Matthew Poole and continuators on James 3:15

15 This wisdom descendeth not from above , but is earthly , sensual , devilish .

This Wisdom which they pretended so much to, who so criticized on other Men's Actions, and inveighed against them, and which was accompanied with Strife and Envy.

i. e. From God the Author of Wisdom, from whom, tho every good and perfect Gift descends, ch. 1.17. and even Knowledge, and Skill in natural things, Isa. 28.26▪ 29, yet this Wisdom being sinful, is not from him,

because it is of the Earth, of no higher Original than from the first Adam, who was of the Earth, and earthly, 1 Cor. 15.47. and likewise because it is employed, and fixeth Mens Minds on earthly things.

This may be understood, either, 1. according to the reading in the Text, the word here used, being so rendred, Iude 1.9. agreeable to 1 Thess. 5.23. where Soul, from whence the word is derived, is opposed to Spirit, and taken for the sensitive Powers, which Men have in common with Brutes in Distinction from the intellectual, which go under the name of Spirit, and are proper to Men: meer Reason, without the Divine Grace, being apt to degenerate into Brutishness, and easily brought to serve the ends of sensual Appetite; this VVisdom may well be called sensual. Or, 2ly. according to the margin, Natural, in opposition to Spiritual. The natural Man (1 Cor. 2.14. where the same word (in the Greek) is used as here) is one that lives under the Conduct of his own carnal Reason, not enlightned, nor regenerated by the Spirit of God: A Man of Soul, (as the word imports) or that hath no better, no higher Principle in him, than his own Soul. Accordingly, this VVisdom here mentioned, is such as proceeds meerly from a Man's own Soul, in its natural state destitute of the Light and Grace of God's Spirit, and therefore may be termed natural.

Because it is of the Devil, or such as is in him, and makes Men like him, who is a proud Spirit, and envious, a Lier, and Slanderer, Iohn 8.44. and who observes Mens Faults, not to amend them, but accuse them for them.

Marginal references: Or, natural.