You ask a very good question which I often think about when witnessing. Of course, my answer depends on my interpretation of the term “understand.”

I think unbelievers can intellectually understand the content of the message in many parts of Scripture. For example, I took a religion class in community college many years ago taught by a woman who was not a Christian and made no claims to be one. The class focused for weeks on the Gospel of John, and as I remember, she had a fairly good grasp of the main issues and claims about Christ in John’s Gospel. But she would not admit that the message was actually divine.

I Cor. 2:14: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (ESV)

Based on what Paul says here (and many other passages like it) the answer to your first question would be YES, the natural man must have the Spirit’s quickening work in order to “spiritually discern” (i.e., savingly comprehend and believe) to Gospel.

And, based upon what I saw with my unsaved college prof, and many others since then, an unsaved person can intellectually grasp at least the basic message of the Gospel, and even complex theology yet not aprehened it spiritually so that they can be saved.

I think the message of Scripture is clear that no one is saved without the Spirit working through His Word (Romans 1:16).

On another, but related note, I think John MacArthur has really pinpointed an issue within the Church that frustrates me. I had a conversation with another brother who is caught up in charismatic extremism, and trying to speak to him from Scripture was as frustrating as speaking to a member of a cult for a couple of reasons. First, his experience was a major authority souce for him and he interprets Scripture by his experience, not the other way around as it should be.

Second, he has no rational hermeneutic by which he can interpret Scripture correctly. It soon became a fruitless discussion.

This is the thing that concerns me most in watching the modern evangelical church. Good hereneutics and soound theology are looked at as somehow unspiritual. So any weird idea is accepted if a person can claim they “experienced it.”

Blessings,
Steve

Can the natural man understand the Word Of God and still not receive it?

Thanks,
Kelvin