 This will be the last week of this series and I have saved possibly the most popular category for last. When I was younger this seemed to be presented as a real possibility. But as with the casual Christian I don’t think that this is really possible. The most basic definition of what is a true Christian is someone who has been born again to spiritual life. That means that the most basic reality of being a genuine follower of Jesus Christ and true child of God is that you are no longer a merely carnal (physical) personal but a truly spiritual person. And that is why:
I don’t want to be a carnal Christian. The idea of the carnal Christian is someone who has the spiritual life from God in them, but continues to live the same carnal, fleshly life that they lived before. (Now, I am not saying that this is reality but it is the claim.) By using the terms carnal and fleshly, I mean a life that is focused on the temporal not the eternal, the physical not the spiritual, the sensual not the holy. Of course the problem is self-evident that the Christian can not continue to be merely carnal. We are still people with real bodies but not bodies. We are no longer just body and mind but we are people with a living spirit. We are also people indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The reality that we have spiritual life and are in real relationship and fellowship with the Holy Spirit should cause us to at least question the idea of so-called carnal Christianity. I believe that the idea of carnal Christianity comes from a fundamental misinterpretation of a couple of Paul’s letters. First, in Romans 7:14 in the ESV, Paul refers to the law being spiritual but himself as ‘of the flesh’. In the KJV, flesh is rendered carnal. No Bible interpreters have wrestled with whether Paul is talking about a person before being saved or the struggle on going in the believer between the old sin nature or the new nature. Personally in the context of what Paul has been discussing in the sixth chapter and how he refers to himself I interpret this as in reference to the believer’s war against sin. But even with that interpretation, Paul’s point is clear that the Christian is not peacefully living in a life of carnality, but rather battling against it by the Spirit. The following chapter is possibly the most victorious text in all of the Bible. The second text and probably the one even more likely to be sighted by someone who would argue for the validity of carnal Christianity is in 1 Corinthians 3. In this passage, Paul refers to the Corinthians as “carnal” in the KJV, and again “of the flesh” in the ESV. And Paul does say that they are mere infants in Christ. This is not a stamp of approval, but rather, a criticism of their spiritual immaturity. I think Paul’s point is that observing the way they are acting, they are at best baby Christians, if they prove to be Christians at all. Paul goes on to point to the revelation of what is real at the judgment of Christ later in the passage. Once again, this is not an endorsement of carnal living. However, I do believe that Christians should be spiritually fleshly, meaning that we should be thankful for the bodies and provision for these bodies that we have received from the Lord. Also we should be seeking to honor God in our bodies and with our bodies. As well the physical world and this current environment belongs to the Lord and it all exists to display His beauty and His glory and so it should be stewarded toward that end in every possible way. So as spiritual people we ought to desire to live lives that demonstrate in the physical world what is true of us spiritually. No, I don’t want to be a carnal Christian. Rather, I want to be a Christian with no adjective nor qualifier, just a real, genuine Christian known for the fact that I have a covenantal relationship with Jesus and His people (Acts 4:13)!
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