Carnal or Spiritual; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9
This is s crucial passage for understanding the dynamics for the spiritual life. One of the most difficult things that has plagued pastors, theologians and many Christians ever since the early days of the church is, what do you do with sin in the life of a believer? It is amazing that even in the early church under the apostles they struggled with this. Many Christians don't understand the dynamics and there is much that is taught that is wrong on these passages. Much that is taught is wrong simply because it appears on the surface, just reading through the Scriptures, to be saying one thing and it is really saying something else. It seems that if you come at the passage with a certain preconceived mindset that the last half of 1 Corinthians 2 and 1 Corinthians 3 is addressed to issue of spiritual maturity, or to spirituality as maturity, as opposed to maturity in terms of an absolute. That is really the issue and something that is so rarely understood.
There are four problems that people have when they come to this passage when they come to the spiritual life. The first problem is that people so often have an inadequate view of the sin nature, that somehow, especially for the believer after salvation, just is not as bad as it was before salvation, that somehow something happens at salvation which limits the influence, power and evil of the sin nature. So the conclusion is that if you are a believer, a child of God, a member of the royal family of God, that somehow you won't do what unbelievers do. That is an inadequate view of sin and part of the problem is that there is a superficial view of what sin is. With folks struggling with issues with issues related to this it always comes down to the fact that people are over-emphasizing certain overt sins. Often they are sexual sins, sins of perversion, sins that shock and offend many people. There is this idea that somehow there is a relativity to sin. And there is a relativity to sin. In other words, the realm of relativity in son has to do with its consequences in time. Some sins have greater consequences in time than others, some sins have greater consequences on your soul than other sins, some sins have greater consequences in your personal life, in your career. So there are some sins we can commit that, relatively speaking when compared to other sins and compared to other people, have grater consequences. But there is also an absolute status to sin and that has to do with its comparison to the absolute righteousness of God. All sin is sin, whether it is a small white lie, a mental attitude sin such as arrogance or pride which can manifest itself in rather benign forms in terms of pseudo-compassion and pseudo-humility where it doesn't look so bad and doesn't seem to be so harmful. To more egregious forms of arrogance that produce someone like Adolf Hitler or Adam Hussein, or Bin Laden. In some cases it is religious arrogance that is even more destructive to the lives of people. But arrogance, because it is not overt, because it is often masked and cloaked under the guise of morality and doing good, is often overlooked. But someone who is a mass-murderer, somebody who is a serial killer, someone whose life just reeks of hatred and bitterness and anger towards other people, is the type of person that our society tends to taint with that dark brush of evil, and so we tend to look at certain sins and classify them as so evil that not Christian, no true child of God, could ever commit such a sin. When a person does these things the tendency is to say that person wasn't ever saved, weren't genuinely saved, weren't a true believer, that they just had an intellectual faith and not a heart faith. So the first problem arises from the fact the people have an inadequate view of the sin nature.
The second reason we have a problem in understanding sin in the life of the believer after salvation is the distorted view of regeneration. We don't understand just exactly what happened at regeneration.
The third problem is a misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches about the makeup of man in terms of body, soul and spirit, what we call trichotomy; that man is made up of a body and a soul at birth but then at regeneration he receives a human spirit, and that that human spirit, therefore, is a distinct immaterial element of man's nature that is not to be contrasted with the sin nature. It is not the human spirit versus the sin nature, this isn't comparing like with like, it is not apples and oranges. There is tremendous confusion sometimes about the nature of these terms that speak of man's basic makeup.
The fourth area of problems is that because of the first three preconceived notions, because of problems in the first three areas, people tend to mistranslate certain key passages such as 1 John 3:9 where it talks about the fact that a believer would not sin, and they translate that present tense there as "continue to sin." Recent Greek scholarship has shown that that is a poor use of the present tense in that verse and it doesn't mean to continue to sin. Other passages such as Galatians 5 and Romans 7 are also mistranslated because of these preconceived notions.
We need to briefly review the doctrine of the sin nature and carnality.
1) The sin nature remains in the believer after salvation, and that sin nature is just as powerful as it was before salvation, nothing changes. The believer receives a new nature and that is the reception of the human spirit but the sin nature continues. The core of the sin nature is the lust pattern, and that is derived biblically from Galatians 5:16-18 where it talks about the lusts of the flesh, wars against the Holy Spirit. So lust is the key motivator. It drives the sin nature in two different directions: a) the area of strength; b) the area of weakness.
2) The sin nature does not lose power after salvation. There is no biblical basis for the idea that the sin nature is less potent after salvation. In fact, the sin nature does not decrease in power as you mature as a believer. It is just as powerful the day you die as it was the day you became a believer. No matter how mature you become the sin nature remains the same.
3) The sin nature is not only the source of sin but it is also the source of morality, and we have to distinguish between morality and what we can produce on our own apart from God the Holy Spirit and the spiritual virtues that are produced by God the Holy Spirit and categorized as the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22, 23. So the sin nature not only produces sin but it also produces morality in the unbeliever. Remember, the unbeliever can only operate on the sin nature, his morality cannot come from any other source.
