Friends,
The scriptures are not a Rubic's Cube.
I imagine I will get raked over the coals for this statement, but...
I believe, atleast in my limited understanding, that it is impossible to find a definitive answer to a question such as "When is scripture literal and when is it spiritual?"
Romans 11:33
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
1 Corinthians 2:11
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?
Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
But perhaps we can agree on this... that the Word of God is Spiritual in it's entirety.
John 6:63
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
Yet it is comprised of many physical, and many times literal/historical accounts that are given to us to as examples so that we may learn spiritual truths, not by the wisdom of man, but taught and lead of the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 10:11
Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
1 Corinthians 2:13
which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
While many have stated, including Ray, that "There is nothing you can do physically that will make you spiritual," I believe we can all agree that when the Spirit began to lead us and teach us the truth and when we began to grow spiritually it also began to change the way we lived physically.
The spiritual is light shining into our physical darkness. The two can not coexist in their entirety. The spiritual light in the end will cast out the physical darkness, because the physcial (darkness) cannot comprehend the spiritual (light).
May God shine on each of us as He wills.
Grace and Peace
Josh