Paul gives us a concise definition of carnality in our passage; walking like men. The idea is that the people at Corinth were living and acting like people that had never repented of their sins, believed on Jesus Christ and received the Holy Spirit. Paul encountered this behavior at the church at Galatia as well. Here we read, Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:3) By implication, the right way for Christians to live is to have begun in the Spirit and continue in the Spirit. If a person reverts back to walking in the flesh we call that carnality. It comes from the Greek word sarkikos (root sarx) and could be translated fleshly. The danger at both Corinth and Galatia was that they were conducting themselves as if they had never begun in the Spirit. They were living like unregenerate men. This is a very dangerous condition for Christians to find themselves in.
Indicators of Carnality
”The Bible without the Holy Spirit is a sundial by moonlight.”
~ DL Moody.
Paul gives us a warning sign when he writes, I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still notable. Carnality has a direct effect on the understanding. The writer to the Hebrews brings this point out as well (Hebrews 5:12-14). Strong food (Spiritual knowledge) is for those that are full-grown in Christ. That is to say, they that are walking in the Spirit and not in the flesh. When a born-again Christian reverts back to the carnal mind they can’t be fed spiritual truths. They eat spiritual pablum. Paul writes to the Romans, to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:6-8). Here we are introduced to the phrase ‘in the flesh.’ So we see then that to be ‘in the flesh’ is to be moving in a carnal mind that is at enmity with God and unable to receive the things of God because they are Spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14). This is important to understand because a person that is walking in carnality rejects the counsel of God on various subjects. Couple this with the fact that they are not consciously yielding themselves to the Holy Spirit and you have the outworkings of a person that is not even saved.
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