one of these to which the apostle here gives prominence. Two things are affirmed of the spiritual man -

(1) His power to judge;

(2) his freedom from being judged.

I. HIS POWER TO JUDGE. The attitude of mind suggested is an inquiring, critical, testing attitude - an attitude in which it holds its faith in abeyance until perfectly convinced that that which claims it is divinely true, "proving all things" that it may "hold fast that which is good." The spiritual man brings everything thus to the secret tribunal of his own soul.

1. All forms of human teaching and influence, the various ways in which men seek to guide our opinions and our conduct. "Believe not every spirit, but prove," etc. (1 John 4:1). We may apply this to the whole action of the spirits of men upon us through the ordinary means of personal influence. The spirit of truth and the spirit of error, the spirit of good and of evil, come to us through these human channels; and our mental conditions, our daily habits of thought and life, are determined; often far more than we are aware of, in this way. The spirits of men are embodied in their works and words, and thus not merely when they are physically present with us, but when we have never seen them face to face, when oceans roll between us, when they have passed away to other worlds, we may feel their living touch upon our souls: Their sway over us is independent of the conditions of space and time. "Being dead, they yet speak." "They rule us from their urns." Their very names are instruments of persuasive spiritual power. The grand question in every such case is whether this power is on the whole favourable or otherwise to the cause of truth and righteousness. It is by some criterion of right and wrong in our own souls that this question must be determined, and what can the criterion be but the "spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind" that God gives? Books, sermons, newspapers, theories, systems of religious faith and ecclesiastical polity, the personal example and converse of others, the social sentiments and customs that prevail around us, - in short, everything that possesses a moral quality and wields a moral influence over us, must be subjected to this test. This is the Divine "right of private judgment," which in its highest aspect we cannot surrender if we would.

2. The revelation of God, coming to us as it does through human and. natural channels, must needs be amenable to the same law. According to its own teaching, the Divine in us can alone discover and recognize the Divine element in it. "He that is of God heareth the words of God" (John 8:47); "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice" (John 18:37); "Ye have an anointing of the Holy One," etc. (1 John 2:20). Men justly argue that the Bible, like every other book, must be brought to the tribunal of the "judging faculty." But what is that faculty? If they mean by it the Spirit of God given in his measure to every lowly Christian believer, the wondrous supernatural light that shines from heaven upon every soul that humbly and prayerfully looks up for it, - this is a principle to which all apostolic voices bear witness. But if they mean some native faculty, some light of natural reason, some power of spiritual discernment inherent in the very constitution of our being, - they are trusting to that which is the source of all confusion of thought and divergence of opinion, an ignis faluus, which leads through mazes of uncertainty to the darkness of doubt and of despair. The religious sensibility in every man to which revelation appeals is one thing; the interpretive and verifying faculty, which is the special gilt of the Spirit of God, which, indeed, is the Spirit of God in man, is another. How stroll we know that we have this power? In one view of it it is a self witnessing power, which no rival authority can gainsay; in another, it is a power that proves itself by its qualities and results. It is a lowly, loving, patient, trustful, obedient spirit. And its supreme characteristic is that it testifies to Christ as at once the Centre and Circumference of our highest thought, the Source and End of our noblest life. It is the "mind of Christ," and no "persuasion" can be in harmony with it that does not lead more or less directly to him.

II. HIS FREEDOM FROM BEING JUDGED. "He himself is judged of no man" who has not the same spiritual faculty. This follows as a necessary consequence of the superiority of his own gift. Take it in different ways.

1. No such man can understand him. The workings of his inner life, his deepest thoughts, affections, aspirations, conflicts, the powers that sustain and the principles that govern his whole spiritual existence, - these form a world into which the unspiritual man cannot enter. We arc all mysteries to each other in the individuality of our being. Each lives in his own world, and the painful sense of solitude will often seize upon the thoughtful spirit. Imperfect sympathies arising from imperfect mutual acquaintance are among the saddest features of our social existence, and will often awaken strange longings for a state of being in which we "shall know even as also we are known." In no case is this separation so complete as between the spiritual and the carnal man. Here lies a gulf which no artifice, no arrangement of outward circumstances, can bridge over. When a good man's lot is cast among uncongenial society, he is driven in upon himself, on the silent satisfactions of his own soul. Like the Master, he "has meat to eat which the world knows not of." Many a tender spirit has felt thus isolated in the midst of those most fondly loved. An atmosphere of natural affection and all natural endearments of life surround them, but in the deepest reality of their being they dwell alone.

2. He is not open, on the side of his religious thought and life, to the hostile criticism of any man. How shall others "judge" that with which they have nothing in common, and the very essential meaning of which they cannot understand?

3. No false influence from man can lead him fatally astray. Who shall unsettle the faith or shake the steadfastness of one who is thus bathed in the light and rooted and grounded in the life of God? Who is he that shall bring again into bondage one whom the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" has thus made free? Here lies the grand condition alike of mental assurance and. moral strength. - W.

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KJV: But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

WEB: But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.