Carnal Christians?

Some insist that there  is no such thing as a carnal Christian.

And one preacher insisting this quoted out of context the very passage which establishes with absolute clarity that such are real.

The irony of those who insist that there is no such thing as a carnal Christian are themselves the most carnal of all, religious terrorists and fanatics, extreme legalists who think that the claim of carnality is  a copout, but in their legalist zeal their own sin has been stirred up and made even worse than it ever was.

I do not use hyperbole when I call them terrorists. I am referring to the likes of Ray Comfort and Paul Washer. The first has repeatedly said, and in my own hearing, for we share a home town and I sat under his preaching for many years before he moved to the US, he said that it was his job to terrify people into becoming Christians.

And Paul Washer's stock in trade is the screaming rant whereby he thinks he is serving God by, for example,  telling young people that most of them will be in hell 100 years from now.

Both also deny carnality, but the weapons of their warfare are purely carnal as is their fruit.

Where is the biblical passage that speaks so clearly?

It can be found in I Corinthians 3:1 and onwards to verse 4


1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto you were not able to bear it,, neither yet now are ye able.  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?  For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
Paul Washer can be found on youtube quoting "Are you not carnal?" but does it to give a negative answer to the question. In other words Washer draws from this the implied answer "No, you are not carnal, if you are born again at all."  But in so doing he completely ignores the immediate context which in this instance includes the very sentence from whence this quote comes:  " you are still carnal for when there are  . . . strifes  . . . among you are you not carnal?" Paul said in verse 1 that they were carnal when he first preached to them and  still so even at the time of his writing of this letter, that they could not take and still could not take the meat of the gospel because "you are yet, or still, carnal. Moreover he gives examples of what constitutes carnality, namely envying, strifes and divisions.

This is the context of the question "Are you not carnal?" And the answer is clearly a resounding yes

 

Who was the letter addressed to?

1Co 1:1 Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called  saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:  Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

For the logic is clear: if there are no such people as  carnal Christians then Paul was not addressing his letter to the Church at Corinth, for he was writing to address a problem in the church, which problem simply wouldn't be there if they were spiritual.  This is so as these behaviours are the fruit of the flesh, and no good tree bears bad fruit. The problem was in fact carnality as manifested by envying, strifes and divisions, also by such enormities as getting drunk in commuinion meals and that gross immorality of a man, in invoking freedom in Christ, who was having sexual relations with his step mother.

 

Was he in fact writing to the non believing hangers-on in the Church? There is no hint of this in his opening, "to the church of God in Corinth . . sanctified, called as saints"

 

A simple reading of the whole passage without cherry picking  shows that carnal Christians do in fact exist. That the phrase "Carnal Christians" does not appear in the Bible is irrelevant, an example of nave literalism that knows no regard for logic,  context nor synonym. The term "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible either, nor is the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition actually called The Antichrist, but both are perfectly valid summaries of what the Bible actually says.

The question may be asked. what does it matter?

It matters a  good deal, for at the core of the matter is a doctrine as to what happens at conversion. If the change occurring then is over estimated then a person is forced into the pretence of acting according to this change that  is no change to the extent that it is over estimated. This is by definition hypocrisy and it also causes strain.

Although it is written that if any be in Christ he is a new creation how does the carnal Christian fit into this? For in acting like a mere man (which St Paul rebukes, therefore appealing to being merely or only human is  no excuse) how is such a person a new creation?

To me it is clear that we who are carnal are not. Does the scripture err then? Clearly not. But I think the distinction between manifest and imputed righteousness applies here. God views us as righteous not because we are but because he reckons us so (the meaning of the term imputation) as part of our changed standing before Him on the basis of our faith.

Either we become sinless at conversion that we may indeed be new creations through being in Christ, or we are imputed as new creations, which thus is a synonym for righteousness, which is itself imputed. The work of the Holy Spirit is to change us into being in reality what we are imputed as being, but this is an on going process.

The worst upshot of denying carnality is that those who think they are spiritual  because being Christians they  by definition be spiritual have become so blinded as to have no insight into their own natures. Of course seeking to live to a change that has not happened in them they are under law as they attempt to force the pretence their doctrine requires.  This of course stirs up their sin and makes them worse than they were as unbelievers.

Were they to admit their carnality  they could be led to repent of it at the Lord's behest. But this they refuse because their definitions preclude it.

The flip side of this view is the total despair of those who know their sin, are trapped in the experience of Romans chapter seven and, believing that there are no such things as carnal Christians, believe that they are not saved  and thus feel that they have no access to the throne of grace. Such a view drives people insane.

Finally, if there is no such thing as  carnal Christian then I do not know any Christians for in thirty six years I have never met any and I myself certainly am not a Christian.

Or the doctrine made by such is false and those doing do have put themselves under Law and forsaken Christ because in their heart of hears they refuse to acknowledge that they are sinners.

A doctrine that claims to be spiritual and in fact being so savagely cruel is what in essence a heresy is