4) Many unbelievers will have a more impressive morality if their trend is toward asceticism and legalism than believers who have a trend in their sin nature toward licentiousness.
5) The believer can choose not to operate on the sin nature, and only the believer can make that choice under the Holy Spirit. The basis for this for the believer is found in Romans 6:12, 13; Galatians 5:16-18. The believer has the option to not sin; the unbeliever never has the option to not operate on the sin nature; he may not sin, he may be involved in human good, but it still comes from the sin nature.
6) We cannot overestimate the power of the sin nature. Jeremiah 17:9 NASB "The heart [leb, the sin nature] is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick [incurable]; Who can understand it?" Even at salvation it is not sure, the power is broken but it is still there and not limited in any way.
7) The source of sin is volition; the basis for sin is the influence of the sin nature. Because there is no alternate in the unbeliever he can only choose to sin. Only the believer has an option not to sin.
8) The issue in the Christian life is, whose leadership are you following? The Holy Spirit or the sin nature? That is the issue.
When we come to 1 Corinthians there are four things that need to be clarified. First of all we have to understand the contrast between the natural man in 2:14 and the spiritual in 2:14, because the term "spiritual" is used in a slightly different way there than it is in 1 Corinthians chapter three. it is not that it is in contrast, Paul builds the terminology. He is using it in a more restrictive way to refer to regeneration in 2:14 but remember in rhe church age regeneration brings something else with it: the indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit. But "spiritual" in the church age refers to something more than simply regeneration. In the Old Testament it did not include the indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit but was just regeneration. Paul adds to the concept, so we have to look at the contrast between natural and spiritual in 2:14 and the meaning of spiritual in 2:14, and then we have to look at the contrast between carnal and spiritual in chapter three. In chapter two spiritual is contrasted with the unbeliever, but the term "spiritual" is contrasted with a disobedient believer in chapter three, so it obviously takes on an added meaning by the time we get down to 3:1. Then we have to understand the meaning of the word "carnal."
1) 1 Corinthians 2:14 contrasts the natural man with the one who is spiritual. It is talking about the fact that first and foremost, before you can understand the things of God, you have to have a human spirit. This is referring just to an immaterial part of man that pulls everything together and allows the soul to have a relationship with God. So in that verse "natural man" is a reference to the soulish man, the unbeliever who cannot learn doctrine.
2) The spiritual man is spiritual in two senses. In that passage he is spiritual because he possesses a human spirit in contrast to the natural man who does not possess a human spirit. The contrast is clearly between unregenerate, so the first sense of spiritual has to do with being regenerate, born-again. That gives them the ability, then, the potential, to understand the Word—1 Corinthians 2:15. "He who is spiritual appraises all things." The "all things" is a reference to Scripture; "appraises" is the ability to investigate. "…yet he himself is investigated by no man," that is, the unbeliever is not going to be able to understand the motives and the mechanics for the believer's life. The emphasis in that whole section is on learning something—learning God's revelation; knowing what God has for us—"the mind of Christ."
1 Corinthians 3:1 NASB "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ."
Before we get started in chapter three we have to understand the flow of Paul's argument. Remember back in chapter one he started off with reminding the Corinthians that they were sanctified, they were "in Christ," they had a position in Christ, and because they failed to understand that there were all kinds of problems and divisions in the congregation. Now Paul is going to tie all of this together. He has left that subject, and it seems like he is on this rabbit trail because for the rest of chapter one and down through chapter two he is talking about knowledge. He is talking about the way man naturally knows, human viewpoint thinking versus divine viewpoint thinking, the contrast between the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of man. That was his whole subject. He is talking about knowing God's Word and knowing truth from divine viewpoint. He is going to tie that back in chapter three where the issue is going to come right back to both knowledge and the divisions in the congregation, and then at the end of the chapter he is going to move into the judgment seat of Christ. What does the judgment seat of Christ have to do with knowledge, and carnality versus spirituality? That is where he drives the argument home because the emphasis is that carnality is related to ignorance of doctrine. When you are carnal you can't learn doctrine because it is God the Holy Spirit who teaches you doctrine and who produces maturity, and when you are carnal there is no growth in knowledge, you can't understand divine viewpoint, and the result is going to be negative production in the spiritual life. When there is negative production in the spiritual life you are going to end up at the judgment seat of Christ with wood, hay, and stubble, and no productivity and no rewards. That is where he heads with this.
So here there is tremendous practical value and motivational value, that if we are not advancing in knowledge of the Word and divine viewpoint then there can't be any production, and consequently without production—it doesn't matter how much Christian service there is—the result is loss at the judgment seat of Christ.
Paul says, "And I, brethren." He says brethren, not brothers and sisters. More and more we are going to discover that modern translations (from people who ought to know better) are coming out with gender-sensitive language. The problem with that is that it is built on a human viewpoint concept of culture and language but inherently it is an extremely subtle attack on inerrancy and verbal plenary inspiration. When you change the meaning of the text in translation to be gender-inclusive it changes the meaning and emphasis in the original Greek. It is also a very subtle attack on God because God revealed the Word in a certain way and if God had wanted Paul to say "brothers and sisters" He could have said that. So it is an assault on inspiration and inerrancy and we have to be careful. There is a new translation out on the internet called the NET Bible and it completely buys into gender-sensitive language. It is not as bad as another new translation called Today's New International Version which is completely gender-sensitive and inclusive and has just created a firestorm of controversy.
"Brethren" emphasizes the fact that Paul is talking to believers. "…could not speak to you as to spiritual." Paul is beginning to change the notion here of spiritual, not just as regenerate but he is talking then as regenerate in terms of something more. In this first use here we don't get all that he is going to pack into it, it doesn't become apparent except in the contrast, "…but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ." When we look at this initially in the English it looks like men of flesh is equivalent to being immature, to being a baby in Christ, but there is more to it than that. The word for "men of flesh"—and incidentally, the NIV horribly mistranslates this as 'worldly,' typically a translation of the Greek word KOSMOS [kosmoj], meaning world—is SARKIKOS [sarkikoj] which means flesh (from SARX [sarc]). Men of flesh ('carnal' in the KJV) here has to do with those who are living according to the flesh or the sin nature. Carnal means to live according to the sin nature.
1 Cor 3:2 NASB "I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able {to receive it.} Indeed, even now you are not yet able…" So in the state of carnality they are not able to receive or really understand or move beyond basic doctrine. [3] "for you are still fleshly [SARKIKOS]. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?" In the Greek it says, "walking according to man" – KATA ANTHROPOS [kata a)nqrwpoj], the same kind of phraseology as in Galatians 5:16, "walking according to the flesh." So we have to put these things together and we recognize from Galatians 5:16, 17 that the contrast is between the Holy Spirit and the sin nature. Therefore when we follow the hermeneutical principle of comparing Scripture with Scripture we see, therefore, that spiritual here must go beyond simple regeneration to emphasize the role of God the Holy Spirit who is the key to the spiritual life of the church age believer.
Let's go back and plug that into that phrase "babes in Christ," because that looks like that is talking about simple immaturity, which is how 99% of people will translate this. However, the Greek word here is not BREPHOS [brefoj]. There are two different words that can refer to a baby. BREPHOS refers to a baby who is immature in age and the emphasis is on helplessness due to infancy. The word used here, though, is NEPIOS [nhpioj]. This is important because it was used as a term of insult. It emphasizes ignorance, not helplessness. What is the subject? All the way back through chapter one the emphasis has been on knowledge, divine viewpoint versus human viewpoint. The contrast is between learning God's Word and learning to think like God versus learning to think like man. NEPIOS was a pejorative term, an insulting term, like when a parent says to a child, 'Stop acting like a baby.' So a believer can be many years past his time of regeneration but still be acting like an ignorant baby. So the emphasis here is not on immaturity per se but on ignorance. The reason they are ignorant is because they haven't been walking by the Holy Spirit and learning doctrine under the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. They have rejected positional truth, they don't understand it, they are not applying it, they have rejected divine viewpoint, and they are failing to confess their sins.
So Paul says that because of that, when he was first there—it is a historical aorist tense here—"I gave you milk to drink," because at that time they were BREPHOS, a young believer. They were immature at that time and not able to receive solid food, and typical of immature believers they were spending most of their time out of fellowship. But then he goes on to say that even now they are not able, they are still not able. Why? They were not walking by the Spirit. They were still carnal, still operating on the sin nature, and this was evident from the jealousy and strife among them, and "are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?"—still walking like an unbeliever. The point here is that the believer can live and act and look like an unbeliever. This is what Paul is saying here. Remember what Paul says over in Galatians 5 about the sin nature: "…the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy…" That is exactly what is going on in Corinth: enmity, strife and jealousy. Then he goes on to say in Galatians 5:21 NASB "envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Paul says that if they are living like this on the sin nature they were not going to inherit the kingdom of God. What is he going to do in 1 Corinthians 3? He is immediately going to move from this subject of divisions in the congregation to warn them about the dangers of losing rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. So what he is saying here in 1 Corinthians 3 must be the same thing he is saying in Galatians 5, and that is that there is a contrast between an absolute state of walking by the Spirit, or being spiritual, and an absolute state of carnality. He is not talking about immaturity, he is talking about not being in right relationship to God the Holy Spirit but instead living life according to the sin nature.
At the instant of salvation we are baptized by means of the Holy Spirit and placed in Christ. That is positional truth. At the same time we have our day-to-day experience. At the instant of salvation we are filled by the Holy Spirit and we are walking by the Spirit, but it is not long before we sin. When we sin we are out of fellowship. We start walking according to the sin nature, we are walking in darkness, John says, we are operating on the basis of the sin nature, which is called carnality. The only way to recover is to use 1 John 1:9, confess or admit our sins to God, and we are restored to fellowship so that we can continue to grow. When we are walking by the Spirit we are walking by the light. That means we can learn the Word of God, and it is the Word of God and the Spirit of God that produces spiritual growth. When you don't have the Word of God with the Spirit of God there is no spiritual growth and you maybe chronologically and old believer but you are still living like a baby, not a helpless baby but an ignorant baby. The issue isn't age; the issue is ignorance. That is the problem with the folk at Corinth.